Su-57 Felon

Military aircraft - Post cold war aircraft, including for example B-2, Gripen, F-18E/F Super Hornet, Rafale, and Typhoon.
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by milosh » 23 May 2020, 10:18

jessmo112 wrote:1. If Russia needed the Mig then why not now?

2. Doesnt Russia have vast territory to defend, And could use a decently priced point defence fighter? Could they afford a force of all heavy fighters During the Soviet era?
If they didnt buy all flankers and foxbats then, what makes you think they can do it now?

3. As long as you have former clients that have hundreds of these planes, why would you NOT want to replace them?

4. And finally How hard is it to take an F-35 planform and put 2 Su-27 engines in it? How hard would it be to throw some stealth coatings on it, and an internal IRST and call it a day. Again I consider myself ignorant, I am at my worst an armchair enthusiast, at my best a aviation blog
Groupie.If my questions show my ignorance please excuse me.


USSR bought lot of MiG-29 because they cost lot less then Su-27. But today things are changed, Flankers are in fact cheaper then Fulcrums. Massive production lead to that, here is nice example:

This is Su-30 production line (from 2006)
https://youtu.be/XIxr4PDT544?t=61

And is how MiG make newest MiG-29 variants ( from 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDVDxuK3Wg

MiG had chance to offered Su-57 alternative, one engined AL-51 fighter something like stealthy scaled up F-16XL but they didn't, they pushed medium stealth based on MiG-35, it wouldn't be much cheaper then Su-57 and it would be noticeable less capable.


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by jessmo112 » 23 May 2020, 12:23

milosh wrote:
jessmo112 wrote:1. If Russia needed the Mig then why not now?

2. Doesnt Russia have vast territory to defend, And could use a decently priced point defence fighter? Could they afford a force of all heavy fighters During the Soviet era?
If they didnt buy all flankers and foxbats then, what makes you think they can do it now?

3. As long as you have former clients that have hundreds of these planes, why would you NOT want to replace them?

4. And finally How hard is it to take an F-35 planform and put 2 Su-27 engines in it? How hard would it be to throw some stealth coatings on it, and an internal IRST and call it a day. Again I consider myself ignorant, I am at my worst an armchair enthusiast, at my best a aviation blog
Groupie.If my questions show my ignorance please excuse me.


USSR bought lot of MiG-29 because they cost lot less then Su-27. But today things are changed, Flankers are in fact cheaper then Fulcrums. Massive production lead to that, here is nice example:

This is Su-30 production line (from 2006)
https://youtu.be/XIxr4PDT544?t=61

And is how MiG make newest MiG-29 variants ( from 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDVDxuK3Wg

MiG had chance to offered Su-57 alternative, one engined AL-51 fighter something like stealthy scaled up F-16XL but they didn't, they pushed medium stealth based on MiG-35, it wouldn't be much cheaper then Su-57 and it would be noticeable less capable.


Thats a good point, but dont you think its a little infair to compare soviet era Mig-29s to a modern design?
Also there is no way a modern day Mig-29 replacement would cost MORE than the Su-57. On the other hand they are Russian. Procurement hasnt been exactly smooth lately.


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by mixelflick » 25 May 2020, 15:35

This is rich: https://www.popularmechanics.com/milita ... -unmanned/

Russians now flying "unmanned" SU-57's, LOL.

Let's see if I understand this correctly... Your first production version crashes on Christmas Eve, 2019. Less than 6 months later, you're flying it autonomously? I've heard nothing insofar as accident investigation findings. Speculation on everything from flight control software to the vertical stabilizers as the cause but no official findings and..... you're now flying without pilots?

I thought that was the realm of the "Hunter"? None of this makes sense, and it smacks of typical Russian hyperbole and exaggeration. For God's sake give it a rest, they're WAY past losing credibility with respect to IOC dates etc..


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by hythelday » 26 May 2020, 19:37

jessmo112 wrote:
If you will allow me to enter into this amazing discussion I have a few questions for you?

