MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #3

Here is what you posted on 11 November 2023 - ONE month before the official announcement announcement of the Mig-UTS. The TASS article is dated 29 June 2018 and no mention was made of a single engine development of the trainer - and neither was the Mig-UTS ever mentioned.

Not sure what you are so excited about... in 2018 they were talking about putting the MiG-AT into production to replace the L39 because it was cheaper than the Yak-130 to operate. At that time they hadn't discussed it fully and hadn't decided to change from two small engines to a single engine being used by the Yak-130 to really make it a lighter cheaper aircraft. Having spent money Russianising the engine the Yak-130 used it makes sense to make a single engined version that is cheaper to buy and to operate as a numbers aircraft.

They are doing the same with the fighters, but I suspect with the MiG-35 being ready for serial production (it was in low rate serial production to produce the 5 first examples) it makes sense to put that into production while they perfect a single engined 5th gen light fighter that is truly light and cheap to buy and to operate for the Russian military.

I agree that while it is clearly the Russian military funded option that the Su-75 looks interesting too, but I suspect they will make the same mistake Yak made with the Yak-130 and it will be heavier and more expensive and difficult to operate on the front line in front line conditions... of course Yak might come up with something impressive too.

The point is that they understand numbers are important and whether it is collecting information for the group or offering more rifles pointed at the enemy allowing a higher concentration of fire power, they realise they benefit from having numbers of aircraft and right now that is the MiG-35.

In 10-15 years time it might be a single engined 5th gen type.

Here is the complete article. Clearly no mention was ever made of a single engine Mig-UTS.

They started discussions in 2018, it was later they decided that if the MiG trainer was going to be the cheaper option then making it a single engined type would make it cheaper by reducing the cost in terms of engines. I suspect they decided with the new engines they are working on for the Yak-130 were modern and solid enough to be reliable with just one engine fitted.

Funny that you never even mentioned your 2018 fabrication back then.

What fabrication are you talking about?

Fact: The only discussion they had back in 2018 was to put the Mig-AT into production and that it would have entered service back in 2023. End of story.

Pull your head out of your arse, you are confusing what I said with what you think I said... which is completely irrelevant... lets fill up 10 pages about what I did or did not say because otherwise we could be discussing that MiG are making a single engined LIFT called the MiG-UTS and it seems that has really upset you.

Sboth are smaller than su-35...

The MiG-35 and Su-57 are not hugely different in size...

But then the advantage of no drag from external weapons is still precious enough to choose a bigger aircraft anyway.

Carrying everything internally means the aircraft themselves are bigger meaning slightly more drag.

The MiG light 5th gen fighter is made as small as possible, which means its flight range and max payload and top speed are all going to be inferior to a larger aircraft... but that is the point.

The purpose of the new light 5th gen fighter is to be the 5th generation Skyhawk... if you look at the specs for that aircraft it is quite impressive all round.

GarryB" wrote: lets fill up 10 pages about what I did or did not say

The simple solution for you is to man up and admit when you made a mistake and just move on. Easy as that. You will save yourself and others a lot of time and you don't have to fill up 10 pages of what you did or did not say.

The simple solution for you is to man up and admit when you made a mistake and just move on. Easy as that. You will save yourself and others a lot of time and you don't have to fill up 10 pages of what you did or did not say.

Admit what, I don't understand what you are complaining about?

Quite wrong. Su-57 is smaller than su-35 and still has better specs.

Which is why it is more expensive.

The MiG-35 s smaller than the Su-35 and marginally smaller than the Su-57 but is cheaper and much cheaper to operate.

Load the maximum internal bays on the su-57, put the same amount of weapon on su-35. Su-57 will go much further and keep its fuel much more efficiently.

The Su-35 has about 14 weapon pylons and should be able to carry quite a bit more different weapon types than the Su-57.

The Su-57 is limited to internal weapons if it wants to keep its stealth advantage.

This is the same problem for all stealth fighters.

The Mig-35 has a 2000km ferry range, so at best 1000km combat radius. That's for a naked plane and in a very good and theorical scenatio. Now put 4 Kab, 2 r-77 and 2 r-73 and its combat range will be more like 500km. A stealth mig-35 with internal bays would carry the 4 kab internally and the air to air missiles externally giving it a range much greater than the normal mig-35.

