Russia sends only two or three aircraft to the show and one of them is the An-12? WTF?

When any of those countries are actually willing to spend money on such an upgrade – which they aren’t. Russia isn’t, as I’ve already pointed out. Name me a country which is in the market for such an upgrade.

If one looks at MiG-29 operators, you realise that most have small numbers & not much money. Those with any money plan to spend it on new aircraft, not MiG-20 upgrades.

There really isn’t a market at all, let alone a huge one. A large number of aircraft in service is not the same as a large upgrade market.

Moral of the story: It’s good to have a large number of rich friends than a small number of poor ones 😀

Of course it is a major and costly operation, but so is the SMT/SMT2 upgrade. No reason why it could not be done.

I’m not saying it can’t be done but exactly that installing a new gen radar into an old plane isn’t PnP, ante was making it out to be.

The way you make it sound, no major avionics system on any combat aircraft would ever get upgraded, you are particularly exaggerating the effort required to install new LCD MFDs – I suppose the Indian MiG-27 upgrade was a miracle?

The Indian Mig-27s don’t have radars… which makes things much less complicated and cheaper…

BTW, the N-G SABR AESA is designed precisely for refitting of older F-16s, which is why it is sized to fit a standard Falcon radome, rather than the smaller, slanted F-16E/F nose.

Exactly! The SABR is [b]designed specifically[/b] for older F-16s. Is the Zhuk-AE [b]designed specifically[/b] for older Mig-29s? BTW, the SABR retrofit will require an upgrade on the display systems to fully take advantage of the radar’s capabilities 😀

The Zhuk AE in MIG 29 would be like fitting a new processor (along with new board and memmory if required) into an old ATX cabinet.

No.

Will the existing cooling system be able to handle the requirements of the Zhuk AE? If not, need a new cooling system. Will the electrial system be able to handle the higher output of the AE? Might need a new electrial system. Can the generators handle the load of the new cooling system and new radar output? Might need a new generator. Can the existing engines output enough power to the generators and put out enough thrust to balance out the weight increase of the newer cooling and electrical system?

Can the existing display systems handle the output of Zhuk AE? Most likely no considering all legacy Mig-29s are analog dials and a bare minimum CRT radar output screen. So, basically an almost complete gutting out and replacement of the entire avionics would need to take place since one needs to make space, power and cooling budgets to accomodate the backend stuff that makes the LCD displays work. etc..

We’re talking millions of $$$, possibly 10s of millions of $$$.

The way you make it sound is plugging in a new radar into a 20 yr old frame is like me swapping out my stock speakers in my hoopty for some JBLs. Easy peasy, an afternoon’s work… No.

India torn between East and West in multi-role combat aircraft contest

Note the ventral radome

my prediction is the Russians will ask for even more money and the Indians very willing to pay it.

I hear that the Indian delegation won’t be given chairs at the meetings. They’ll just be provided with barrels to bend over on…

I call BS, it doesn’t exist on that site or any others

It’s in the printed version for this week. Or at least will be when it hits the stands.

Still, the story itself can be BS as that author has made some major reporting errors in the past.