1. If Russia needed the Mig then why not now?


I didn't say Russia needed MiG. I don't know why do they keep them around. Maybe they have some more secret work going on. Maybe it is institutional pride. Maybe they still hope to score some MiG-35 sales. Maybe they are useful to ferment some R&D ideas. As a matter of fact, I don't know the exact structure of MiG as of now, it could be 10,000 people or 100. Perhaps Milosh is more up to date with that.

jessmo112 wrote:
2. Doesnt Russia have vast territory to defend, And could use a decently priced point defence fighter? Could they afford a force of all heavy fighters During the Soviet era?
If they didnt buy all flankers and foxbats then, what makes you think they can do it now?


This question is multifold:
Russia does have a vast territory to defend. So vast in fact, that "a point defence fighter" and "vast Russian territory" are mutually exclusive. Fulcrum simply does not cut it. Point defence implies existence of a well developed infrastructure of bases. An infrastructure that does not exist, nor is possible to be built given Russian realities. Besides, there is a "Gripen fallacy" in this logic. Fulcrum may be "decently priced", but you need larger numbers. Fulcrum is MX nightmare (most expensive option in Finnish competition in 1992, remember that) + aformentioned basing. The reality is that cost vs performance ratio does not favor Fulcrum over Flanker, and by a large margin.

As for the second part of your question: Fulcrum has been approved for development later than the Flanker but entered service before it, chiefly because of shortcoming of the initial Flanker which needed a redesign after initial prototypes were flown. However, the Soviets did in fact in a way have an air force of only Foxbats and Flankers - the PVO Aviation. PVO Aviation never bought Fulcrums. As a matter of fact a PVO version was never developed. It is true that PVO had some shorter range fighters, like Su-15 or versions of MiG-23, but PVO Aviation was chiefly interested in big, high performance (both range and capable radar) fighters abd they continued to take in MiG-31 and Su-27P fighters at slower rate and disregarded MiG-29 completely. MiG-29 was a VVS fighter, because VVS needed far larger numbers of fighters, and not necessarily as capable.
The Russian Air force had less funds at its disposal (especially in the nineties), it is true. So what do you think they did with their funds? They maximized the bang they get for their buck - and went on to procure more Flankers than Fulcrums. Today there exists no air force that has a "high-low" mix of Flankers an Fulcrums. Every air force that has a mix of Flankers and Fulcrums has more Flankers in service, and usually even more Flankers on order. I will touch upon that later. The Russian air force, that supposedly is looking for "reasonably priced" fighter, is also an operatior of a large number of Su-34 attack aircraft, which is neither cheap nor light, however is very capable and thus desirable. According to FlightGlobal's 2020 data, Russian Air Force has 429 Flankers (52 on order) and 251 Fulcrums (34 on order). That's a ratio of about 7:4 in favor of a heavier fighter (ratio of 3:2 ordered). The ratio is almost 9:4 if one counts 120+ Fullbacks as a variant of Flanker. There are another 130+ Foxbats in Russian service, meaning that Russian Air Force flies almost three heavy fighters for one Fulcrum. There are more Flankers than Fulcrums in service with Russian Naval Aviation too. I do not merely think that Russia can afford heavy fighters and that it clearly prefers the type over Fulcrum. It is, in fact, what what Russia does, as do many other countries.

jessmo112 wrote:3. As long as you have former clients that have hundreds of these planes, why would you NOT want to replace them?


