MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

mig-35 would be a very good plane to have if 5th gen fighters weren't fielded everywhere.

The MiG-35 would not be the front line fighter operating deep behind enemy lines, it would be the plane defending specific targets and front line units under the cover of the IADS that follows the Russian Army everywhere it goes, so Verba, Tunguska and Pantsir, TOR, BUK, and S-300V4 as well as other systems like Kornet and soon SOSNA (pine) and older systems like SA-13 and ZU23 etc etc and new systems like the new 57mm gun based systems.

It is modern and cheap and able to carry all the new missiles their new aircraft carry... for a fraction of the operational costs of western aircraft.

Like I said it is a good plane but came too late. If they had 150 now around Ukraine would be good. But buy now 150 when Japan, US, EU are buying 5th gen fighter which are very hard to lock on with x babd radars and getting 200km missiles, mig-35 would be useless. Su-75 exists, make it faster and buy it.

You say that but the US is putting the F-15 and F-16 back into production because the F-35 is actually bullshit and they are not making any more F-22s... how long before the bubble bursts and America admits it can't afford F-35s and goes back to F-16s instead?

Will Europe ever manage to get a 5th gen fighter into service or will it take 15 years and they end up making 3 different types in tiny numbers making them actually more expensive than F-35s are now...

They don't charge that much for Rafale for fun... it was seriously expensive to make and design and so was Typhoon but no so expensive they could save money by cooperating...

Sure. But it will have a chance against other 5th gen aircraft.

Russia is making 5th gen fighters too... do you think if they make MiG-35s they will retire all their other types?

The MiG-35 is the numbers fighter and is supposed to be the new Frontal Aviation fighter to support the troops with guided air to surface munitions and be able to monitor the enemy territory for artillery and vehicles moving on the ground... something they could use right now.... and of course able to defend itself from enemy air defences and indeed engage enemy air defences too.

Your mig-35 or su-35 is gonna pick up hundreds km away by F-35 or f-22 while they won't see anyone.

The L band radar in the wing of the Su-35 and Su-57 operates in frequencies the F-22 and F-35 can't even detect and should be able to detect those aircraft at significant distances... and there are plenty of other assets on the Russian side that will be looking for air threats and passing on that information to other platforms to engage.

Operating near the front lines the S-300V4 should detect enemy stealth aircraft... it is designed to shoot down ballistic targets with a radar cross section of 0.02m so it should be able to spot most stealth targets out to extended ranges... especially targets not flying directly at the system.

Same what is happening with su-35+r-37 against ukro mig-29. The technological difference is so huge that they stand no chance.

There is zero technological difference between a MiG-35 and an Su-35... they both have avionics of the same generation... that is based on systems used in their 5th gen aircraft.

If you want to face a stealthy aircraft you better have some stealth capabilities. If not you will get 6 or 7 missiles from 200km away.

Not many stealthy aircraft can carry that many missiles and if they fire that many they are unarmed now.

MiG-35s have a full EW self defence avionics suite and can use towed jammers and jamming pods and all sorts of other equipment to defeat enemy missiles.

It can also carry the newest air to air missiles including the new ones designed for internal carriage on their new stealthy types of fighters and bombers (the PAK DA will use self defence AAMs for shooting down long range missile types like AMRAAM etc).

Actually you need at least 1000km range. Bellow that it won't be bought. Lesson learned from mig-29 that saw its range increase in M versions to around 1000km and all tge former mig-29 got removed from service.

Every upgrade of the MIG-29 added more fuel capacity, in fact the T in SMT is fuel. The MiG-35 uses sealed internal spaces that can all contain fuel without needing a bladder or fuel tank to be added... which massively increases its fuel capacity and keeps weight low.

Internal weapon bays also allows to not have increase of drag because of external weapons. A french pilot said that is actually a terrible factor which could highly impact the range (by1.5 to 3). A bonus point for su-75 contrary to mig-35.

To store weapons internally the aircraft has to be fatter which means higher drag whether it is carrying weapons or not.

Why would they produce it if no one buys it ?

Russia is buying MiG-35s at a low rate because they want to see how affordable the next gen light fighter is going to be.

If it is a dog like the F-35 and is very expensive to keep stealthy because of the coatings needed every flight then it makes sense to produce a few hundred MiG-35s and rather less if any 5th gen light fighters... the heavy 5th gen fighters are more expensive but also more capable so the extra cost is worth it, while expensive light fighters... well light does not mean weight... light means cheap numbers fighter so if it is not cheap then you need a 4++ gen light fighter... the MIG-35 for your numbers aircraft and use stealthy heavy planes to deal with enemy forces.

If the new MiG light 5th gen fighter is capable and cheap then they might not make a lot of MiG-35s and they can just make an all stealthy light fighter which will be enormously valuable for a range of roles because it will combine low operating costs with the advantages of stealth and new avionics.

The point is that new avionics for the new 5th gen fighters as well as engines and radar can be installed in the 4++ gen fighters for better commonality and standardisation as they become affordable over time.

Su-75 has a real market value. Mig 35 was rejected by India, the country for which it was produced, and mig-29M was sold in some numbers to complete some air forces like Algerian or Egyptian that needed such aircraft.

