who said the F-14D is NOT a good modern fighter? With the Phoenix, it can probably smack around just about anything in BVR like it did in Iraq-Iran war. The upgraded Mig-31BM/M will give ANY fighter a run for it’s money when it starts smacking them around with R-37s and R-77s at BVR. Even when it’s at a higher altitude it also has even a bigger advantage. The F-14A proved itself in Iraq-Iran war at how effective it was. There was NEVER probably in history where an interceptor was more effective than the F-14A in Iraq-Iran war.

Also why do you say “typical of communism”? What does it have anything to do having a specialized interceptor for destroying bombers and cruise missiles on Russia’s vast North?

I doubt it’s exactly stalled in development because anything technical rather than lack of funds for now. Considering Mi-8s can serve for some more time.

It’s actually funny that the SU-30Ks did not simulate the R-77, but the R-27 only. I don’t even think they can carry it. I know Su-30MKs and MKIs can, but I doubt Ks can, though I am pretty sure that they enver simulated the R-77 even if they could.

And also the Su-30K is just a souped up standard Su-27, and not much. This article is bunch of crap.

Yes but I am just not sure about if the Mig-31 is actually worth it. Against something like an Su-35 it holds no significant advantages in terms of payload, number of hardpoints, it’s just much faster and can fly higher. If you wish you can integrate something like the R-37/M onto a Flanker you can pay the Russians to do it. Mig-31M’s Zaslon-M is not that much better than the multirole N011M

The real disadvantage is that the Mig-31 is probably much more expensive to operate than the already expensive Flankers, just consider Mig-31’s running costs/h, it has almost twice as bigger fuel load than the Flanker which already has a large fuel load. Mig-31B’s fuel load is something like a 16350kgs. It also seems more complicated therefore more expensive to run. It’s on top of all probably a lot more expensive to buy.

What about other GPS like the European Galileo or the Russian GLONASS? Does US have control over those?

Yes but when you look at F-35’s payload and range, it certainly cannot match the F-111. However when you considering attaching a really long range cruise missile on it like JASSM then it can strike pretty far.

Actually the air launched club is a subsonic sea skimmer until last 20kms it speeds to m2.5. I think with a 1600kg launch weight, a Mig-29M/K/SMT should be able to carry 2 comfortably, depending though on it’s hardpoints load. Their max payloads are something around 5500 & 5000kg. I highly doubt they’d be able to accomodate more than 2.