dear mnatt.
the reason the dreamliner is of not use as a bomber (unlike the B-52) is simple, look at the wings, high wing on the B-52 and low on the 7E7.
you want the whole fuselage as usefull space, so you can fill it up with your payload, so the answer is to design it with high wing (wich is in turn attached to each other via a wing centerbox filled up with fuel, wich also in the case of a low wing, uses a lot of precisely that space you want.
in the case of the B-1, its another type of construction, to have a low wing, and the wing centerbox is in this case hollow, so as to put payload and no necesarely fuel as on a comercial jetliner, nor B-52, also limiting its range.
there are many more reasons still, thats why you wont see any jetliner doing such a job.
i hope this helps 🙂
Camaro.

on top of that, i believe the sistem arms via a “ground control relay” or whatever name they use for it, which means that only with gear up you can arm the weapons systems.
Camaro.

as our good friend aerospacetech (our avionics man here) said, russian radars are still behind western radars, not by far but still behind, they would have catch up but the lack of funding has and will keep them behind.
as for the Sukhois, remember that they are 2 diferent missions, the Su-22 its an “interdictor/strike” and the Su-25 is CAS, upgrades on the Su-22…what do you mean? a radar perhaps? no use as far as the mission, it is not a fighter in the sense of the Mig-29 or similar, its designed to attack very fast at very low altitude, deep behind enemy lines and destroy whatever surface equipment they have, and get the hell out of there, it has to be escorted because its self defense and maneouvrability are limited.
the solution FAP has chosen seems to be keep Mig-29 as a pure air to air, for multirole is enough with the M2000, so upgrading the radar to N-019M1 (not sure) was all they needed, transforming it into SMT would have been overly redundant not to say hyper expensive. 😮
between the M2000, Su-22 and Su-25, they have everything they need for the diferent surface targets they might choose, so all that was left was a pure air to air weapon to protect them, the Mig-29 as it is, is the answer they want, and seems to be the logical solution (mr. spok) 😉
Camaro.

but dont get me wrong, the migs are flying and they all can fire the R-77, upgrading the radar was done about a year or 2 ago, that’s all it needed, besides the mods on the center and outer wing pylons. 😉
by the way, they have shown the R-77 once and it was because of a politician who didnt know about the implications and consecuences 😮
thrust me, you will never see them displayd again 😉
by the way, those are R-27 and R-73 dummys (not the real thing)
Camaro

cool pics man, but about that missile with the grid fins, 😮 what was that?
Camaro

yeah! what about the SMT?, its been a few centurys of talking and talking and still havent seen no SMT in service with the russian air force, it really feels that mikoyan is being punished for something.
does anybody knows anything about (SMT)?
thanks guys.
Camaro. 🙂

😀
that guy on the video…sure left a nice and big brown line in the back of his underwear 😮
what a mess
Camaro 😀

yes my friend, thats exactly the kind of attitude that has Mikoyan about to face death, to me it was too late when V. putin kick the idiot’s a$$ out from mikoyan (i dont remember his name) after all the damage he has done.
in Peru we have both as well (M2000 / Mig-29 {9-13}, the Fulcrum-C proved to be much better but the spares supply was the most ineficient ever thanks to the same idiot and we were forced to buy 3 new to fix that, and still…it isnt half as good as the western way, its so simple and yet so hard to see for some “managers”, “i dont care who the hell you bought Migs from, you want parts? i have got plenty” therefore i assure labor for my people and money coming in, you want western avionics? i’l help you doing it and maybe i will learn something new to pass to my avionics guys, isnt that what i want?.
in any case, i wish the best to our Indian friends, may the choice the make, be the best.
Camaro. 😉