India said they didn't want an all Russian air fleet... MiG was always going to be rejected... they wanted to licence build the Mirage 2000 and when France refused they created the competition that the french fighter was rigged to win because they wanted a french fighter but they also wanted them to drop the price and they didn't... complete waste of time and money, but in the end the Russian military get MiG-29Ks and MiG-35s so they wont be complaining.

They bought a token amount of MiG-35s while MiG were waiting for the Su-57 to get into serial production.

Funding for the light 5th gen fighter was suspended until the heavy 5th gen fighter was in serial production so now MiG should be getting funding for their new light 5th gen fighter we saw a model of.

Funding for the MIG-35 should have helped keep them working on new technology for the light 5th gen fighter with technologies they can share between the two types like the Su-35 and Su-57 shared technology as the latter was being developed.

When MiG gets its new light fighter flying and tested they can look at its performance and compare it with the MiG-35 in terms of cost effectiveness and decide whether to go all light stealth or mix of each or all MiG-35 depending on effectiveness.

Keep in mind the stealthy Commanche was cancelled because most of the time it isn't radar that will be destroying them but TOR and Tunguska in optical mode and of course Verba and soon Sosna using IR and laser beam riding technology neither of which stealth is effective against.

There is no room for the mig-35.

There is room for a cheap light fighter... the question is whether they can make a stealthy light fighter that can be as affordable as a MiG-35 so it can be used in useful numbers or not... if they can then there is no need for MiG-35s, but if they can't or if the stealth makes no difference in the missions they are intending their light fighters to perform then it might be a case of buying a mix of the two because they are both cheap enough to use widely and numbers will make them more effective than a slightly better platform that is expensive... or a plane like the F-35 that is probably worse yet also horrendously expensive.

The ones for Russia were for testing and aerobatic teams. There is no hint for a potential mass use of mig-35. Even less with su-75 in the labs.

They have only just resumed funding if their promises are to be believed... there wont be a Checkmate before 2030 and I would expect a MiG by then too but then they have to evaluate the performances and real world costs... are they to not have light fighters till then?

Best option IMO is to take that single engine design, fit the AESA radar and all the equipement created for the mig-35 in it which should all be ready by now and use the rd-93 engine.

It is funny that so many members bleat about the MiG-35 not having enough electrical power to properly run an AESA radar and recommend a better solution of a single engined fighter... why do you think removing an engine will improve the power available for the radar?

Do you honestly think removing 9 tons of thrust from the aircraft will improve performance and boost available power levels.

Why not take one engine out of the Rafale... why wont that help its performance too surely...

The MiG-35 is ready to produce... it will have things to work on... every new plane does, but removing an engine would require a complete redesign.... they already have a single engined light fighter designed from scratch to be stealthy so WTF would they piss around removing an engine from a MiG-35 to make another type again... why are you being so stupid?

They already proposed single engined fighters for the MiG-29 job in the 1970s and it was REJECTED... since then all the single engined fighters and strike aircraft have been withdrawn from service... the only single engined aircraft they are contemplating are the Yak-152 and the Baikal light aircraft...

Now this light 5th gen fighter project they have a single engined competitor but why piss around with the MiG-35 which is ready and in production now just to satisfy people on the internet.

Do you go to threads on the Rafale and Typhoon and complain that they are good but could be better if you take out an engine...?

They have datalinks. One f-35 scan the air the others keep their radars turned off.

The Russian planes have datalinks too and the big Russian planes that will be hunting F-35s have wing mounted L band radars that operate in the same wavelength as HATO datalinks.... accident? Don't think so.

NEBO is used for tracking stealth targets and it combines three different radar antenna to combine the signal and use computer processing to extract data using all the advantages of each radar type and to eliminate the draw backs of each frequency range to operate rather better than any of the three radars could manage on their own...

Do you think the Su-57 and Su-35 might do the same with their Ku and Ka band nose mounted radar and wing mounted L band radar and their IRSTs.

With meteors they will be shooting those migs 200km away.

How many can they carry in stealthy mode... four?

The MiG-35 could carry four R-37Ms and still have four pylons free for R-77s or R-73s or other ordinance... and a centreline pod with towed jammer decoys.

That f-35 using its radar will be quite safe and could turn off its radar after few seconds to evade some potential missiles.

Turning it on once would reveal its presence to everyone... turning it off wont help.

Facing su-75 they would need to come much closer and both would be withing missile range of the other.

While those F-35s are trying to hunt MiG-35s and Su-75s operating over the front lines what do you think Su-57s and Su-35s will be doing... other that shooting down HATO support aircraft.... do you think the wing mounted L band AESAs are for fun?

Awacs with their 450km range can bring a nice power up. Keep some f-22 between the awacs and the mig and it will be safe.

An AWACS turns on its radar anywhere near the front line and Russian aircraft will be zoom climbing to launch an R-37M at it... 400km range missiles...

Unless it is a nuclear armed iskander, you would need tens if not one hundred of them to really destroy an airfield with missiles. Nato air forces don't pack their planes at one spot like russians. You would need one missile for one target/plane.