Again: look up "clients with hundreds of planes". Who are those exactly? Cuba? Kyrgyzstan? Yemen? Sudan?
The large number of Fulcrums produced, and exported, is explained by the simple facts that 1) Fulcrum entered mass production earlier 2) Fulcrum was the only Soviet 4th generation fighter to be exported. 3) A lot of second hand Fulcrums were available for bargain sales after collapse of USSR. Most current Fulcrum operators fly second hand fighters.
There simply aren't enough clients for Fulcrum today. Those who can buy Western jets - buy Western jets. Those who can afford to buy Russian jets prefer Flankers. And no, one cannot "upgrade" Soviet MiG-29s to the MiG-35 standard (or even lower tier sometimes) - the differences are just too great.
The countries that bought new built Fulcrums fróm Russia (post 1990) amout to the staggering list of five:
1) Russian Air Force and Navy land-based aviation (what a surprise).
2) Indian Navy. Indian Navy bought (and funded the development of a more modern version of) MiG-29K, not because it is capable, but because it is the only fighter that fits Vikramaditya. FYI Vikramaditya is a rebuilt Kiev-class carrier. A carrier that was based on Moskva-calss ASW helicopter cruiser and was meant to use Forger VTOL planes. Look up the size of the hangar on that ship and read about flight ops on those type of ships. Indian Air Force is supposedly in talks about the new batch of Fulcrums (initial batch was purchased from late USSR, look up reason 2) for Fulcrum export success), but before you decide on whether Fulcrum's amazing value for money merits that I urge you to look up the numbers of Fulcrums lost in accidents. Indian Air Force also operates almost four times as many Flankers as it does Fulcrums. No low-high mix here.
3) Algeria. Algeria bought first batch of its Fulcrums second hand (look up reason number 3) for Fulcrum export success) from Russia and Belarus, and wanted some more. They have famously cancelled their order after initial "new" Fulcrums were delivered, and instead requested Flankers in sxchange, at the rate of 1:1. Algeria now operates more Flankers (brand new MKA that it bought from Russia) vs 32 second hand Fulcrums (which at best yielded some maintnance money for Russia, if even that).
4) Malaysia. Malaysia bought some 18, allegedly brand new (I remain sceptical that Russia in 1995 could build 18 brand new fighter in less than two years, most likely those were low mileage refurbished birds), "special Malaysian edition" Fulcrums from Russia in 1995. And proceeded to retire them from service around 2017, after floating ideas of mothballing those as early as 2010. Malaysia is now thinking whether to buy second hand Kuwaiti F/A-18 or some rand new Flankers to augment their fleet. That's right, another nation that got rid of "cheap" Fulcrums because it can't afford it and wants to get "expensive" Flankers.
5) Egypt. Egypt signed a contract for 46 Fulcrums in 2014. This, so far, is probably the biggest success of the Fulcrum, in a country that buys weapons chiefly as a diplomatic measure, and a country that is also reportedly negotiating the purchase of... some Flankers. See the pattern here?

As for another countries:
Azerbaijan - 12x second hand from Ukraine and Belarus.
Bangladesh - 8x fighters (most likely ex-Soviet surplus). A lucrative customer!
Belarus - 39x, inherited from USSR or donated from Russian surplus. Also has Flankers (!) on order, probably on Russian credit as a political leverage.
Bulgaria - 13x, inherited from WarPac days. Chose F-16s as replacement.
Cuba - 3x, late Soviet export. I bet they paid a 100% fair market price for those. A lucrative customer!
Eritrea - 5x second-hand/surplus. A lucrative customer!
Iran - supposedly 20. Mostly second-hand ex-Soviet surplus they managed to smuggle into the country in the early 1990s, but some ex-Iraqi birds from 1991 exodus. They can't buy new fighters because of the sanctions... but my money is that if they could, they would go for Flankers.
Kazakhstan - 25x Fulcrums inherited from Soviet Union, as well as some MiG-31s and Su-27. Guess which one of those three Kazakhstan bought some more, from modern Russia? 16x Su-30 of course, with more on the books.
Myanmar - 31x, 10 bought second hand from Belarus, and 20 from Russia in 2009, though I don't know if new or refurbished. Let's count them as a lucrative customer!
North Korea - 35x late Soviet export/early Russia shady business practices. No comments regarding the Best Korea as potential lucrative customer.
Peru - 7x, second-hand bought from, you guessed, Belarus.
Poland - inherited Fulcrums from WarPac days and bought some East German surplus of the same source. Now a F-35 club member.
Serbia - inherited from Yugoslavia. Late Soviet export (see reason #2), probably one of the few countries that actually paid for them as opposed to buying them using Soviet "credit". Some second-hand donated/purchased from Russia.
Slovakia - inherited Fulcrums from Czechoslovakia which ingerited those from WarPac era. Chose F-16s as replacement.
Sudan - a dozen second-hand Fulcrums, most likely bought on the reliable semi-official black market of Belarus/Ukraine/Russia in the 1990s. A potential customer!
Syria - 20x listed, most likely much less operational. Late Soviet export. No doubt paid in full with pure gold.
Turkmenistan - 24x, inherited from USSR. A lucrative customer!
Ukraine - some 20x. Not a likely customer TBH.
Uzbekistan - 39x total airframes, Soviet inheritance.
Yemen - 32x. A bit sceptical regarding this one as a potential customer.
My Boi Haftar - apparently got 6x Soviet surplus Fulcrums from Russia just a couple of days ago. I suspect they will act as chief actors is more TAI Anka promo videos quite soon.

