PILOTHGT

I had that very photo in mind when the 2000lb weapon issue was mentioned. GBU-10 and GBU-10I are 2000lb -/+

The SAAB site shows some good progress on A2G. The SPICE is especially attractive. I would like to see it with a bunch of SBD’s

The Enhance dual use Paveway GBU-12 would be nice too.

Originally posted by flex297

I have spent two years creating the Unveiled Secrets’ MiG-29 multimedia CD, talked to the pilots, technicians and even designers, took part on several major overhauls and I know its + and – and pretty much what I am talking about. I truly hope this reply will end the brainless debates about Fulcrum’s (in)capabilities which come mainly from the US side here. To all the folks who never seen the thing better than on some picture downloaded on the Internet, please stop playing smart, stop dissing, you know a sh*t about the real thing. At present time it is possible to get and to maintain approx. three Fulcrums at the price of one Hornet (flyaway+maintenance), I think there is much more value in three MiG-29s than one F/A-18. This is pretty much everything I wanted to say.

Flex

When you are talking about maintenance I hope you don’t mean to imply that the MiG-29 is even an equal of the F-18, I just don’t see that happening. Jets like the F-16, F-18, Mirage 2000 are very advanced in the maintenance/ ease of working on the jet. You want to do an engine change competition between an F-18 and a MiG-29 and the 29 crew will loose. Unfortunately the manufacture and customer support of the MiG-29 has never delivered much on the promise. The ” Oh those are ‘A” models, ” excuse doesn’t wash. If the MiG-29 was such a superb combat system, more countries would buy them. The producer of the jet has shot themselves in the foot more than once.

From an F-16 maintenance person-

“I’ll start by saying that the F-16 is much easier to maintain than the examples you compared. I spent 6 months at Transient Alert at MacDill while the 56th was transitioning to Hill AFB Utah and I got to see a Mig 29 up close. We had two of them actually and thats how I got an up close look at their construction. I was shocked to see that there was no logical ordering of panels on the Fulcrum, everything looked like it was just patched and thrown together. We all noticed it right away.

The Russian pilots told us some horror stories about the training and abilities of there maintenance teams, they complimented us on our professionalism and knowledge of aircraft.

The F-16 was designed to be easily maintained and flown in all weather environments. Ask any Crew Chief and they will tell you “Give me a speed handle, a screw driver and a rubber mallot and I can fix it”. Its not quite that simple but every panel on the F-16 can be removed with a speed handle, and most of the components are LRU or line replacable units, you just open a panel and replace a malfunctioning unit, good examples of LRUs changed by Crew Chiefs are Engine Start System Controllers, Main Engine Control(MEC) on GE powerplants.

So overall there is no comparison of ease of maintenance between the F-16 or the Mig 29 . The F-16 wins hands down.”

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link below
So in general, lessons learned from this first out-of-country operation of a Russian front line fighter were:

1. The MiG-29 had intensive problems in operation and maintenance since its induction due to premature failure of engines, components, and systems. 74% of the engines failed within five years, were out of supply pipeline for three years, and reduced aircraft availability by 15, to 20%. This led to a decision to restrict flying efforts and therefore compromised operational and training commitments.

2. There were significant shortfalls in the performance of the MiG-29 fleet resulting in operational and training inadequacies. The shortfall ranged from 20 to 65% in respect to combat aircraft availability and 58 to 84% in trainers between 1987 – 1991.

3. There was a mismatch between induction of the aircraft (1987) and the establishment of its repair facilities (end of 1994). Until that time engines had to be continually sent to manufacturers abroad at great monetary cost, reduction of one-half total life, and a significant stretch of schedule.

4. Non-availability of critical radar components and spares resulted in the grounding of significant numbers of aircraft. Five aircraft were out of action for over six months while two were in the hanger for over two years. Unserviceability of computers and the inability to fix them cost excessive amounts of money to rectify.

5. The pilot debrief Ground Data Processing Unit, imported at high cost, was left lying around unserviceable and unused since its reception in August 1990.

6. The lack of nose wheel mud guards had to be solved by importing upgrade kits and expensive local re-design after material deficiencies could not be overcome.

With a regional support capability in place (regardless of how tenuous it was) and having one of the few respectable MiG-29 operating legacies, the Indian aerospace companies, especially Hindistan Aeronautical Ltd. (HAL), and the InAF became natural partners for MAPO in consummating the sale of MiG-29’s to Malaysia. They were offered the opportunity to get involved with providing training and logistics support for the new Malaysian MiG-29 program. India, of course, gives greater credibility to MAPO in convincing customers that the MiG-29 is a viable fighter candidate for Pacific Rim nations. It remains to be seen, however, what solutions the new joint venture brings to the Indian Air Force problems.