That is the issue... the Stealth MiG-35 would probably carry two KABs and two AAMs and that will be it.

Stealth MiG-35 would probably need more support than can be provided at a section of motorway on a front line...

may be a bit bigger than a normal mog-35 but it would be more survivable and would give more freedom in its use from different airfield with its better range.

It wont be faster so longer range means more time getting to target and more time getting to its airfield.

No stealth aircraft are invisible and most stealth aircraft will be shot down over Russian air defences.

Remember Storm Shadow and Scalp are supposed to be stealthy weapons that cut straight through Russian air defence systems... and ATACMS are supposed to be uninterceptable too... except they are not.

Turns out nothing is completely safe on a real battlefield.

GarryB wrote:Admit what, I don't understand what you are complaining about?

Didn't think you would

Thank goodness, this silly argument was going nowhere.

Mig-35 for those countries with a budget.
Those with more of a budget will probly go for a high-low combo, with the mig and the checkmate.
When the checkmate is ready of course.

As for why orders arent raining in for the mig, well if the Russians themselves dont wanna buy it in bulk, then why would other countries?
Thats how i see it.

Regardless, there are still many mig-21s out their that need to be replaced, so decision time is gonna happen soon.

Mig-35 for those countries with a budget.

MiG-29M for those not on the front line potentially fighting HATO.

Those with more of a budget will probly go for a high-low combo, with the mig and the checkmate.
When the checkmate is ready of course.

Ironically you are probably right where the MiG-35 is a decent 4th gen fighter. Not the best, but certainly cheaper to buy and to operate than any western aircraft alternatives, while the Su-75 is a 5th gen fighter which would have stealth as an advantage over western 4th and 5th gen fighters available.... (admittedly by the time the Su-75 is ready their might be better alternatives to the F-35 which is a dog.)

As for why orders arent raining in for the mig, well if the Russians themselves dont wanna buy it in bulk, then why would other countries?
Thats how i see it.

Or maybe another question... why bother with the Swifts at all... move them to Yak-130s if MiG is over... yet five MiG-35s were serially produced and tested in Syria and the Ukraine and there is talk of serial production as a light numbers fighter...

The mig-29M sold to egypt costed 40 million. The su-30mk2 sold to vietnam 45 million. The mig-29 isn't a cheap fighter.

Hilarious a French person complaining 40 million dollars for a fighter is too expensive...

The prices depend on what you buy with the aircraft and who the customer is...

The operational costs of the MiG are about 1/3rd the costs of the Flanker... it is called a numbers fighter for a reason.

The mig-35 will be easily 50 million.

10-15 million of that would probably be the AESA radar which is why there is no obvious rush to get them into service in Russia...

If you want a cheap aircraft you need to spend nothing on R&D so you use only existing stuff. You choose a light airframe with a light engine (jf-17). But then you are limited by its caracteristics.

JF-17 was a light cheap fighter aimed at Pakistan as a cheaper compliment to their F-16s. If you want a numbers plane it is as good as any cheap light fighter... but don't expect too much from it.

It is not really an option for Russia though.

If Russia really wanted cheap they could have gone for the MiG-29M2, but clearly they want quality too.

They also could have left their Su-30s as being Su-27UBs, but now they are making them two seat Su-35s.

A flight of 12 jf-17 would be smashed by 2 or 3 f-22 or su-57. They would be totally useless.

That is right, but that flight of 12 light fighters attacking targets and shooting down cruise missiles and drones while your Su-57s and Su-35s deal with the tiny number of enemy planes better than your light fighters get that job done.

No one is suggesting MiG-35s replace Su-35s and Su-57s or MiG-31s or Su-30s or Su-34s.

And before you start ypur usual "But Rafale is 4th gen from the 70s" blah blah, during unofficial exercise of BVR engagement, it was totally outclassed by the f-22. They spend a lot on EW but when tge missile is coming from 45° from the top and your jammers have a field of view of 35 you won't see the missiles coming.

Sounds like France doesn't operate very long range air to air missiles that might come in at a diving profile... like most long range Soviet and Russian AAMs do.

The R-27E family sound rather more potent when used against western fighters now it seems... hahaha...

But then again... doesn't sound like the worlds most difficult problem to solve really... considering most long range Russian and Soviet AAMs not to mention the vast majority of their long range SAMs fly the same flight profile... DUH.