As you can see, Fulcrum does not sell particularly well, unlike Flanker - the second most common fighter in the world right now, with more than 1000 built. More than F-15, more than Eurofighter. Absolute majority was built and exported by modern Russia, not given away as military aid by USSR. There must be a reason for it, don't you think? The short answer is that Fulcrum is simply not a good plane, in all the meanings of this word.

jessmo112 wrote:4. And finally How hard is it to take an F-35 planform and put 2 Su-27 engines in it? How hard would it be to throw some stealth coatings on it, and an internal IRST and call it a day. Again I consider myself ignorant, I am at my worst an armchair enthusiast, at my best a aviation blog
Groupie.If my questions show my ignorance please excuse me.


And what would be the benefit of such a plane? An even shorter range than a Fulcrum already? Inability to carry big, albeit powerful Russian radars? Inability to have a large internal weapon bay? Inability to carry even bigger weapons externally? What are you trying to achieve? MiG-29 does not suffer from lack of thrust-to-weight, its all the other virtues that it lacks.


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by jessmo112 » 26 May 2020, 20:31

Touche, these are all very well argued points.
The world waits in anticipation of what the next generation of fighters for tin-pot dictators will look like.


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by Corsair1963 » 27 May 2020, 01:41

hythelday wrote:
This question is multifold:
Russia does have a vast territory to defend. So vast in fact, that "a point defence fighter" and "vast Russian territory" are mutually exclusive. Fulcrum simply does not cut it. Point defence implies existence of a well developed infrastructure of bases. An infrastructure that does not exist, nor is possible to be built given Russian realities. Besides, there is a "Gripen fallacy" in this logic. Fulcrum may be "decently priced", but you need larger numbers. Fulcrum is MX nightmare (most expensive option in Finnish competition in 1992, remember that) + aformentioned basing. The reality is that cost vs performance ratio does not favor Fulcrum over Flanker, and by a large margin.

As for the second part of your question: Fulcrum has been approved for development later than the Flanker but entered service before it, chiefly because of shortcoming of the initial Flanker which needed a redesign after initial prototypes were flown. However, the Soviets did in fact in a way have an air force of only Foxbats and Flankers - the PVO Aviation. PVO Aviation never bought Fulcrums. As a matter of fact a PVO version was never developed. It is true that PVO had some shorter range fighters, like Su-15 or versions of MiG-23, but PVO Aviation was chiefly interested in big, high performance (both range and capable radar) fighters abd they continued to take in MiG-31 and Su-27P fighters at slower rate and disregarded MiG-29 completely. MiG-29 was a VVS fighter, because VVS needed far larger numbers of fighters, and not necessarily as capable.

The Russian Air force had less funds at its disposal (especially in the nineties), it is true. So what do you think they did with their funds? They maximized the bang they get for their buck - and went on to procure more Flankers than Fulcrums. Today there exists no air force that has a "high-low" mix of Flankers an Fulcrums. Every air force that has a mix of Flankers and Fulcrums has more Flankers in service, and usually even more Flankers on order. I will touch upon that later. The Russian air force, that supposedly is looking for "reasonably priced" fighter, is also an operatior of a large number of Su-34 attack aircraft, which is neither cheap nor light, however is very capable and thus desirable. According to FlightGlobal's 2020 data, Russian Air Force has 429 Flankers (52 on order) and 251 Fulcrums (34 on order). That's a ratio of about 7:4 in favor of a heavier fighter (ratio of 3:2 ordered). The ratio is almost 9:4 if one counts 120+ Fullbacks as a variant of Flanker. There are another 130+ Foxbats in Russian service, meaning that Russian Air Force flies almost three heavy fighters for one Fulcrum. There are more Flankers than Fulcrums in service with Russian Naval Aviation too. I do not merely think that Russia can afford heavy fighters and that it clearly prefers the type over Fulcrum. It is, in fact, what what Russia does, as do many other countries.


