70 ancient F-16s which US wont let them upgrade to MLU nor will they give them AIM-120. What’s the point of having AIM-9 armed F-16s which would be never able to even survive Mig-21-93s in any sort of fight. It’s just better to invest in FC-1 or something like J-10.

I think it’s an excellent option, those standard F-35As would be suitable too to do CAS like F-18s, F-16s and A-10s were but except F-35Bs can operate from anywhere really.

But yes, F-35B armed with SDBs/JDAM and doing CAS from medium level or infact any fixed wing aircraft is imo much better than attack helicopters in the CAS role. Really the advantage of helicopters to operate from anywhere is gone with F-35B. I bet if US Army could operate fixed wing aircraft, they’d operate alot of F-35Bs.

Typically Russian engines have lower life and are higher to maintain than their Western counterparts, especially when it’s pushing the state of the art hard(for it’s time). However the thing with Russian engines is that they’re much cheaper to build. Though even Western engines can sometimes be very problematic and a bitch.

I think the best bet for MiG would be to make a single engined light fighter with the same engine as the PAK-FA will be using, it would be much better commonality and this would make it alot more attractive to RuAF to buy. I don’t think RuAF will ever in teh future buy something like they did two rather heavy twin engined fighters like they did back during the Cold War with Mig-29 and Su-27.

Maybe Russia is really into oil, but maybe not, but if they really were, do you think they would ever let other countries like Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan who have large oil supplies ever have independance if it was all about oil?

I too thought that the acquisition of both of Mig-29s and F-18s for Malaysia was a bad choice, they should’ve just stuck with one of them. And now they will add a third type to their maintenance problem and even the less maintenance friendly Su-30MKM. Sure it’s capable but three fighter types + the Hawk is not easy to maintain and especially in lower numbers. Besides Thai AF is mostly Western oriented with Western style support infrastructure, adding something like the Flanker will be costly.

If they are scared so much of Indonesian, Indian, Malaysian and Viet Flankers, why not just get some S-300PMU2s or invest in S-400 and deploy it in critical points in the country where the Flankers would come from. A few S-400 batteries could cover the whole country and give Thailand unsurpassed ground Air Defense system.