That's why IMO they need a stealthy platefor like the su-75 to improve the BVR fight which is now easily 99% of the combats happening in the air.

If combat in the Ukraine is anything to go by the MiG-29 continues to operate despite the AD and air superiority that Russia enjoys... which suggests being able to operate away from an official airfield has its advantages... and most kills seem to be at extreme range where some platform detects the target at long range and another platform launches a very long range air to air missile and shoots it down.

The MiG-35 is able to carry a wide range of Russian AAMs including the longest range models.

Su-30 and 35 armed with 4 r-37M and 6 r-77M guided by su-57 would smash anything out there.

In that scenario they would be using the advanced sensors of the Su-57 as well as ground and other air based sensors to detect the enemy, while the Flanker types are missile trucks.

In that scenario there is no reason why a MiG-35 couldn't perform the same role as missile trucks... it is the speed and altitude of the launch aircraft that determines range and speed of the missiles, so a MiG-35 should be every bit as good as the Su-35 while burning less fuel and costing less to operate.

For such role a naked su-30 with only air to air missile could cost half than it is now. Much better than spending on mig-35.

The domestic prices for the MiG-35 is about 28-30 million each, so no. Also the operational costs of the Flanker will be double or triple that of the MiG.

Are you not getting that the MIG-35 is the low cost numbers fighter.

The price effectiveness comes with the numbers.
If MiG can produce at most a few pcs a year at this stage - yet uses its supply chain - it won't be competitive.

They produced 5 MIG-35s to test their costs and performance in operational units and in combat in the Ukraine and in Syria.

MiG is not going to make as many aircraft as it can... it is going to make the number of aircraft their customer ordered so making 5 is not a reflection of how many they could make.

It is a numbers fighter... if it took 2 years to make 5 aircraft then by default it would not matter how cheap or how capable it was it would be a failure.

Of course it if took two years to make five aircraft then India and Russia and Algeria and Egypt wouldn't have the aircraft they currently have... which is more than 5.

Suchoi is making ... a few dozen planes a year at this moment.

Big heavy complex planes... and they are also making the Superjet and working on new designs too... but they have orders as well and wont bother trying to exceed their orders, because the extra need to be paid for... or should I say extra airframes the customer has not paid for just add to the servicing costs with the bank.

It allows its subcontractors to plan in long term perspective, and made the allocations accordingly.
MiG hasn't had this comfort for at least 2 decades.
Its cooperation net is in a shady state, cut off from a stable order flow.
There is nothing more to discuss here.

Except MiG does have orders for export where the profit margin is actually much better than the profit margin with domestic orders. The sales of RD-33 engines to China would be very profitable for Klimov and of course Klimov is also making helicopter engines and other engines of all types as fast as it can make them. The radar and other avionics used on MiGs in general will also be used in other aircraft types too.

Does Russia need a second pillar of an independent construction bureau? Sure, I agree.
Is MiG such? No, I disagree.

You are confusing MiG as being the company sat atop the MiG-35. Currently they are supporting the MiG-29UPG in India and MiG-29M in Egypt and Algeria and the MiG-29K in Russia and India and a small number of MiG-35s in Russia. So if the MiG-35 is a dead end then the suggestions that the Swifts would get them makes sense... why keep 5 aircraft in operational service that has no commonality with any other current type... send them all to the SWIFTS and try to get export orders... except the SWIFTS are getting MiG-29SMTs.

You could argue that this means the MIG-35 is dead... but then why not gift them to Egypt or Algeria or India and get rid of them... the SMTs in Swift service to promote export sales makes sense, but it could also mean that the MiG-35s in service is going to be expanded so training and manuals have to be fully developed so they can be introduced into service.

The whole purpose of UAC was to keep all the design bureaus viable no matter how successful their products were. The Su-57 and Su-35 being good and in service does not mean they don't need MiG-35s too, and does not mean they would not benefit from having another 400 odd fighters in their inventory that could launch long range AAMs at targets 300km away or release glide bombs against targets from altitude and speed at standoff ranges.

MiG is making a new cheap low cost LIFT. It will be making the PAK DP replacement for the MIG-31. It will be keeping the MiG-31 going till its replacement is ready.