Iskander comes with a cluster warhead option with 650kgs of cluster munitions... I would expect the ground cratering munitions would be used to penetrate hangars and runways alike...

If you position your f-22 well they will shoot their missiles first. Even russian sources give su-35 detection range of some 90km against a f-22. F-22 will have the first look first shoot.

They give the radar detection range for export Su-35s... the domestic models performance would be secret wouldn't it?

And their advances in thermal imaging means long and medium and short wave IR sensors have led to dramatic increases in range for detection of air targets... the long wave IR sensor on the F-16 could actually detect a MiG-29 at greater ranges than its radar of the time could detect it... a high flying super cruising F-22 would be a nice hot juicy target...

What support does russian air force has more than Nato ? They have few flying awacs and much less fighters. Long range AD operates only in your own territories and if it is close to the front line it can be targeted by MLRS.

As we have found Army IADS are pretty solid so your best chance with HIMARS is soft civilian targets most of the time, but the range of the S-300V4 and very soon the S-500 will mean HATO planes wont be able to operate very close to the front line at all... how will that effect their ability to support their forces on the ground?

What could a mig-35 pilot do ? It will be detected from far away by one f-35 and won't know where the others are.

What will an F-35 pilot do, he will be detected at very long range by L band radar and will get long range AAMs fired at him and also the AWACS aircraft behind him he thinks he is protecting... he will get shot down before the AWACS aircraft as neither aircraft is capable of pulling the 8g needed to evade an R-37M.

That's like russian su-35 launching r-77 and r-37M in Ukraine against ukraine migs that don't even pick them up on their radars.

They did the same to the Ukrainian Su-27s and will do the same to HATO donated aircraft as well...

The MiG-35 is the same generation as the Su-35 and apart from being smaller and lighter and cheaper it can actually fly faster and accelerate cheaper because it is lighter and smaller.

Stealth + long range radar + long range missiles is a quite good tool.

And the Russians are in the process of introducing new light fighters of 4++ and 5 types and both MiG and Sukhoi also have their own wingman drones so they have all bases covered... the R-37M is actually an aging missile and its replacement is getting ready for introduction... it is designed specifically for internal carriage by fighters and bombers. The object 815 will have greater range and be able to be carried internally in the new 5th gen fighters and also the PAK DA apparently.

New small self defence air to air missiles are also being developed to defend aircraft from enemy launched long range AAMs and SAMs.

It is not Russia that should be worried... everything is going to plan.

All this back and forth is meaningless. Main customer, MoD tested MiG-35 for the last 5+ years and only ordered 6 planes for acrobatic group, even if original order was speculated to be for 48 planes. I guess they showed what they think about the future of the plane by not buying more.

The story we were given a decade ago was that they were suspending the light 5th gen fighter programme and funding until the heavy 5th gen fighter programme reached serial production levels... that is happening now so presumably funding has started and MiG will be developing their model in secret while the Sukhoi backup model is offered for export. The production of half a dozen MiG-35s is for export potential but also to keep MiG working on new technologies they can apply to a 4++ gen fighter (MiG-35) and their new light 5th gen fighter and carrier based fighter, presumably both now being funded.

When it comes time to test they will evaluate the new single engined MiG against the MiG-35 whose designs it makes sense to unify as far as possible... new high thrust engines can be used on both and new radar can be used on both.... they might end up producing both in numbers or one or the other depending on how stealthy the light 5th gen fighter can be made while still being affordable.

If it can't be made cheap and stealthy then MiG-35s with new 12 ton thrust engines and super AESA radars could be their numbers fighter, but of course if they can make a single engined 5th gen stealth fighter for about 40 million that costs less than 8K per flight hour then why not make that your standard numbers fighter and not worry about the MiG-35.

It all depends on what they can manage.

Ground based radars have too many dead zones to be always helpful.

The only deadzones for the radar they used just outside Moscow to detect US F-35s flying on the Iranian border is the first 1,000km, which is why they tend to be installed over 1,000km from their international borders so the dead space is inside Russian territory.

Radars set further in or looking sideways can be used for target inside Russian airspace if needed.

No drag with internal weapon bays. Mig-35 will have reduced range with external stuff.

Internal weapons storage means bigger fuselage which means more drag all the time whether you are carrying weapons or not.

Drop tanks can be used for the first part of the trip and droped.

Drop tanks are carried on external pylons which don't drop with the tank and increase the radar cross section of the aircraft after the tanks are dropped.

They have far smaller detection ranges against stealthy f-22 and f-35. With meteors the f-35 will be able to shoot at all of them before they see them on screens.

The wing mounted radar on the Su-35 and Su-57 are not effected by shape and the coatings on aircraft are too thin to effect wavelengths that long so detection range for stealth aircraft is similar for non stealth aircraft... and actually very good.

Meteors are active radar homing missiles and can be defeated using a range of methods including towed jammers and decoys.

Numbers of a-50 is quite low. Even less modern a-50U and a-100.

Numbers of F-22s very low too and talk of retiring them because they are expensive to operate. F-35 expensive to operate too and new European stealth fighter may not eventually arrive intact... more likely the coalition will break up and each will make 200 perhaps of their own stealth aircraft each costing more per airframe than the F-35 will.