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/MiG-29-2b.htm

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This is an excellent read on how, before you sell something in the big leagues, you better have some credibility on customer support, which the MiG-29 saddly lacks….

“This is why the Austrian defense minister rightly observed that maintenance costs would end up canceling out the savings made on the cheap purchase of the planes. “

http://www.avia.ru/english/articles/doc6.shtml

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The Hornet’s low maintenance needs – one flight hour equals about 25 man hours of maintenance work – added to the high operational status throughout the exercise. In this field the German counterparts were in for a challenge, since one MiG-29 flight hour requires no less than 80 man hours of servicing.

http://www.fabulousfulcrums.de/NEWS/Presse_Schweiz_01.htm

As for the air to ground weapons comparison, there is none, The Hornet wins hands down on having a wide variety of proven all weather, inexpensive systems. Add to that, The air to ground radar and computer integration is certainly farther ahead.

Lastly A2G man machine interface: Since the A model of F-18 the pilot has had the ability to easily switch between A2A and A2G with the sensors and switchology and make things work. Yet Jets like the SU-30 and MiG-29M2 are still 2 seaters. Why is that? Well, the Russian industry still hasn’t found a workable model ( computer avionics man-machine interface ) to have one crew member weaponeer PGMs and A2A in a ONE SEAT jet.

From Aviation week not too long ago

Singular Demands Russia’s Sukhoi discusses lessons learned in struggle to develop multi-role single-seater

Russia’s leading fighter designer, Sukhoi, is using the difficult experience of its moribund Su-27M development effort in revisiting a multi-role version of a single-seat Flanker.

Sukhoi is now working on the Su27SM upgrade of the Russian air force’s basic Su-27 Flanker B, and five upgraded aircraft are due to be delivered by the end of this year.

The Su-27SM is a key element in the air force’s upgrade program until 2015. The aircraft will eventually be replaced by whatever emerges from Sukhoi’s fifth-generation fighter effort.

The single-seat Flanker B was designed only for the air-to-air role, but the manufacturer is putting together an upgrade package which will allow the platform to be used in the air-to-surface role also.

Senior Sukhoi sources have been candid in their appraisal of elements of the previous Su-27M program, and of its impact on the Su27SM effort.

“One of the main tasks we faced, and a contributory factor to the end of the Su27M program, was the problem of how to create a single-seat multi-role aircraft,” a senior official said.

The Su-27M, also known as the Su35, was a major modernization of both the airframe and avionics. Initial development of the program was underway by the early 1980s, and a first prototype flew in 1988.

Developmental and production standard Su-27M/Su-35 aircraft were eventually test flown from the air force’s Ahktubinsk flight test center, and more recently from the air force training center at Lipetsk.

For the air force pilots, however, this was a “negative experience,” in terms of their ability to use the aircraft as a multi-role platform, the official said. “The pilots were not able to use the aircraft armament in an efficient way.”

Oh yeah, Also call me when the MiG-29M2 can do all weather bombing up to the level of the F-18C (single seater) A Glonass, GPS like varient of the KAB-500 is a step in the right direction. Now convince me that Glonass is reliable and secure.

Why is this important? Inexpensive all weather strike.

Good luck.

They have lost around 22% of their F-16s.

Thats what happens when you try and run stuff on a shoestring budget.

Yeah if any of you have to explain stuff to news types: print or TV, better leave out the Block numbers and just use words like newer models and older models etc. Other wise the TV producer will be yacking in the TV persons ears: “What’s all this ‘Block’ yabbering? Breaking for commercial in 3… 2… 1 … ” 😀

Bock’s Car Please:cool:

As the Rafale just got setup with more and more usefuel A2G stuff, the French carrier is very very useful.

As for the UK cutting more stuff, My unimportant opinion is that people need to rise up and fire some politicians. They have to know that their job is at risk if they keep raping the military. The politicians should be put to task to display a visiable stance on: “cut the military: yes” or “cut the military: no”, So the voter knows exactly who to vote for.

Some good points. I disagree slightly with the early part of it. If you have the technology to field massively dominant airpower technology like the F-22; do it. It isn’t about parity, its about having the latest usable tech that you can field.

I don’t think you are going to see a lot of heavy stuff put on the outside of it, even though they did a bit to prove the new F/A-22 moniker. Reason? Wing life. No one is going to put adverse wing life flying hours on such an expensive bird. Use it for air domination and door kicking SDB work. Once a campaign out lives the usefulness of those type of strikes, send the jet back home just like you would a B-2.

Kind of liked the last part in a way. I would rather see legacy design jets like Block 60 F-16s to fill needed ranks rather than JSF. I would prefer that JSF was minimal USAF and mostly USN. I wish that would happen, but unless somebody makes some excellent transformation moves, I guess not.