Again: look up "clients with hundreds of planes". Who are those exactly? Cuba? Kyrgyzstan? Yemen? Sudan?
The large number of Fulcrums produced, and exported, is explained by the simple facts that 1) Fulcrum entered mass production earlier 2) Fulcrum was the only Soviet 4th generation fighter to be exported. 3) A lot of second hand Fulcrums were available for bargain sales after collapse of USSR. Most current Fulcrum operators fly second hand fighters.
There simply aren't enough clients for Fulcrum today. Those who can buy Western jets - buy Western jets. Those who can afford to buy Russian jets prefer Flankers. And no, one cannot "upgrade" Soviet MiG-29s to the MiG-35 standard (or even lower tier sometimes) - the differences are just too great.
The countries that bought new built Fulcrums fróm Russia (post 1990) amout to the staggering list of five:
1) Russian Air Force and Navy land-based aviation (what a surprise).
2) Indian Navy. Indian Navy bought (and funded the development of a more modern version of) MiG-29K, not because it is capable, but because it is the only fighter that fits Vikramaditya. FYI Vikramaditya is a rebuilt Kiev-class carrier. A carrier that was based on Moskva-calss ASW helicopter cruiser and was meant to use Forger VTOL planes. Look up the size of the hangar on that ship and read about flight ops on those type of ships. Indian Air Force is supposedly in talks about the new batch of Fulcrums (initial batch was purchased from late USSR, look up reason 2) for Fulcrum export success), but before you decide on whether Fulcrum's amazing value for money merits that I urge you to look up the numbers of Fulcrums lost in accidents. Indian Air Force also operates almost four times as many Flankers as it does Fulcrums. No low-high mix here.
3) Algeria. Algeria bought first batch of its Fulcrums second hand (look up reason number 3) for Fulcrum export success) from Russia and Belarus, and wanted some more. They have famously cancelled their order after initial "new" Fulcrums were delivered, and instead requested Flankers in sxchange, at the rate of 1:1. Algeria now operates more Flankers (brand new MKA that it bought from Russia) vs 32 second hand Fulcrums (which at best yielded some maintnance money for Russia, if even that).
4) Malaysia. Malaysia bought some 18, allegedly brand new (I remain sceptical that Russia in 1995 could build 18 brand new fighter in less than two years, most likely those were low mileage refurbished birds), "special Malaysian edition" Fulcrums from Russia in 1995. And proceeded to retire them from service around 2017, after floating ideas of mothballing those as early as 2010. Malaysia is now thinking whether to buy second hand Kuwaiti F/A-18 or some rand new Flankers to augment their fleet. That's right, another nation that got rid of "cheap" Fulcrums because it can't afford it and wants to get "expensive" Flankers.
5) Egypt. Egypt signed a contract for 46 Fulcrums in 2014. This, so far, is probably the biggest success of the Fulcrum, in a country that buys weapons chiefly as a diplomatic measure, and a country that is also reportedly negotiating the purchase of... some Flankers. See the pattern here?