It's pretty hard to know that an ARH missile is fly at you.

MiG-35 has similar avionics to the Su-35... possibly better.

Meteor is a very long range missile. That's why they integrated r-37M on su-35.

R-37M can reach 400km, and its replacement for the Su-57 but for all their new fighters eventually can reach even further... and maybe ramjet or scramjet powered.

Not really. Nato airports have pretty long and large runways and a fighter needs roughly 1000m of it. Hole can be repaired quickly.

Soviet cratering submunitions have a rocket powered spike that digs up to 10m into concrete and then explodes to undermine the foundations of the surface.

They can also be dropped on hardened aircraft shelters punching though 10m of protection and concrete and then exploding inside...

It's an afghan airport.

They would be following HATO rules for parking and movement surely...

Before it comes to 90km to detect the f-22 it will have to face those amraams.

AMRAAM has a 40% kill probability against unaware 3rd and 4th gen fighters with little in the way of self defence.

4++ and 5th gen fighters should fare better.

Like I said it's almost impossible to know an amraam if flying at you. No hard lock on needed.

US have far more and more modern AWACS as well as refueling planes. Big advantage for them in numbers.

So the F-22 and teh AWACS wont know a MiG-31 350km away has launched R-37Ms at them then...

And those big numbers of refuelling planes and AWACS aircraft... when the first few explode will they take advantage of their numbers and just keep replacing them or will they withdraw them all to safer distances rendering their numbers advantage bloody useless?

Russia would have ground radars but they are far more impacted by ground obstacles.

Only if you operate your aircraft at very low altitudes... and AWACS is useless at very low altitudes.

They could be safe above their SAMs but won't be able to go outside the zone.

MiG-35s will be frontal aviation aircraft and will spend the vast majority of their time over their own friendly forces using their radar and IRST and targeting pods to find enemy targets like MLRS launchers and artillery and of course also engaging enemy air defence systems too, while operating under the Armys IADS of Verba, Tunguska, TOR, BUK, and Viking and S-300V4 and soon also 2S38 and Pine and Kornet-EM etc etc.

Meteor is a ramjet missile powered all the way. Its NOZ is way greater than actual missiles.

Yep, hot exhaust all the way to the target showing up nicely on IRST and DAS.

Meteor has small control fins and being powered allows it to retain speed well but it still has to go very fast to remain airborne and its small control surfaces limit its ability to turn.

R-37M is very good but if your su-35 can detect the f-22 only 90km away its range is 90km. At this point just use r-77-1 which is lighter and more manoeuvrable.

Most of the time the R-37M will be used to take out AWACS and JSTARS and inflight refuelling aircraft... if an F-22 is detected via wing mounted L band radar the Su-35 will likely just keep a look at it and use its IRST to find it and close in on it and use its superior manouver performance and IR guided missiles to take it out.... which is why the R-27ET is still carried...

The dwindling number of F-22s around the place probably wont be a big problem for a lot longer as they are simply too expensive to operate and will likely be retired so they can afford to start making F-16s again.

NOZ isn't as important as you think with active radar missiles. You know there is a fighter radar scaning the airspace but you have no idea it launched a missile at you. So unless you start manoeuvring randomly the missile will reach you. Aim-120D with its 160km will still have longer range than your r-37M in such case.

Few missiles can outturn a plane, but most of the time a towed jammer or chaff or decoys can be used... both the MIG-35 and Su-35 have a range of onboard systems to defend from enemy weapons.

Su-35 can detect a f-22 at 90km and probably an amraam or meteor but missiles are launched in a lofted trajectory. They go up very fast at higher altitudes. Since your radar will look at the f-22 it won't find the missile much higher. You need to move the antenna to scan high to detect the missile in which case you don't see the f-22.

A high flying missile with a burning ramjet motor is going to stand out against the sky in an IRST sensor window whose field of view is designed to look up and down and left to right over a wide field of view to track targets during a turning dogfight...

Stealth is important. 4th gen fighter can't compete especially since they also have avionics and electronics few generation older than 5th gen aircraft.

Funny you say that because Sukhoi paired its development with the Su-35 so as technology for the Su-57 matures it gets retrofitted to teh Su-35 that the Russian AF uses to reduce costs and increase commonality across the fleet and I rather suspect MiG will do the same with their MiG-35 and new single engined fighter of the 5th gen.

It makes testing much faster and upgrades the fleet faster too if you can put it into your 4++ gen fighter for testing and when it works deploy it across the fleet of both generations.

Sometimes a slightly down graded model for the older generation to make it more affordable but for example the Su-35 have the wing mounted L band stealthy plane detection AESA radar... and it is being added to the Su-30 to effectively make the Su-30 into a two seat Su-35.

That's why sukhoi made the su-57 and now presents the su-75. Mig is stuck in the past with its mig-35 eventhough it has everything to create a mass producable 5th gen fighter.

Sukhoi presents the Su-75 because it is not a funded Russian military programme, the MIG is, which is why it is secret.

