http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/russians-go-slow-sukhoi-fleet-in-trouble

The serviceability is low because all the aggregates had to be shipped to Irkutsk for overhaul, who weren’t doing an excellent job of it. HAL has now taken over the overhauling of Su-30s and their availability should now be comparable to MiG-29 and Mirage-2000 which are overhauled in India (around 75%).

To quote from your source:

The IAF and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have rung the alarm bells about the repeated mid-flight failure of the Su-30 mission computer and the blanking out of all cockpit displays. The Russians have not responded to the repeated SOS’ from the Indians for over a year.

Why would the IAF be shipping the mission computer to Russia for servicing, isn’t it actually sourced from India itself, a home-grown product? The same goes for the cockpit displays – aren’t they French or Israeli sourced?

I would hate to sound like JSR, but this statement is a clear nonsense. Compared to which western carrier development? Kuznetsov is second only to Nimitz class currently in service. You may also argue Charles de Gaulle has some advantages because it fields AWACS (E-2) and thats it. Such comparison is also nonsense, as capability is directly proportional with carrier size, but competency is not. Though not seen any action, Kuznetsov carrier is as much competent as any.

This is a nonsensical comparison between both ships. Do you have even a basic idea of the specifications of the Charles de Gaulle: CATOBAR, nuclear power, complement, or the capabilities and specification of the Rafale M it carries?

Tiger was designed as a (sophisticated) tank hunter, and has since looked for a reason to exist (apart from straffing lost talibans).

I thought the Tigre was just as much an observation and reconnaissance aircraft, in the mold of the OH-58, as it was a tank buster? Some versions of the Tigre were never fitted with the cannon if i recall.

Yes that’s what I meant. Tactics & training are the most important factors in AtoA combat. People make a fixation of the F15 kill/loss ratio, but pretty much the same could be said of most Israeli planes when used mostly in AtoA.

Nic

It was only the poster who started this thread ‘mikoyan’ who seems fixated on the F-15’s combat score rate – all you have said in the post above has already been said by many posters in this thread.

Although it’s a good point that you are making regarding the Mirage III successes as well.

indeed…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

Vladimir Bukovsky points out that the middle ground between the Big Lie of Soviet propaganda and the truth is a lie, and one should not be looking for a middle ground between disinformation and information.[2]

Although this is a good quote from your link.

Let’s face it, F-15 was built around qualitative advantages. It was going to batter opposing designs built around quantitative advantages. If the Soviets had moved toward a qualitative model we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

The Soviets moved to the Su-27 – surely a ‘qualitative model’? Do you thing a Su-27 is a cheap plane to purchase and to run?

This.

While the OP is wrong on all of the counts already pointed out, it still is worth putting the significance of the F-15’s combat record in perspective. All too frequently it gets trotted out to bolster claims it cannot logically support – for starters it is an extremely poor benchmark for comparing performance relative to other aircraft. As some posters have alluded to, many factors unrelated the qualities of the aircraft itself played into it – the Eagle’s combat record owes much to meticulous maintenance, lavish information support, as well as the rigorous training and high professionalism of the people which operated it. Put other aircraft in its place with all these advantages available and they’d have produced similar results – as it is, a number of contenders never even got anywhere near the same opportunities (in purely numerical terms) to show what they were capable of, let alone in such favourable circumstances.

What you say above is true, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that a client state of the United States would certainly be at an advantage technologically, as regards military hardware, compared to a client state of the Soviet Union. You can’t compare the F-15, with its APG-63 radar, electronic warfare system, ALQ-xxx, AIM-9L, AIM-7F, Python-3, etc, with the avionics and weaponry of a MiG-23BN – or even a MiG-23MF. A MiG-23ML or MLD might get closer get closer.

it is notoriously known that latest F-16 blocks with higher thrust engines have even worser flight performances than early F-16 blocks, so why arguing with this? When is the aircraft underpowered, when having thrust/weight ratio 1,2 or 1,4?

Sure, the F-16 has gained a lot of weight in the last 30 years and wing loading has gone to hell, but the F-16E is still a performer – without the CFTs at least. I just raised the the issue of the F-16 for illustration – the USAF would never have considered derivatives of the engines which powered their 1970s F-15s and F-16s for their latest 5th generation jets, the power and the tech just isn’t there – and I can’t see how the Russian AF can do the same?