You can argue whether it is making a light single engined 5th gen fighter but they have been talking about this for decades and they even said it was put on hold while the PAKFA was made the priority. The PAKFA is in serial production and then all of a sudden we hear talk of a light 5th gen fighter called Su-75. We see a model from MiG but not much else, while the Su-75 is everywhere... because they need investors. Why isn't MiG pushing its design?

Why does the poor man of Russian fighters need investment to develop its next gen light fighter?

Disagree all you please, but Net Centric warfare can not rely on a few expensive recon platforms to collect data from the battlefield... every platform on the battlefield becomes a recon platform adding to the battle map showing where everything is... having numbers aircraft with AESA radar and EO systems scanning for targets and sharing information with other platforms creates a level if situational awareness that makes things much better than having 100 Su-57s because they are just too expensive to buy and operate more... no matter how good they might be.

Russia is looking at incorporating Chinese AI to improve testing and models for design and production of engines. Together with supercomputers it will enable the faster evaluation of test data and find faults and problems faster, while also allowing the digital testing of shapes and materials for aerodynamic and strength testing without having to build scale models.

And here we have reached the real sticking point.
What is the unit cost for the 29M?
Egypt paid $2bill, but asked for some extra electronic warfare equipment aa well, and this to say nothing of the training equipnent they would need as well, since it was their first time operating mig-29s to begin with.
So what does that $2bill actually cover?
And then there's the long term costs to maintain the mig as compared to the sukhois, including the checkmate, so the mig is still cheaper in the long term.


As for F-22s, well were not talking about countries that have to go down that road, but countries that need to replace their aging aircraft.
Also, why the F-22?.... why go to the full extreme?
That's not gonna be the migs job.

It is a mature system that is ready for serial production. Everything is already paid for and things like AESA are not going to suddenly appear you need to put it in operation and have it in mass serial production before the price comes down and reliability starts to peak.

Getting 200-400 MiG-35s into service over the next 10 years fills lots of gaps in air defence while not costing as much as it would if it was 200-400 Su-30/35s you were making.

The MiG-35 is not better than the Su-35 in anything except price and operational costs... the MiG-35 is not supposed to replace the big Flankers... they are supposed to work together.

In a rugby team you don't have all wingers who want to score points... you need defenders and distributors of the ball to get all the jobs done... most often you get stars of the game, but they normally score the goals or tries... the honest amongst them will admit they couldn't win the game on their own because it is a team game and having a good team is about working together and having numbers.

Getting the MiG-35 into service might bring to light problems and issues that can be fixed and can go into developing the next gen aircraft that is going to replace them.

Countries around the world still operate ancient types including Phantoms and F-5s, and for many roles they don't actually do a bad job, but upgrading to newer aircraft does make sense and if you don't buy the MiG-35s then when it comes time to add a new fighter there will be less competition and less choice and pretty soon one division does the fighters and they get fat and lazy because there is no competition.

Even if the MiG-35 gets serially produced and the new single engined MiG enters service as the next Russian 5th gen light fighter the Su-75 is still going to be a success anyway because it has no competition that comes even close for the potential price... purchase or operational price...

It is going to be the next big boogeyman.

I think the MiG single engined 5th gen light fighter is probably going to be too light for most foreign countries who might be wanting something as their primary fighter and it might just lack the range and payload to operate outside the Russian IADS and without MiG-31/41 and Su-57 and Su-35 support.

In that case the Su-75 will probably thrive... perhaps with a MIG-29M light fighter partner as the cheap numbers aircraft... or maybe JF-17 or Tegas IV maybe.

Obviously feel free to disagree... but come up with a decent reason that is not that MiG is dead because MiG is part of the UAC and it is part of the UAC to prevent it from dying no matter what choices the Russian military decide to make.

I am not totally happy with their choices so far but they shouldn't choose something that doesn't work for them. However they do have some responsibility when they say they want this or that and then MiG or another org creates that and then they change their minds or say they don't want it just yet.

For a cheap numbers plane they could have ordered 300 MiG-29M2s a decade ago and would have them in service and be upgrading them with MiG-35 parts that appeal or are worth adding... but then India should have ordered 200 MiG-29Ms with the 36 Rafales they bought and they could have replaced all their old MiG-29UGPs with new aircraft designs that can be upgraded to MiG-35 level.