Since even sukhoi states a 90km for a 0.1m2 target how do you want to detect it further away ? Meanwhile your su-35 has a clean 3m2 from the front, much more with weapons allowing the f-22 to detect it at some 250-350km depending on the its radar stats which I don't know.

But when it does detect it then the Su-35 system detects the pulse and can direct L band radar waves in that direction to find the F-22 and because L band is too long to be effected by shaping on a stealth aircraft it bounces back from the entire aircraft like it was a block of metal... and the Su-35 now knows where the F-22 is and can change position and alert other aircraft around the place.

BTW they are operating over the battlefield where S-300V4s will be based... S-300V4s can engage ballistic warhead targets with a RCS of 0.02m so an F-22 might be in trouble there...

F-22s will launch all their missiles before the su-35s detects them.

F-22s carry 6 missiles, Su-35 can carry 14 who is going to run out first and when they both run out and it comes down to guns who will win?

They are called MISSiles for a reason.

The AIM-9X was called a hittile because it uses an imaging seeker and you can lock on to a specific part of the aircraft to hit like the cockpit... except a Syrian Su-22 defeated one using standard flares...

Again, that works only if you know the missile was launched and you immediatly escape. With ARH missile guided thanks to a second fighter's rawar through datalink you have no idea it was launched.

Doesn't that work both ways so the side with the longest range missiles will win.... Russia wins.

In theory.

Aim 120 at max range will just fall onto you with no engine running so small IR signature detectable only few km away making evasion impossible.

Meteor and r-37M will come at mach 3 even if you detect them it will be impossible to escape.

Sounds amazing... so why in real world combat against third and fourth gen fighters that are unaware they are under attack because they lack decent EW equipment the AMRAAM only has a 40% kill rate?

Wouldn't it be much worse against a 4++ or 5th gen enemy fighter?

The irbis-e in order to detect a fighter 400km away need to focus its beam in a tinny cone. Making scaning of the airspace very long.

They use an anti stealth L band radar in the wing to narrow the search area...

In terms of prices export mig-29M are just as expensive as su-30MK2. So mig-35 production prices aren't any cheaper than su-30. Not something good wheb the plane is almost two times smaller.

The Su-30 is a two seat Su-27 and was a bargain basement two seat aircraft with no frills so of course the MiGs are comparable in price, but the Su-30MK2 and Su-30MKI are vastly more expensive than the MiG-29 otherwise the Indians would have stopped buying MiG-29s and just replaced them all with Flankers.

A MiG-29 is half the operational costs of a Flanker and an SMT is even cheaper. The MiG-35 is also less than half the operational cost of a Su-35 which is why they bought any at all.

If the light fighter is expensive then it makes no sense to have any at all but it is operational costs that matter because over the life of an aircraft they are vastly more than the purchase price of the aircraft.

I thought it had a solid fuel ramjet, thus making it non throttleable.

AFAIK solid fuel ramjets use a powder mixed with incoming air to burn... sort of like a rocket that only burns when the airflow is coming through the fuel area to provide oxygen for the combustion.

The Russians make scramjet engines which should be orders of magnitude more efficient and effective for air to air missile design.

A weapon like the 260km range Kh-31 anti ship and Anti radiation missiles flying at mach 3.5 could be devastating flying three or four times faster... flying at mach 3.5 for 260km... well lets say mach 3 for the 260km because a solid rocket booster to get it moving and then climb to altitude and then fly all the way to the target, so mach 3 is 320m/s times three which gives us a flight speed of 960m/s should mean about 271 seconds to reach the target at 960m/s.

So replace the ramjet with a scramjet that can operate at speeds of 3km per second then with a similar amount of fuel operating for a similar amount of time of 270 seconds that would give a flight range of 810km.

That sounds about right if you think that the Zircon fuel put into the Onyx missile increased the Onyx missiles flight speed from mach 2.5 to mach 5 and its range from 400km to over 800km... mach 2.5 is 800m/s so it would take 500 seconds to travel 400km so moving at double that speed for the same amount of time gives you double the 400km range.... which is 800km plus...

Meteor is a small missile with a small fuel load, even with fuel control it will not maintain mach 3 for 200km.

It probably could... remember it has a rocket motor to climb and accelerate away from the launch aircraft which will be flying as high and as fast as it can for the best range... once the Meteor has reached mach 3 or 4 then it can throttle back to idle to just maintain speed and minimise fuel burn till it approaches the target and then it can power up the ramjet engine and start to dive down on the target...

The Kh-31 does pretty much the same but it is much bigger because it has to carry a rather big 90kg HE warhead to damage ships and ground based radar antenna.

Reducing the warhead weight would make the missile much smaller and lighter.

BTW a scramjet powered Kh-31 would be a wicked AWACS killer...

Otherwise agree with the rest...

S400 shot down a ukr plane flying near treeline , from 200km away - a world record

Meteor looks like a good missile... if untested... but its nose size limits the size of the radar antenna it can be fitted with which limits range performance... in comparison the S-400 missiles and even R-37M have much bigger radar diameters and are part of an IADS network... which is an enormous advantage.

The new LMUR with a ground attack role is fitted with an IIR sensor and two way datalink so the operator can launch a missile and watch the video of what the missile sees in flight.

