Let’s not exaggerate their purchasing capabilities.

well maybe not 480 sure, but a lot more than 48…

China is a big country with a lot of territory to protect, what are they going to do with 48 Su-35s, surely an order for 480 planes would be more their style?:confused:

It was a successful design, and spawned many upgrades, including the conversion into a carrier based a/c,
not many can claim that

not the original T-10 design from 1977 it wasn’t.

What about McDonnell Douglas F-4 or the same company’s F/A-18?

Polish F-16 not completely reliable ?

Lack of spares grounds Polish F-16s

But how many Polish AF F-16s have been lost to crashes, compared to IAF Su-30MKI?

But it’s not fair to victimise the Su-30MKI. Hasn’t the IAF also lost a pair of Hawk trainers, which have only been newly delivered?

So the RNAF F-16s are not reliable either then?

Dutch F-16s are ancient. First delivered in 1980 – most of them must have at least 6,000 hours on their airframes?

There were enough F-4Es in the USN and USAF to deal with any threats to operation Nickelgrass, and I’m sure that they were more than good enough to deal with any aircraft the Syrian air force. Why would the Americans rush into service an aircraft which just isn’t ready? The MiG-25 interceptor variant wasn’t more combat ready in the Soviet air force.

Ah, Levsha, Levsha, do you have any clue what is written on those pages, not sure why pointed out both, when only the first one is describing mishaps and crashes of all Mig-23(U, BN, MF, ML) in former Czechoslovakia. You can count 9 crashes within 25 years of service, just three of them due to a/c malfunction. Does it speak for poor safety record of Mig-23 at all? Try to do some comparison with the Red Eagle praised Mig-21.:rolleyes:

Ah, martinez, martinez, where did I say that both web pages was just one long list of MiG crashes?:confused: Even I would not try to say that the MiG-23 was that bad!;) The crash list is under “Bilance provozu” (I did use Google Translater) – 10 MiGs were wrote off in service. 5 pilots, in all, died flying the MiG-23. 2 planes were lost in a collision, 2 were wrote off without any attempt to repair them.
Is that a bad record?
Well, martinez, the main reason why I also posted the second page of the article is because it both completes the list of all MiG-23s which have served in the Czechoslovak air force, but also it gives a figure on the number of hours flown “nalet” by each aircraft. It would appear that each MiG-23 flew an average of around 90 hours a year during the cold war and that most of the aircraft had flown over 1000 hours at least. Total flying time of the MiG-23 type in Czechoslovak service would be around 80,000 hours – but feel free to provide a more accurate figure!:)
That would give an aircraft loss of 1 for every 10,000 hours or so?:confused: It’s certainly a lot better than the Indian AF record, who have lost dozens of MiG-23s and MiG-27s in the last 30 years.

But!

Compare all of the above with the Royal Danish air forces experiences flying the F-16 since 1980, only 2 or 3 years after the Czechoslovak AF began flying the MiG-23. By 2009 the RDAF had completed 250,000 hours on the F-16. http://www.flickr.com/photos/62389760@N06/6777949777/

Here is a record of RDAF F-16 losses: http://f-16.net/aircraft-database/F-16/mishaps-and-accidents/airforce/RDAF/1/ Only 2 RDAF pilots have ever died flying the F-16 (in a collision). 4 were lost in collisions, 1 was lost to a lightning strike, 4 or 5 were lost to mechanical failure.

Is the MiG-23 three times more dangerous and unreliable than the F-16?

Chapter 2 – MiG 25 RB Foxbat X YF 14A Tomcat II in
The Yom Kippur War

Why YF-14?
I believe that production of regular production F-14As had been in production since 1972 and certainly many USN pilots had converted to it by October 73 – even if they had not been carrier qualified on type?