In fact they could have started a joint development with Russia to develop their own AESA radars to put into all their fighter aircraft including their Flankers.

The combo mig-31 + Kinzhal will be replaced by su-57/35 + new hypersonic missile like mini kinzhal and the kinzhal will just be used by su-34 and tu-22M. wrote:

The Su-57 will never replace the Mig-31BM, never.
This is clearly demonstrated by the use in the SMO.
The Mig-31 can do much more than any Su version will ever be able to.

The radar has more range, the aircraft has significantly more power, and the Mig-31 can stay or move outside any enemy system all the time. That's exactly the blatant advantage.

You're right but maybe the Su-60 can...

Mig-31BM2 Super Irbis-E wrote:The radar has more range,

What ?

Mig-31BM2 Super Irbis-E wrote:the aircraft has significantly more power,

That's a broad statement.

What did you expect with a user name like that!

However the second part of the name does suggest that the Irbis-E is slightly better than the Zazlon-M.

Mig-35 without an aesa is just a mig-29M. They already operate the mig-29SMT which is close to the M version.

The MiG-29M is not the same as the MiG-35... the same as the Su-27SM is not the same as the Su-35.

The MiG-29M is a totally different aircraft from the MiG-29SMT, which is an upgrade of the original cold war era model.

The MiG-29M would be downgraded by an SMT upgrade.

They don't like it.

The talk of serial productions suggests they do.

The situation has changed and now they will understand the value of numbers.

BTW if cheap numbers planes are useless and not wanted then cancel the Su-75 right now.

They bought some "mig-35" only to try to boost export sells... they will end up in the exhibition teams.

The Russian Air Force is not the marketing branch of the Russian MIC and does not buy things to improve their export chances... that is just ridiculous.

The Swifts are getting the MiG-29SMTs.

They are certainly not crazy enough to buy 400 of them.

It is a numbers aircraft. You buy them in large numbers because they are cheap to buy and cheap to operate.

They can easily make a dumb cheaper fighter to do secondary task. Something like a jf-17 that has only one engine, same one as used on the mig-29 but 2 times less expensive compare to a mig 29 since it uses only one. Add some stealth feature and stuff used and developed by subcontractors for the su-35 and you get your cheap fighter.

The engine is not the basis for the price of the MiG-35 and spending billions of dollars redesigning an aircraft to save the price of one engine per aircraft is monumentally Stupid. If they wanted the cheapest they could get then the Yak-130 is there. If they wanted the cheapest that is ready to go now then the MiG-29M is the obvious choice.. but they seem prepared to spend a little more than the bare minimum to get a better product in mass use... which in my opinion is the better option.

The reality is that Mig doesn't make anything really useful for the domestic market.

MiG-31 is the only Russian aircraft capable of carrying and deploying the Kinzhal hypersonic missile which has been used quite a bit in the Ukraine.

They are already working on a single engined LIFT to replace the L39, and the MiG-31 replacement is being developed... as well as the MiG-35.

The combo mig-31 + Kinzhal will be replaced by su-57/35

No it wont... there are no plans for such a thing simply because a 4 ton external missile and neither of those aircraft are going to be operating at 20km altitude at mach 2.5 to launch it.

new hypersonic missile like mini kinzhal and the kinzhal will just be used by su-34 and tu-22M.

Range and speed performance would be even worse from the Su-34 and Tu-22M3... it was not an accident they chose the MIG-31 for the job and those reasons have not changed.

The Mig-31 can do much more than any Su version will ever be able to.

The radar has more range, the aircraft has significantly more power, and the Mig-31 can stay or move outside any enemy system all the time. That's exactly the blatant advantage.

Everything the MIG-31 does is about speed... it is about launching air to air and air to ground missiles at max range by launching them from as high and as fast as possible. It is also about intercepting threats as far away as possible and that requires max flight speed too... no other fighter can come close to the performance of the MiG-31... in fact no other aircraft can spend its entire flight out and back at sustained supersonic speed like the MiG-31 does (except the MiG-25).

The next gen PAK DP will do the same only faster.

You're right but maybe the Su-60 can...

MiGs are useless because of all these Sukhoi paper planes...

Mig-31 in terms of aerodynamics is worse than mig-25 that got destroyed plenty of times... in actual wars.