A video from the campaign in the Ukraine showed a LMUR fired at a pontoon bridge but as it approached a BMP-2 was in the process of crossing the bridge so the operator shifted the target crosshairs to the vehicle and destroyed it with the missile launched to hit the bridge... we know that because they fired a second missile showing the destroyed BMP on the bridge and the second missile hit the pontoon bridge too.

How long before missiles with IIR guidance that can detect and identify its own targets can be launched deep into enemy airspace where the IIR seeker looks continuously and passively for targets to take on... with scramjet propulsion they could fly in at 40-50km altitude above the reach of most ground fire and then when it spots a target it can swoop down and attack it... radar cross sections meaning nothing at all while IR signatures looking top down should be distinctive because the engine nozzles will be visible as well as the wing plan form making aircraft id much easier for the AI controlling the missile.

1. It was not available. It was introduced into service 5 years later.
2. There is a high probability of it being confused with Ukrainian MiG-29s resulting in friendly fire incidents.
3. It cannot fire long range stand-off weapons like R-37M.

If there was no war on then I am sure Russia would prefer to produce MiG-35s in very small numbers till the new 5th gen fighter options are ready and can be tested so they can work out if they want a balanced mixed force or all 5th gen stealthy light fighters... it comes down to their performance and costs.

Right now however having a light numbers fighter that costs a quarter of the flight cost hours of the heavy flankers would be useful... having AESA radars and modern IRST and targeting pods operating over the front lines scanning for targets and threats would be useful to the Russian AF.

Number 2, with the correct IFF settings there would be no chance of confusing Ukrainian MiG-29s with Russian MiG-35s just as there is no problem confusing Ukrainian Mi8 helicopters or Su-25 or Su-24 or Su-27 aircraft for Russian planes either.

And the MiG-35 can carry the R-37M, which is intended for shooting down AWACS and inflight refueling aircraft and JSTARS and B-52 and B-1B type aircraft which are huge and can be detected at extended ranges.

Yet I find some countries developing a Liquid Fuel Ramjet engine powered air to air missile. LFR is an inferior substitute to a Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet missile.

The most energetic fuels are actually gels or liquidsm which is why rockets going into space tend to use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen... scramjets will likely use slush hydrogen for cooling various surface engine parts while being used as a fuel.

Even the Zircon will have a radar onboard designed to find ships which should also be able to be used in passive mode to detect the emissions from an AWACS aircraft too...

Having a radar on board a hypersonic missile doesn't help much. On the flip side the AWACS will pick up the radar emission of this radar on board the Zircon.

Most antiship missiles don't fly everywhere with their radars in search mode looking for targets, generally part of the information they get just before launch is where the target is and from that it can work out when it is worth turning the radar on and looking for the target.

Thing is that if the target is already under attack and has radar operating the radar guided missile might not turn its radar on to active scan at all and might just find its target based on the radar signals it is getting from the ship.

With an AWACS aircraft scanning for targets a Zircon might not bother to scan for the target at all either and just home in on the emissions from the AWACS aircraft... essentially it will be operating like an anti radiation missile and home in on the emissions from the target... coming in at 50km altitude means the AWACS might not notice it... especially with a 12 rpm radar sweep where the radar only detects it 12 times a minute, which is about once every five seconds or so in which case the Zircons position will jump 15km with each radar sweep...

The point is that it doesn't matter if it detects the launch 1,200km away.... what could it possibly do about it?

I can't imagine that the VKS would seriously invest in the Mig-35 any time soon. Don't get me wrong the Mig-35 is pretty good, but the Su-27/30/34/35 family is more than adequate for their immediate needs and still in production as well. Besides the Sukhois have much better range and weapon loads. The logical step would be to develop and expand the Su-57/75 family and to explore future 6th gen possibilities.

If they want numbers then buying Flankers does not make sense.

Think of it in terms of a delivery service... you need vehicles and to be flexible you need different types of vehicles... the Flanker is a van and vans are useful, but they burn more fuel than cars or motorbikes and sometimes... if you are just delivering food a small vehicle is better... a bike or small nippy car.

That is not to say the van is bad.. the van is necessary and when you are doing big moves a van is better than a dozen bikes because you can't move a bed or chest of drawers with four bikes... or you shouldn't... but equally when you have a big country to cover then having lots of bikes that can go and do lots of different jobs at once is better than having rather fewer vans or maybe a truck.

The difference is that with fighter aircraft you could pair one Su-30 with a good radar and general performance with a flight of four light fighters who might not even turn their own radars on so the current radar that is not an AESA might be just fine, and it could get target data from the Su-30 which will essentially just be a two seat Su-35.

Instead how about developing an Anti-Radiation Long Range Air to Air Missile.

It'll have:
1.Passive homing head seekers that will search, identify & lock onto emissions from aircraft.

2.DataLink for offboard targeting data

3.GPS/GLONASS and Active RF seeker & home on jam (HOJ) for terminal phase.

A SARH missile has a radar antenna that can receive radar signals where the launch aircraft will direct a pencil radar beam at the target which will reflect off it and shine in every direction, the SARH missile with its radar antenna looks around and finds the reflection of the radar... it will be looking for that specific frequency and the signal might be coded so that different aircraft can attack different targets at the same time.

