Russia has already upgraded (or is in the process of) 130 MiG-31. I wonder if there are many more B/BS aircraft in storage or the upgrade is targeted to BMs.

Interestingly, bulk of the Viper sales are still your Daddy’s Block 50/52 with the good old APG-68(V)whatever while all AESA versions (exportable Block 70, F-16IN, F-16V) just don’t seem to attract much attention. Hard to assess the real cost but I’d say that two dozens of Block 50s incl. a modest stock of PGMs and AMRAAMs would cost you ca 2 billion

Maybe it is due to other reasons. The US would have to approve the sale, and it is not always ready to export such advanced equipment (Iraq did not even get AIM-120). It is also likely that most customers cannot afford versions with AESA radars yet.

The calendar given in airforce.ru was:

– 4 in 2016
– 10 in 2017
– 10 in 2018.

On topic, is there any indication of when construction of the Il-106 is likely to be started? I know they are still refining an updated design, but I was reading that it was just announced that no more An-124’s are to be constructed. The plant will only deal in overhauls.
I would imagine this is sufficient for a few years, but will this mean the Il-106 will probably need to be placed on a path where it comes to fruition a bit sooner perhaps?

According to general director of Ilyushin, Serguei Velmozhkin, Il-106 design will be ready by 2022-23, serial production would be after that. I have compiled the information on this aircraft in my blog, see below:

http://alejandro-8.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/futuros-desarrollos-de-ilyushin-y.html

Payload is 80-100 tons, which is less than current An-124.

Not everything has to be multirole.

What surprises me is the statement that upgrade would be prohibitively expensive… I don’t know why it is such an issue in EF-2000.

From Paralays: apparently an unfinished fuselage left over.

A while ago I read in an article (maybe by Mladenov or Butowski) that 2 fuselages were left. However, other sources state that unfinished samples were completed years ago. I am surprised the one in the photo was not. Also, the photo looks old. Any current mobile phone could get better resolution.

I’d personally cut back on tactical birds (from MiG, for example) and focus on moving in the UCAV direction exclusively with them.
Also buy Chinese UCAVs and copy them for now.

The issue I see is that in the long term MiG could struggle without orders from VKS. In the last few years a few contracts have been signed, but no customer for advanced MiG-35 with AESA/advanced engines.

Don’t forget that the users said they’d rather stick with CAPTOR than have some of the AESA radars on offer, because it’s such a good radar. Some of the time taken to get an AESA on Typhoon is due to the users demanding that they don’t lose some of the performance of CAPTOR by moving to an AESA.
Plus it didn’t cost them as much money…

In really it is down to funding. Representatives of the consortium have clearly stated that without an AESA radar, Typhoon won’t be getting any export contracts. Trying to sell a top fighter with a mechanical radar is not going to take you anywhere.