No MiG-31s have been lost to enemy action... and you can bet HATO is trying its hardest...

MiG-31s aerodynamics are actually better than the MiG-25s but neither are designed to be dogfighters.

Its radar can't compete against a irbis, let alone an aesa Byelka.

They have upgraded the MIG-31s radar multiple times and no doubt will be working on a next generation set for its replacement that it could do a bit of operational testing with and get as an upgrade...

The MiG-31s radar is larger than any set in any Flanker... and the original was the first electronically scanned radar on a front line fighter.

They will keep them for few years but it will be phased out. Even now they keep maybe 1/3 of what they had.

The MiG-31 is one of the most important aircraft in their inventory, guarding their air borders and their coastal approaches (with Kinzhals).

Isos wrote:Mig-31 in terms of aerodynamics is worse than mig-25 that got destroyed plenty of times... in actual wars.

That bit is not true at all. The Mig-31 used the basic airframe of the Mig-25 and added some aerodynamic improvements when compared to the 25.
One such improvement was the LERX. This hugely improved the Mig-31's low level and overall lift performance compared to the Mig-25. Another aerodynamic improvement was the recessed R-33's - this reduced drag significantly.

GarryB wrote:MiGs are useless because of all these Sukhoi paper planes...

...oh, I thought it was MiG's plastic models that made everything else useless!

...oh, I thought it was MiG's plastic models that made everything else useless!

You are confusing things... I am not trashing Sukhoi, you are trashing MiG.

The Su-75 is going to be a popular and capable aircraft, but I think Sukhoi are going to aim it at countries that might want to use it on its own as their primary fighter... which means it is going to have to be a bit higher spec than the Russian military would be requiring in terms of it operating in an environment.

The MiG light fighter is going to be used together with 4th and 5th gen fighters, and also operate within a rather formidable IADS... it wont need to fly 3,000km or carry 7 tons of ordinance... but the role the Su-35 is currently performing of releasing cheap dumb bombs with glide kits attached... it can do just fine and much cheaper and all across the battlefield.

For a foreign country however, they might want a bit more than a small light stealthy LIFT sized aircraft that is also cheap to buy and cheap to operate, and for many of those countries they will be looking at the Su-75 as a primary fighter they can buy and operate in useful numbers.

If they have serious threats and a bit of money then buying the Su-57 will compliment the purchase because of the commonality of engines and parts and systems, so buying a dozen or two dozen Su-57s and having 4-5 times more than that in Su-75s would mean a good numbers force of aircraft that can work together to defeat most opponents on your ground.

At 30-40 million each for the Su-75s buying 100 becomes affordable because the purchase price is reasonable and the operational costs means you can actually use them and keep them flying so you get a good plane and good coverage of your airspace... the reason they are trying to label it as the 5th gen MiG-21 is because even poor countries can afford to buy a few...

But no, MiG has to be folded up and all their managers fired... fire putin too, and when Kiev mounts a drone attack that starts a fire somewhere... fire the people in charge there too... because you fix things by breaking them and just hope they come back stronger... it hasn't worked in Iraq or Libya and so far it hasn't worked in Syria or very many other places the US has tried regime change... it has totally backfired in the Ukraine and destroyed a country... but it has to work eventually right?

For a long time MiG was working away improving their aircraft making it better and for most of that time the Russian military simply rejected it... saying they need a light simple cheap interceptor and they don't need a multirole aircraft because smart weapons are expensive, so they didn't bother with the SMT upgrades.

For those suggesting that the MiG-35 is obsolete then so is the Su-35.

Ironically the MiG-35 is everything the F-35 was supposed to be except for stealthy... it is light and cheap but unlike the Su-75 it can be put into full serial production now because it is fully tested.

If the AESA radar is not ready yet it is because it is not in production and service, which is the best place to get AESA radars up and running... they are production oriented and need to be put into serial mass production before they improve and become affordable... the Indians were clearly hoping the Russians would pay for it an the Egyptians and Algerians were hoping the Russians would pay for it and the Russian military were clearly hoping an export customer would pay for it and so no one is paying for it so it is not happening.

This new mini AESA set for the Yak-130 is interesting... whether it goes into service or not is a good question but a smaller array will have fewer elements which will make it cheaper, though its performance wont be as good. Eventually production will make it more affordable and elements could be added to boost performance when production is optimsed... it would certainly be better than no AESA radar.