Without the radar beam from the launch aircraft or another platform the missile can't find any targets at all.

With an ARH missile the missile essentially has a small radar in its nose that is like the radar in a fighter... it can transmit a radar signal and scan the field of view looking for targets, and when it finds something it locks on and chases down that target.

But having your own radar on board you don't have to scan by sending a radar signal out to look for targets, if the target is already using its own radar, whether that be an AWACS or a ship with its SAM radars scanning the skies for targets the radar in the nose of the missile can detect those emissions assuming they are in the correct frequency range and home in without needing to emit anything themselves.

I seem to remember a photo of the anti ship Kh-31 with its radar exposed and on the front of the radar array were about 4-6 small balls that were passive sensors to detect emissions from ships that operated in a different frequency from the radar for the missile.

The first wave of missiles would go in active radar homing because the air defence radars will be shut down to avoid giving the ships position away, but obviously the next wave of missiles the ships will have radars operating and jammers and decoys trying to defeat the missiles radar so the second wave will be able to swap between using radar (if they can) or using home on jam signals to home on the jamming signals to defeat those so the remaining missiles can use their radar, but some missiles will also look for radar signals from the SAM systems trying to engage the incoming anti ship missiles too.

New generation missiles seem to add different homing technologies and combine them so an IR sensor on a Kh-58 anti radiation missile for example so if the target radar is shut down because it detects the incoming missile the IR sensor can still detect the heat of the radar antenna even though it is off it will still be hot for a while with all that electricity recently flowing through it.

So a combined active and passive radar sensor could just be the active radar homing head of a missile operating in different modes, but equally IR and passive radar in different frequencies can be be used to discover targets in heavy ESSM conditions too.

So its either the Kh-31PMM rumored to be under development for the Mig-35 or the rumored R-37P said to potentailly be under development.

The anti radiation versions of the Kh-31 were claimed to be able to be fired at AWACS type platforms from the beginning... why should they care if a radar is on a ship or on a truck or on a plane... as long as it is not flitting around the sky light a fighter jet...

The MiG-35 and MiG-31BM and Su-35 and Su-30 and S-70 and Su-57 and Su-75 are/will all be compatible with the R-37M, that was the purpose of their upgrade... the targets the R-37M was intended for are enormous slow non manouverable aircraft like inflight refuelling tankers and JSTARS and AWACS and Troop transport planes.... all able to be detected at long range... especially the tankers with their beacons and AWACS and JSTARS aircraft emitting radar and radio communications noise.

I would suspect the next gen Kh-31 will have a scramjet propulsion system and be massively faster and longer ranged with likely a multipurpose guidance system that includes active and passive radar along with IIR sensors too, but the R-37M will likely also be replaced pretty soon with the izd 815 which must be close to ready for testing if you know what I mean...

Russia is in a great position where it has options.

It is not driven by mantra so they have not decided to go all stealth so production of Su-35s and Su-30s and Su-34s is stopped and only Su-57s are produced and the Su-75 and MiG designs are fast tracked to get tested and the best option put into production because after a year of operational experience they might decide stealth is more expensive and most of the time not really needed or useful.

So they are going to make about 76 Su-57s and then make a decision whether to stop production of Su-35 and Su-30 and Su-34, or continue using both perhaps with new technology for the Su-57 like engines and radar etc slowly added to the Su-35 to improve its performance and increase commonality, while working on new equipment for the Su-57 which enhance its stealth or require stealth to be more effective.

The point is that all these Sukhois are large heavy expensive (relatively) vehicles and sometimes you just need a good radar in the air with the same missiles the heavier aircraft are carrying and a much smaller aircraft like the MiG-35 can do that for rather less in terms of operational costs.

The thing is that stealth is new and largely unknown for Russian forces so the question is, the light component of the heavy and light fighters is not about weight, it is about cost so a cheap plane and an expensive plane.

What they don't know is... is it possible to create a cheap 5th gen plane with real stealth (ie internal weapons etc) that can be forward deployed to motorways as runways and will still be cheap and simple to operate.

They wont know till the new single engined MiG and the Su-75 are flying and can be tested by an operational unit.

So the problem is... what to do with the MiG-35... some like to write it off but it is actually a very good aircraft and would be vastly superior to any upgraded fighter version of a Yak-130, but the if they can get a stealthy light fighter that is comparable in costs operationally then skipping a type of aircraft would make sense but until they can actually test these new 5th gen fighters they need to keep the MiG-35 options open... if they make a carrier based version of it (which they said they would) and can convince India to buy it... it will be vastly cheaper than any western alternatives and would not demand the presence of cats for launching which means if they do get carriers with cats it might only be a few heavy aircraft that require cat launch which should make launching and recovering aircraft faster and easier and safer.

If India buys MiG-35s then production will remain open and running so if they decide they can have more aircraft if they are not all stealthy then they can make batches of MiG-35s to recreate Frontal Aviation.... with modern AESA radars and IRST and targeting pods scanning the battlefield where the Russian Army is operating should massively improve the ground picture of what is happening on the ground and this information can be shared with ground based commanders seeing real time high resolution radar images of the territory around them which would be useful for highlighting targets they want taken care of.

