UAE hasn’t just placed an order and waited up until LM develops what they asked for. On the contrary, Emirs have paid the development from their own pockets. A big difference..

At the times UAE have placed the order, the APG-80, too, was not available. It’s Emiri money that made the APG-80 happen. It’s a tribute to F-16 and Mirage 2000 that UAE found it worthy to pay for newer versions – but let’s be serious, every other major aerospace company could have achieved the same or similar under that circumstances.

But the APG-63(v)2, APG-77, APG-79, APQ-181 existed, and no other aerospace company was as close to having a functioning AESA radar. They weren’t sitting on the technology waiting for an investor. They were having to catch up.

Even the F-22A traded its supercruise capability for a better endurance and related tactical freedom in general, because high-up the ordinary strikers are not to find, that situation was limited to a former Central Europe scenario to engage high-performance fighters high up operating close or behind the own SAM-belt.

There are other advantages of supercruising w/o afterburners though- minimizing IR signature, while increasing weapon kinematics. It also makes the envelopes of approaching weapons smaller when it’s not a head on shot.

The A-10 will be in service till 2025-2030, so it not as if F-35s will be used in the same manner.

The typical reason given is that LM says that it doesn’t(however LM uses M1.5 as their threshold as opposed to >M1 like everyone else uses). I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to assume that the F-35 can exceed M1 on dry thrust, considering that it can reach M.95 at ~40% throttle.

Sure.. If UAE has opted for a new F-16 version just five years earlier than they did, the Block 60 would not have APG-80 today but some hypothetical APG-68(V)12.

It is a question of money, not capability. If today Egypt said they wanted a new MiG-35 and financed the whole program, you would be having series 35s with AESA radar of whatever type you choose in 3-4 years.

No rich vendor = no new version.

What you’d have is an entirely different aircraft with the same name though. The Russians could’ve skipped -29 and gone straight to -35 when the first Fulcrums came out, but it wouldn’t be the same aircraft. Even the systems that are on the demonstrator model aren’t in production status yet, much less having anything comparable years ago.

How about a comparison of a typical USAF F-16 vs. a typical Mig-29 in any other air force?

So the notion that the old Mig-29 was difficult to is a Western propogated myth at the same time the Mig-29 did not perform any thing other then pure AD role.

It was propogated by folks that had flown Western aircraft as well, and were used to the ergonomic advantages. Why do you think the newer Russian designs are putting so much effort into more ergonomic cockpits, and FCS? If there wasn’t any disadvantages to the way they had done things in the past, there wouldn’t be the need to correct the deficiencies.