Closing at Mach anything makes your aircraft a brilliant heat source and radar reflector. Honestly, I think your F-16 is going to close ranks at 450-ish knots and your average MiG is going to be doing about the same. Your engine sfc is double on wet thrust and if you’re running high throttle its around 4X the fuel usage at best cruise velocity. You’re not closing at Mach speeds if you plan to make it home. Air combat just isn’t done above Mach.

I don’t know why NCADE or Meteor… Or any Western missile for that matter… Is necessary in a thread about strictly Russian fighters. Especially when it concerns Russian versus Russian.

F414 production volume is roughly equal to Typhoon volume. Its 3x the M88 production volume at least, but not a lot bigger than EJ200 production. F110 production volume is most of USAF F-16CJ fleet and quite a few exports, so not low volume by any stretch.

M88-3 is the only design small enough to justify their tight design specs. Unfortunately it’s expensive and like the others, unless they pay for development for suped up versions, each pair just isn’t powerful enough for a 50,000 pound fighter. It’s like they really need a modern Pratt & Whitney PW1120. They are not going to stick to a design using a pair unless they select F414 due really to price and current availability.

It will be strange IMHO if they don’t revert back to one engine like the F110-GE-132 and downscale the whole project. Let’s face it, the F110’s sip fuel compared to the others. The cost is directly relative to the weight. It makes money sense to go the F110. The only better solution is the F135. (Which coincidentally costs what a pair of the others would anyhow.)

If S. Korea truly sees Japan as a regional competitor then it may wish for something using twin F110-GE-132 or F100-PW-229. Japan’s stealth fighter will be using engines in the 33-35K pounds of thrust region.

There is no doubt all three are expensive. F414EPE has the best chance for volume, therefore best projected cost. In reality the EJ200 doesn’t have many future orders left whereas F414 is set for a decade more.

But for one F414EPE you could just have F100-PW-229EEP with change to spare. Or F110-GE-132 with a little less left over. The latter two families of engines have more users yet. There are many more parts in the supply chain. And Korea has experience with both.

A quick look at their images will tell the above statement is not true;

R-33 (490kg)

It’s more akin to MIM-23 than AIM-54 but just IMHO.

So do the volunteers from around Europe bring their own air defence systems to battle the Ukrainians or are they being lent any by Russia?

PANTSIR systems are apparently providing convenient transportation for some Russian volunteers.

There was never any doubt why Russia annexed Crimea. Putin claims secret treaties were broken by the West to justify his re-emergence of old Soviet territories. There has been plenty of work by the Ukraine to counter Buk, but it doesn’t have effective means to defeat the new threat. Let’s not forget a Syrian PANTSIR-S1 destroyed the Turkish Super Phantom with modern countermeasures.

For the price of an F414 you could actually go F100-PW-229. Pity the cost of the airframe redesign.

It’s a shame the F125 didn’t have the same level of technology in it, with an aggressive 11:1 TWR or better. Even F125IN in a pair compares well in thrust, but it would add weight. If each F125 was in the 14-15k pound thrust range a pair would be a good substitute for F414. Hell, with that much thrust per F125 you’d probably see a half-size miniaturized Gripen or indigenous F-5G by Embraer at some point.