As for another countries:
Azerbaijan - 12x second hand from Ukraine and Belarus.
Bangladesh - 8x fighters (most likely ex-Soviet surplus). A lucrative customer!
Belarus - 39x, inherited from USSR or donated from Russian surplus. Also has Flankers (!) on order, probably on Russian credit as a political leverage.
Bulgaria - 13x, inherited from WarPac days. Chose F-16s as replacement.
Cuba - 3x, late Soviet export. I bet they paid a 100% fair market price for those. A lucrative customer!
Eritrea - 5x second-hand/surplus. A lucrative customer!
Iran - supposedly 20. Mostly second-hand ex-Soviet surplus they managed to smuggle into the country in the early 1990s, but some ex-Iraqi birds from 1991 exodus. They can't buy new fighters because of the sanctions... but my money is that if they could, they would go for Flankers.
Kazakhstan - 25x Fulcrums inherited from Soviet Union, as well as some MiG-31s and Su-27. Guess which one of those three Kazakhstan bought some more, from modern Russia? 16x Su-30 of course, with more on the books.
Myanmar - 31x, 10 bought second hand from Belarus, and 20 from Russia in 2009, though I don't know if new or refurbished. Let's count them as a lucrative customer!
North Korea - 35x late Soviet export/early Russia shady business practices. No comments regarding the Best Korea as potential lucrative customer.
Peru - 7x, second-hand bought from, you guessed, Belarus.
Poland - inherited Fulcrums from WarPac days and bought some East German surplus of the same source. Now a F-35 club member.
Serbia - inherited from Yugoslavia. Late Soviet export (see reason #2), probably one of the few countries that actually paid for them as opposed to buying them using Soviet "credit". Some second-hand donated/purchased from Russia.
Slovakia - inherited Fulcrums from Czechoslovakia which ingerited those from WarPac era. Chose F-16s as replacement.
Sudan - a dozen second-hand Fulcrums, most likely bought on the reliable semi-official black market of Belarus/Ukraine/Russia in the 1990s. A potential customer!
Syria - 20x listed, most likely much less operational. Late Soviet export. No doubt paid in full with pure gold.
Turkmenistan - 24x, inherited from USSR. A lucrative customer!
Ukraine - some 20x. Not a likely customer TBH.
Uzbekistan - 39x total airframes, Soviet inheritance.
Yemen - 32x. A bit sceptical regarding this one as a potential customer.
My Boi Haftar - apparently got 6x Soviet surplus Fulcrums from Russia just a couple of days ago. I suspect they will act as chief actors is more TAI Anka promo videos quite soon.

As you can see, Fulcrum does not sell particularly well, unlike Flanker - the second most common fighter in the world right now, with more than 1000 built. More than F-15, more than Eurofighter. Absolute majority was built and exported by modern Russia, not given away as military aid by USSR. There must be a reason for it, don't you think? The short answer is that Fulcrum is simply not a good plane, in all the meanings of this word.


That all maybe true but going forward. What does it really mean for either type? As 5th Generation Fighters are coming on fast and will "totally dominate" the fighter market post 2030.

This while Russia only has the less than successful Su-57 Felon... :?

Looks to me that China is the big winner here. As who else is going to offer Stealth Fighters to countries that don't have access or can't afford Western Stealth Fighters. As a matter of fact your list offers several good examples.


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by XanderCrews » 27 May 2020, 02:20

@hythelday

Image

what a post
Choose Crews


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by madrat » 27 May 2020, 03:05

Any Fulcrum aimed at PVO would have been a larger build, so you really never saw the two compete. VVS got their design. PVO got their design. VMF (AV-MF) tried both.


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by mixelflick » 27 May 2020, 13:46

How the Mig-29/SU-27 series wound up is quite ironic...

When the Mig debuted, it greatly concerned a number of Western analysts. And rumor has it when the NATO reporting name of "Fulcrum" was issued, it pleased Mig tremendously. Here was an aircraft that (at least on the surface), could "keep up" with American F-15's and 16's in the thrust to weight ratio, turning fight realm. It also boasted the Archer, delivering a further clear cut advantage in dogfights. It was produced great numbers for Russia, and also equipped Warsaw Pact nations directly opposing NATO countries. For its assigned role, it would have no doubt been very effective.

Meanwhile, the SU-27 stumbled. An almost complete re-design was warranted, and not many reached front line units prior to the USSR crumbling. It's capabilities were largely theoretical, but also considerable - to the point where advanced models have been said to be at least the equal of the F-15 in some parts of the envelope. Still, it was far bigger, more complex and more expensive than the Mig. You'd think (with the exception of China), fewer of them would have sold vs. the Mig-29.

Yet today, the Mig is held in very low regard - at least in some corners of the world. This, likely given its combat record - it ain't pretty. The Flanker OTOH found nice homes in China and India, with other nations following suite (just buying less). It's apparently Peter Goon's favorite airframe, LOL. Over 1,000 have been produced (that was a new one on me).