Actually it is... at 4 million $ the engine is almost what's expensive in the plane. Having 1 instead of 2 already makes the plane cheaper by few millions.

Where did that figure come from?

The plane is already designed and built and in service. Redesigning it to enable it to fly with just one engine would require a complete redesign.... hundreds of millions of dollars and several years to change the design and then fully test it to make sure it works... so 5 years delay and billions of dollars to save lets say 4 million.

If that is the export price of the RD93 then the price to the Russian military is probably half that...

The RD-33 family of engines is for low cost fighters... the Al family is for the top fighters where money is not so important, which is why when China was making a single engined plane for Pakistan to be cheaper to operate than their F-16s they didn't fit it with the Al-31... for which, in terms of power would be a good engine for a light single engined fighter that China already actually uses in the Flankers they operate. They fitted it with the Cheap low cost RD-33... but of course they had to get a redesigned version to move the gearbox so it would fit their single engined design leading to the RD93 or whatever they called it.

Like I said mig-29SMT is close to the mig-29M. It's shit, they already know that. It's even cheaper than mig-29M but it sucks.

The MiG-29SMT is an upgrade for existing MiG-29 operators that gives them decent multirole performance comparable to mid price mid range F-16s at a fraction of the operating costs of the F-16.

The MiG-29M2/29KR/35 is a new design that is obvious by the two crew canopy design with a full sized radar fitted to all types (as opposed to a ranging only radar on the MiG-29UB two seat version of the original aircraft).

What other countries are fielding in terms of fighter makes mig-29 totally useless.

The MiG-29SMT could deliver the same AAM the Su-35 carries and it can climb to the same heights and speeds to deliver the same cheap glide bombs for a fraction of the operational costs of the Flankers.

Yak 130 has nothing of a fighter...

It was tested as a light fighter and also as a Su-25 replacement with standoff weapons.

Lots of countries around the world promote LIFTs as light fighters... even turboprop trainers have been used in that role... the Super Tuccano springs to mind.

No they won't. They are loosing clients like no one else. They will sell to anyone that signs.

As countries turn away from the west and start joining BRICS the damage the US and EU can do with their blackmail sanctions will diminish. Countries joining BRICS will need to defend themselves to start with as the US and the west lashes out in anger, but as it becomes self defeating they will eventually realise they are only hurting themselves and it is this sort of behaviour that created the need for BRICS in the first place.

It is really just a G7 of countries that actually matter and are independent sovereign states. While the G7 is the US and her goons.

When given the choice to do as the US tells you or join BRICS the choice is becoming more obvious.... especially as choosing the US does not make you part of the west and you are always expendable depending on US interests.

Canada would argue it has been a loyal poodle that has attacked Russia and China and even attacked India on command but that is not good enough for Trump it seems...

It is when you know they produce the su-57 on the same production lines. It is not when you know they keep using the shitty su-30 that proved to be a target for AD in Ukraine and nothing else when su-35 proved to be way more survivable and better at long range engagements.

The only thing wrong with the MiG-35 is that it is not stealthy... the Su-35 has the same flaw and costs rather more to buy and to operate.

The avionics of the MiG-35 are as advanced as the avionics in the F-35, and it is a fraction of the operating price and costs.

But most importantly for most users is that the west believes it is a MiG-29, which means if they ever come up against it in combat they are going to get their arses handed to them.

With an AESA radar... which likely wont be amazing to start with, but will get better over time and with experience and use, it could use R-37 missiles and pretty much anything else the Su-35 can carry, though over smaller distances and in fewer numbers... but when was the last time you saw an Su-35 with every pylon full in a combat zone armed for combat?

GarryB wrote:You are confusing things... I am not trashing Sukhoi, you are trashing MiG.

Another excellent example of pure projection from your side mate

Here is a couple of examples of what I wrote in the Mig-29/35 threads:

Mir wrote:The Mig-31 is without any doubt definitely at the top of the list as the best aircraft from the MiG OKB. It's truly a fantastic interceptor

Mir wrote: I have stated here that the Mig-29M of old is one of my favorite Migs. The Mig31 being my top choice.
I am just telling it as it is - no fantasy world involved.