Yahh I love the Gripen but we don’t seem to have many choices here. The West does not trust us yet and would not give us any of their hi-tech weapons such as the AIM-120 or any other weapons, so forget it, and we probably would get heavily downgraded versions(kind of like Saudi’s did) if we ever bought something from US, and I don’t think it would be much different with Sweden.

Even with that the Gripen doesn’t offer that much better capability than Mig-29SMT even if we got everything with it.

Thats the Su-35.

Tell me, would you either pick an 35mn Su-35/Su-30MKI or a 50mn Gripen or a 70mn Mirage-2000 or a 100mn F-15K or a 70mn F-16blk50 or a who knows how much for an F-16blk60.

I am sorry but no one can beat the Russians in the price/capability. Forget capability by itself.

I also think the fact that they only had 24 MiG-29’s made the fighter irrelevant. 24 MiG-29’s is a lot in many countries, but ot much for a middle power like Germany who operates hundreds of aircraft.

24 MiG’s require additional maintennance and suplly lines, so it males sense to replace them and the F-4 with one fighter.

Exactly, if they had 50 some Mig-29s they probably would’ve kept them, if they had Mig-29s in numbers as many as F-4s they would’ve taken the F-4s out of service. They didn’t take out the Mig-29s just because they were little hard to maintain, they took them out because they didn’t have them in sufficient numbers. Germany has the money, they can easily afford to maintain 24 Mig-29s.

Well, how should an upgrade and maintenance of just five Mig-29 be any cheaper? Romania (with more Mig-29 airframes) has decided against it, why should it be any wiser for S&M?

Even if S&M could obtain additional airframes from other users, the acquisition and upgrade wouldn’t come for free. Further I doubt that an upgrade would significantly reduce maintenance costs.

S&M can’t afford a cost trap in their current situation. Just like Germany, it should try to reduce its current variety to just one multi role fighter plane. Sell or scrap everything else.

If the Mig-21 (which at least would be available in sufficient numbers) can’t be upgraded like in Romania to fill in as a bridgegap, try to lease a few Gripens. I think the Czech Republic and Hungary have decided wisely. The Gripen will be cheap to fly and maintain and fullfills all needs. CZ and HUN are in the S&M league, not a country like Poland, who can obviously afford Mig-29 acquisitions and upgrades as a bridgegap solution.

Here’s sth. that has been written on the Hungary lease decision and the situation in other eastern European countries. S&M seems to be pretty much in the same situation and could learn from CZ, HUN, and ROM.

Are you NOT listening? I’ve said repeatdly and Garry has too that we should get more Mig-29s and then upgrade them all. I’ve never said the upgrade would come for free, of course it wouldnt. I’ve even guessed the possible prices for upgrades

You’ve been told repeatedly, Gripen is a very good aircraft, it’s not expensive or not cheap to buy but very easy and cheap to operate, but what really makes you think we’ll get all the weapons with it like the AMRAAM or other weapons, don’t forget the engines are American too and they can easily block it. It might’ve been good in Czech and Hungarian ways but not really in ours. Don’t also forget it would be also expensive to get all the support and maintenance infrastructure for Gripen when it’s already there for Mig-29s and J-22s. Besides a Mig-29SMT is almost just as capable as a Gripen

Garry,

Okay I agree, when you can do your own complete overhaul, avionics update and get R-73s those MiG-21s will be pretty good and beat any early F-16 deal. But do you think they can get those R-73s? Wouldn’t they just end up with R-60s?

I still don’t see the point in maintaining those MiG-29s, unless you are able to buy more of them, of course. But are they? and still have funds left afterwards for the neccessary overhauls and updates? I don’t know.

Mig-21s are becoming harder and harder to maintain due to lack of spare parts for anyone, why do you think MiG is so keen to trade it’s Mig-29s for Mig-21s, besides an upgraded Mig-21 would NEVER be as capable as an upgraded Mig-29SMT

I don’t understand how this should explain their preference for the Lancer. They just realized that they didn’t have enough Fulcrum airframes and purchasing and upgrading other ones would have been far more expensive. S&M is in the same situation there.

That’s the same reason Germany picked the F-4s, not because they couldn’t afford to maintain the “expensive” Mig-29s but because they didn’t have them in sufficient numbers and refused to purchase more.

The Gripen will ultimately be less expensive than the Mig-29 because of lower maintenance and flight costs. But I agree with you on the Rafale and the Typhoon. They’re out of S&M’s league.

Not only there isn’t a very big gap between capabilities of Mig-29SMT and Gripen, we already have all the support and infrastructure for Mig-29s, geting Gripens would cost even more and don’t forget these things would just be as a stop gap measure so even if Gripens are probably leased they wouldn’t be around for very long and the bottom line is we will probably never get the AMRAAM and other American/European weapons that come with the Gripen, but with Mig-29SMT we get a big array of weapons

Face it: S&M is not Russia’s Israel. Russia is not going to give fighter planes away for free to anybody, not even to S&M. And they’re not going to be “the knight in shining armour” saving S&Ms economy. Politically it would be wiser to “suck up” to Western Europe.

