Saturn offers AL-31F re-engine program to MiG-23 and MiG-27 operators

Gen. Dir. of Saturn, Yury Eliseev, has announced at the Farnborough Airshow in Great Britain that a new engine will be used in modernized MiG 27 fighter bombers and MiG-23 interceptors. The AL-31F is 450 pounds lighter than the R-29B-300 used previously, and have 20% more thrust than its predecessor only using 15 percent less fuel. They’ve already found customers as the Indian Air Force will modernize at least 60 of their 150 strong MiG-27 fleet.

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Seems like this was a pretty natural evolution for the MiG-23/27 programs, since the MiG-21’s and MiG-29’s are all getting modernization programs. The MiG-23 has widely been junked due to the belief it was too outdated to go up against more modern aircraft. They should of held onto them and followed India’s path – add digital weapons suites to them. This deal should be good for Saturn since there were 5,000 of these old beasts produced and over 70 countries around the world bought them. Even 1% rate would be worth billions.

Some possibilities come to mind:

* If they make this move then perhaps vectored controls could be added; suddenly they turn into supermanuerable swingwing fighters
* MiG-23K/27K (naval versions) would allieviate shortcomings in performance India had in comparison to MiG-29K.