And the SU-57? Looks dead in the water although as we've just seen, looks can be deceiving...


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by zero-one » 27 May 2020, 16:56

mixelflick wrote:How the Mig-29/SU-27 series wound up is quite ironic...


Well if you notice how things unfolded. what went wrong for the Fulcrum.

1. It achieved no kills in major conflicts and was beaten in a dogfight a number of times by the aircraft it was designed to beat in a dogfight. Even USAF pilots were advised to stay away from it if possible.

2. after the war it was beaten again in Serbia

3. Its bigger, better counterpart the Flanker, had it's issues fixed and was being offered at low prices as well.

For a lot of countries, the Flanker is an F-15, a high end air superiority fighter, and in fact you could say that it is generally better than an F-15C except for Avionics and weapons (According to Col. Fornlof, the Su-30MKI is a tad bit better than USAF F-15s and F-16)

Having a heavy fighter is a sign of national prestige, only the richest countries have them. But now Angola can get 12 units for $1 Billion. by comparison the Philippines is negotiating for 12 F-16 block 70s for 1.1 Billion .


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by mixelflick » 28 May 2020, 15:55

zero-one wrote:
mixelflick wrote:How the Mig-29/SU-27 series wound up is quite ironic...


Well if you notice how things unfolded. what went wrong for the Fulcrum.

1. It achieved no kills in major conflicts and was beaten in a dogfight a number of times by the aircraft it was designed to beat in a dogfight. Even USAF pilots were advised to stay away from it if possible.

2. after the war it was beaten again in Serbia

3. Its bigger, better counterpart the Flanker, had it's issues fixed and was being offered at low prices as well.

For a lot of countries, the Flanker is an F-15, a high end air superiority fighter, and in fact you could say that it is generally better than an F-15C except for Avionics and weapons (According to Col. Fornlof, the Su-30MKI is a tad bit better than USAF F-15s and F-16)

Having a heavy fighter is a sign of national prestige, only the richest countries have them. But now Angola can get 12 units for $1 Billion. by comparison the Philippines is negotiating for 12 F-16 block 70s for 1.1 Billion .


Yes, all valid point. Although I'd suggest that points #1 and 2 hastened its true demise in the minds of foreign customers. China seems to be coming out of this looking real good, having passed on the Mig-29 entirely and embracing multiple Flanker models. Someone should have gotten the memo, provided they were watching what the Iranians did. I've read where they received a small initial batch of Mig-29's, but never bought any more. Reason being, they pitted it against their F-14's and reportedly found it far inferior.

So here we have an aircraft that SHOULD have been able to best the F-14, 15 and 16 given its timing/design goals, but for various reasons - couldn't. Now if those had been Flankers flying in DS/the middle east and elsewhere - things may have been different. As it turned out though, that didn't need to happen - the Flanker won by default. Meaning it didn't need to shoot down American teen series craft, it was SPECULATED it could have done so. Besides, there was no other Russian offering that looked remotely capable of doing so. At least in the fourth generation..

The Mig-25 DID down an F/A-18C (Speicher's), so I'm surprised foreign operators didn't solicity orders shortly after that. Problem being, I believe the Mig-25 was long out of production then (I could be wrong). Frankly, I would have thought more middle eastern air arms would have pressed for the Mig-31. Egypt comes to mind..


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by milosh » 28 May 2020, 20:19

Corsair1963 wrote:Looks to me that China is the big winner here. As who else is going to offer Stealth Fighters to countries that don't have access or can't afford Western Stealth Fighters. As a matter of fact your list offers several good examples.


Su-30 users in world:
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Most of users have problems with China. So only big buyer of J-31 could be Algeria.

On other hand if you look how many Su-30 were sold and most of users will want best possible upgrade in future I expect Sukhoi will in fact made more money through upgrading Flanker fleet, then Shenyang with its J-31 export.

Arab oil rich states could be market for Chinese but that wasn't Russian market so no change for Russians there.

