Did India learn how to upgrade MIG-21 it is 5 year old story.
Sokol Aircraft factory officials at Nizhnyi Novgorod in Russia have begun openly criticizing the “economic logic” of an upgrade program for Indian MiG-21 fighters.
Sokol officials are “smarting over the fact that [their] plant will upgrade only two MiG-21s…as against the 123 India will produce under the arrangement,” according to a report from Moscow.
Although it is on the Indian design team, MiG-MAPO may share in Sokol’s fears that the Indians will exploit a generous technology transfer agreement with Russia to undercut Sokol’s own marketing efforts in Southeast Asia. The industry has watched as foreign retrofit specialists have turned venerable MiG products into more attractive aircraft for the export market. Now, they ask themselves, are the Indians to join the field?
“Once [the Indians] learn how to do the upgrade, there will be no stopping them offering their services to other countries,” Vladimir Metyolkin, a Sokol marketing official, complained shortly after the first two MiG-21s in the Indian program rolled out from Sokol’s factory to begin flight tests.
The upgrade has been delayed more than a year, and its original cost of $370 million is expected to be exceeded, partly because of delay and partly because the exchange value of the Indian rupee has fallen against the U.S. dollar.
The head of the Indian air force’s MiG-21 upgrade team, Group Capt. Anil Chopra, would not be drawn into the conflict. He said recently it was “premature” to say how good the new fighter will be until “we see it flying.”
The design and integration team includes MiG-MAPO, France’s Thomson-CSF and Israeli Aircraft Industries’ Elta Electronics subsidiary and Ashdod. Although Indian air force observers are overseeing the work, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), which built the MiGs under license, was not invited. It will carry out the upgrades after the Russians complete the flight test program in 1999. HAL will use documentation and kits prepared in Russia.
The upgraded MiGs will carry a Phazotron Kopyo (“Spear”) radar and be able to carry a variety of missiles, including the Molniya R-60 and Vympel R-73 close-range air-to-air missiles, Vympel R-27 and R-77 medium-range air-to-air missiles, and the Kh-25 (or X-25) air-to-surface guided missile. As a result, the MiG-21 will be a cost-effective multirole fighter “with clear advantages in the export market,” according to Metyolkin. He worries that Sokol will lose this advantage under the technology transfer agreement with India.
Ironically, a lack of orders prompted Sokol “to agree to the unfavorable terms of the Indian upgrade contract.”
Aerostar and Elbit launched an upgrade package for the MiG-21bis at the Farnborough air show this year which is an improved version of the modernization kit offered for the Romanian air force’s MiG-21MF Lancer program.
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