ike said before, it was a total surprise to everyone that F-18 was selected, so after all these years there is still some confusion why F-18 was selected. Some say there was supposed to be some deals between US and Finland after the Hornet deal, and others claim that F-18 was selected

IIRC another reason was the fact that it had 2 engines and was safer to fly… Other reasons have been already given above (multirole).

On one hand, I tend to agree about the MKI part. I will never, ever claim MKI approaches to Su-34’s performance in strike role. Cockpit design, armor, range and nearly 22 tons of useful payload is clearly far ahead of what Su-30 is offering at the cost of less maneuverability.

Radar is also optimized for ground attack missions.

However, MKI was operational in 2002, Su-34 deployment took another 10 years.

Yes, but back then the RuAF was still struggling with finances. While Su-30MKI were exported, RuAF was offered Su-30KN upgrade, a much more simple variant. Work on Su-34 started back in the late 80s, thus quite a bit of work was paid by former USSR.

Russia was way behind the US before the fall of the USSR. Since then it hasn’t had the resources to close the gap significantly.

Su-35 airframe life is similar to EF-2000. Yes, USSR collapse had a massive effect on aviation industry, but Sukhoi has exported a huge amount of Flanker variants, which enable funding of more advanced versions. IMO the gap is more noticeable in thermal sensors and Link-16 style devices.

back then (in the past) the aesa set was on on a helicopter, now (in the present day) it is in a Typhoon…..

How many Typhoon in operational units are equipped with AESA radar? 0. currently one aircraft is involved in trials, but there isn’t yet a clear commitment from the consortium countries to acquire.

In indian MMRCA Typhoon scored overall better notes than MiG-35, F-16E/F and F/A-18E/F with AESA radar. Technical evaluation in Leh was a true challenge for competitors, not a paper BS. Same was true for Rafale at that time. AESA gives some advantage, but is not a magic toys.

AESA radar was one of the conditions of the contract. Eurofighter consortium was allowed to demonstrate their AESA radar mounted in a helicopter as it is not ready for installation in aircraft. The consortium is clear about this: without AESA it is going to be really hard to get any contract. And the clock is ticking because production for existing customers is not going to last forever…

the Mig-29AS radar has been planned to be overhauled/slightly upgraded sometime ago , but bcs of of poor airworthiness there are bigger problems that need solving first. The WZL-2 N019EA low cost upgrade is reputedly giving twice the range on big rcs targets and much higher reliability, but with the same missile combos as baseline 9.12A. Hoping to receive some info about the upgrade from service soon, but for air patroling tasks only it is more than enough. The N019 radars have already been modernized the same way in Ukraine and Belarus.

I thought the upgrade had been quite sucesful, and RSK MiG guaranteed 70% availability of the Fulcrums. Ukraine and Belarus have developed simple upgrades, but you would expect better results dealing with official manufacturer.

Gunship and means of transportation for a cheap nickle..?

I would assume that the time for delivery is far shorter…