The cheap numbers aircraft is valuable because it adds nodes to your network all supplying new information and also able to engage enemy threats and targets which increases the fire power of the force as well.

Now at the moment the only cheap numbers plane available is the MiG-35 for the Russian military but as they have the Su-30, Su-35, Su-34 and Su-57 all in production and they have two new 5th gen light fighters on the way I think they are in a very very good position.

If India goes for a Hornet or Rafale then a new batch order of 24 MiG-35s to go to a testing and evaluation unit to try tactics and create an operational manual for aircrew and support staff would make sense... even if the new MiG light fighter or the Su-75 turn out to be amazing then 24 aircraft could be useful anyway... send them to Armenia for peace keeping duties or Syria to help Assad, or let Iran try them... the low operational costs means you can use them... nothing worse that buying fantastic new planes like the F-35 only to find you blew the budget buying the damn thing and now you don't have enough money to fly it except at local airshows.

I still trying to figure out why you all seem to miss one of the crucial points here.

MiG owns its own supply chain. Historically. Sure that they operate under the same trusts after the reconstruction of the Russian MIC, yet the chain of supply is retained.
So they have their own engine supply net, their own radar developer, etc.
Having two independent chains of supply is always better than having just one.
Even if they operate under one umbrella, still can develop independently.
It is a huge gain if you ask me.

The whole point of UAC or OAK was to allow each design bureau to survive intact with its designers so nothing is lost and you don't end up with one design bureau dominating every class of aircraft.

With the different departments there is real competition and cooperation too when you need it.

Egypt seem rather happy with their MiG-29Ms and with new AESA radars when they are ready it will likely result in even better performance too.

Most countries that might buy the aircraft have not done so because they demand AESA radars to be fitted, but designing and deploying AESA radars or any new radar costs money and they clearly don't want to fund the process of getting it service ready... which is fine, but the alternatives are western aircraft... most of which are mature systems but some are not really complete multirole aircraft yet (Typhoon and F-35 spring to mind) and are eye wateringly expensive, or Chinese types which include super cheap planes which likely wont be as good as the MiG-35, so when they get their radars operating properly and reliably they will have a rather good product some countries might be upset about not buying.

I am sure India is thinking now the level of control the US likes to exert on its "customers" might make purchases of Chinooks and Apaches a bit short sighted, but then lack of Russian engines for Mi-26s and the relative immaturity of the Hokum and Havoc at the time made the decisions reasonable at the time despite the high costs.

For countries that are only going to buy 18 to 36 planes for their entire air force fighter force then a heavier plane makes sense, especially if the purchase price is similar, but over the service life of those aircraft having to spend four or five times more on operational costs will start to bite after some time.

The key advantage of the MiG is that its operational costs are low so you can buy more and use them more for less money.

The number of times they need a fighter to fly 2,000km and then launch 12 missiles and then loiter a bit and then fly home would be rather rare to the point where if you need that then actually sending 8 fighters with two carrying external fuel tanks that will buddy refuel the other aircraft at 1,000km out and then return to base leaving 6 aircraft to approach the targets and engage them if needed with 6 x 8 = 48 potential missiles ready to launch as well as 6 radar and 6 IRST and the ability to fly together or to separate into two or three groups of three or two aircraft depending on the situation...

Those two aircraft operating as tankers could return to base and refuel and meet the other aircraft on their way home to top them up... they could carry a couple of AAMs to defend themselves if jumped by enemy aircraft.

The Chinese are likely way more advanced in terms of basic radar technology than either Russia or even the US at this point.

Don't mean to be rude but who would they have copied to get more advanced than Russia.

The Russians might not be fitting AESA radars into the noses of their fighter aircraft but they have been fitting them on everything else including tanks for APS systems and also ships and even in the noses of their latest missiles use AESA radar antenna and of course most of their SAM systems use electronic scanning systems.

Their progress in photonic radar is mentioned occasionally but we really don't have a full picture of how that is going either.

PESA radars can be almost as good as the best AESA radar, we can say they are not widely deploying AESA radar on their fighters even though the wing mounted anti stealth radars being fitted are AESAs the longer wavelengths mean large antennas that are easier to cool...

But just like AIP it might be that the AESAs we know are not cost effective and that something is approaching mass production that would make it not worth the cost right now.

The Russians seem to be melding technologies where Ka and Ku and longer wavelengths are used together with signal processing and computing power that makes them vastly more capable than any system just using the different frequencies separately.

Radar power does not help that much because being able to detect a target at 300km with your 30Kw radar beam means little if your missile carries a radar that couldn't detect the target even if it gets within 10m of it...

Of course one feature of the new Russian missiles seems to be that IIR and radar can be combined for stealthy targets.

why USA didnt produce more F-15s than F-16s?

Exactly... even when you print your own money you can't afford an all F-15/F-14 fleet... you need smaller lighter cheaper numbers aircraft... F-16/F-18... note for the US Navy their cheap light aircraft was also a twin jet engined aircraft too.