Btw I agree it was mistake not having backup one engined stealth as alternative to Su-57 but Sukhoi controled UAC and didn't allow any alternative to be pushed in fact even when UAE was considering medium stealth cooperation with UAC, UAC was clear first to finish Su-57 then we can start working on smaller stealth, and Su-35 is super duper so UAE could buy it.


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by hornetfinn » 29 May 2020, 12:04

mixelflick wrote:The Mig-25 DID down an F/A-18C (Speicher's), so I'm surprised foreign operators didn't solicity orders shortly after that. Problem being, I believe the Mig-25 was long out of production then (I could be wrong). Frankly, I would have thought more middle eastern air arms would have pressed for the Mig-31. Egypt comes to mind..


MiG-25 did do that, but one isolated incident isn't much of a proof about the capability of the jet. In the right conditions, almost any fighter can shoot down another fighter. For example MiG-17s have shot down F-4s and A-1 Skyraiders shot down MiG-17s. In that incident it seems like Speicher and other pilots didn't even know they were under attack. I do think it was probably the most dangerous 3rd gen fighter in the Soviet Union, but probably also rather expensive and laborous to maintain. By then there was MiG-29 around, which was cheaper and more versatile platform as it was much more maneuverable and had things like HMS and R-73 for WVR combat.

Soviet Union switched from producing MiG-25s to MiG-31s fully in 1984 or so. So new built MiG-25s were unavailable and fall of Soviet Union didn't help either. MIG-31 was probably not available to many countries due to security concerns and it's likely very expensive to buy and maintain.


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by mixelflick » 29 May 2020, 14:05

hornetfinn wrote:
mixelflick wrote:The Mig-25 DID down an F/A-18C (Speicher's), so I'm surprised foreign operators didn't solicity orders shortly after that. Problem being, I believe the Mig-25 was long out of production then (I could be wrong). Frankly, I would have thought more middle eastern air arms would have pressed for the Mig-31. Egypt comes to mind..


MiG-25 did do that, but one isolated incident isn't much of a proof about the capability of the jet. In the right conditions, almost any fighter can shoot down another fighter. For example MiG-17s have shot down F-4s and A-1 Skyraiders shot down MiG-17s. In that incident it seems like Speicher and other pilots didn't even know they were under attack. I do think it was probably the most dangerous 3rd gen fighter in the Soviet Union, but probably also rather expensive and laborous to maintain. By then there was MiG-29 around, which was cheaper and more versatile platform as it was much more maneuverable and had things like HMS and R-73 for WVR combat.

Soviet Union switched from producing MiG-25s to MiG-31s fully in 1984 or so. So new built MiG-25s were unavailable and fall of Soviet Union didn't help either. MIG-31 was probably not available to many countries due to security concerns and it's likely very expensive to buy and maintain.


Yes, I'll concede one incident isn't indicative about the capability of a jet. However, Iraqi Mig-25's put up a hell of a fight before succumbing to USAF Eagles, and in at least one instance outran them (and their Sparrows). It was clear the Mig-25 was the best Iraqi performer (air to air) of the war, and was no easy mark.

If you'll check the accounts of (Dawood?) Iraqi pilot who downed Speicher's F/A-18, its pretty clear that F/A-18 squadron knew they were under attack. In fact, if I'm not mistaken Speicher's wingman (or perhaps an E-2C) tried to warn him a Foxbat was in the area, closing in. Problem being, his ECM reportedly malfunctioned and the AA-6 that hit him did so with incredible force, shearing off his wing tank (and I think other weapons he was carrying). The poor A-6 that the Iraqi Foxbat then ran down certainly knew he was under attack, saved when the Iraqi GCIO told Dawood not to fire - for fear of fratricide.

It was expensive to maintain yes, but in the end you usually get what you pay for. It was big, fast, with a good radar and obviously effective missiles. Not a dogfighter, but here it was dogfighting with F-15C's and giving them fits after it decoyed both Sidewinders and Sparrows. I dunno... to me it did exceptionally well, especially considering all of the advantages coalition airpower had over it/its pilots.


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by milosh » 29 May 2020, 19:29

It look like China is interesting to get next Su-57 engine:
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2020/05/2 ... an-engine/

I can't find source they used for article though.

But if that is true it look like they bite more then they can chew with WS-15.


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