This is surprising. 70% of RuAF MiG-29s unable to fly

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090206/120014354.html

MOSCOW, February 6 (RIA Novosti) – At least 200 MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters, or 70% of the total in service with the Russian Air Force, are too old to take to the skies, a Russian business daily said on Friday citing military experts.

Following a MiG-29 crash in East Siberia last December, the Defense Ministry admitted for the first time that Russia’s MiG-29 fleet was mostly outdated and not capable of performing combat duties.

The crash was the second in East Siberia involving a MiG-29 fighter in less than two months. In mid-October, a MiG-29 fighter crashed 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Domna airfield during a regular training flight. The pilot ejected safely.

Lt. Gen. Sergei Bainetov said on Wednesday that all aircraft of this type were thoroughly inspected after the crash and the probe revealed “traces of corrosion on the tail unit of some of the planes.”

Only 30% of the MiG-29s were allowed to resume flights after a month-long suspension.

The Kommersant daily said in an article on Friday that experts believe the aircraft, which was developed in the 1970s and supplied to the Air Force between 1983 and 1993, has become obsolete and needs to be removed from active service.

In the past, the Russian Air Force rejected radical modernization of MiG-29s, choosing the upgrade of Su-27 Flanker and MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors.

The production of new MiG-29s at an assembly plant near Moscow was stopped a long time ago, and in the 1990s Russia built the aircraft mainly for exports from assembly kits inherited from the Soviet Union, Kommersant said.

Even though Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport has promised the Defense Ministry that it will deliver in the near future 34 MiG-29SMTs, rejected by Algeria, to the Russian Air Force, these aircraft will not be able to replace 281 MiG-29 fighters currently in service.

Russia’s first fifth-generation fighter will make its maiden flight by the end of this year, but it will take at least five years to finally put it in service with the Air Force. Meanwhile, Russia may not be able to operate about a third of its fighter fleet, the paper said.

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is in charge of arms procurement, said on January 20 that Russia’s fifth-generation fighter must be commissioned with the Air Force by 2015.

The first bolded point makes it sound like the MiGs are too old to perform combat operations at all. The second points out corrosion as the problem–not obsolescence.
So is the MiG-29 obsolete and unfit for combat duty or is it just a case of old, rusty airframes?

Is there any merit to this story or is it just the media blowing something normal out of proportion? Make no mistake, I know the MiGs are old, but so are the USAF’s F-15s.

But on the effectiveness front, I think it may be time for the MiG to take a bow. Personally, I think the RuAF has less of a need for the MiG-29s in large numbers now that the combat needs have changed. The Su-27 and its derivatives along with the MiG-31 are very fit to take the role of air defense and with the advent of the PAK FA in the next several years, I think it will get better.
The MiG-29 as a front line fighter really has outlived its usefulness. Small numbers of SMT and other upgraded variants should be kept as needed, but as I’ve said, the MiG-29 as a whole is just taking up space and resources in the RuAF.