I don’t see Garry saying anywhere Russia would give it to us for free. But I think Russians are friendly enough to us to give us anything we ask for as long as we have the money.

I know

2. The J-22 and G-4 are unsuitable for upgrade for many reasons, one of the outsanding ones being the low quality of production for each type but certainly more evident in the J-22. NB, the vast majority of G-4 crashes have been due to the poor quality of production of the fuel tanks and fuel flow system. This fault is not being addressed by the current upgrade option.

3. I never mentioned that MiG29s were difficult to maintain. However, the J-22 is – and there are certain problems with the G-4 as well.

4. I’m not trying to attack Serbia’s aviation industry – just to take a pragmatic look at the problems and to analyse a way out of them – isn’t that the point of this thread?

Why are they unupgradeable? early Mig-29s were hard to maintain but the SMT upgrade makes things a lot easier, I don’t see why J-22s or G-4s can’t be upgraded. Also remember G-4M upgrade was done in Serbia, and G-4’s combat capabilities are pathetic since it’s a trainer. I would also send the G-4 to Russia for upgrades to let it carry the same weapons as the Yak-130.

I’d say the best option is to get like 120 x MiG-29s from Russia and upgrade it to the top SMT standard , that wud be cheap and also wud be a fine force and can be managed till 2015 to the max or so ……..

I think 20 Mig-29SMTs would be enough as a stopgap measure along with 30 upgraded J-22 Oraos. They would offer much better capabilities than 20 leased Gripens or 20 early F-16A/Bs which would not offer the same capabilities even if we got all the weapons for them, however we probably would not. Not to mention it would require a whole new infrastructure to be built to support these aircraft.

If anything I wouldn’t mind scrapping the J-22 Oraos but having extra Mig-29SMTs. So either 20 Mig-29SMTS+30 upgraded J-22 Oraos or 30-40 Mig-29SMTs.

You could buy 15 Mig-29As for about anywhere from 3 to 13mn dollars, upgrading them would cost anywhere from 1-5mn extra.
It’s not much for such a good capability.

I hope we do the same thing as Slovakia does, good thing they decided to keep their Mig-29s and not buy anything new, however they could’ve, they had the option to buy anything, we don’t but they still decided to keep the Mig-29s because they didn’t have enough money to lease Gripens or buy anything new.

First sort out your political and economical problems before dreaming of costly fighter plane acquisitions. What you now need is counter- insurgence capabilities and just a minimum of air defence. There’s no way to counter NATO anyway, and to keep your unfriendly small neighbours at bay, a few upgraded Mig-21/ G-4s or inexpensive lease bridgegaps will do the job.
Germany retired their ageing Mig-29s first (before F-4) for a good reason: They are a maintenance nightmare.

I don’t think anyone is dreaming of buying brand new 4th generation fighters, we’re all talking about upgrading the current ones.

What could the mig-21s do really? They are too old and too worn out and past their service life and need to be retired right away, there is no point in keeping them in service.

The J-22 is particularly un-upgradeable – the reasons being that it’s nose (housing the nose-wheel) is too small for the installation of a radar, the electronics are outdated and replacing them would mean ripping out everything and starting from scratch, there are serious problems with the quality of construction (as with the G-4) which make maintenance of the structure, bulkheads, fuel tanks etc very difficult. The airframes are old and designed using outdated materials and technologies. In my opinion, upgrading the J-22 is pointless and a waste of time and money. My opinion is in line with that of the Romanian and Yugoslav air forces – neither is even considering a J-22 upgrade programme.

It’s nose is not that small, it can house a decent radar, probably much bigger than Mig-21’s, it can be upgraded I don’t see why not, of course everytime you upgrade electronics you take out the existing ones and you put in new ones, I’ve never heard of anyone say un-upgradeable! Just because J-22 is not that capable now doesn’t mean it can’t be. BTW Romanian AF retired them because they didn’t need them anymore.

Now, we’re all dreaming a bit here, the RV hasn’t, and won’t, have the funds to properly equip itself for a long time and I foresee at least another ten years but probably another 15 or 20 in which SiCG are equipping their RV with stop-gap upgraded, second rate aircraft. I hope that this isn’t the case but my hope is waning.

And thats what I’ve been saying all along, upgrade existing aircraft and won’t cost much and them around 2010-2015-2020 buy something new when economy is in better shape, retiring the aging Mig-21s which are really becoming hard to operate due to even bigger lack of spare parts.

For the role of air defence and deep strike I would chose the MiG-29M2 as an aircraft capable of performing both the roles and being cheap but with no political strings attached. The only draw back of this choice is that the Russians expect hard currency in exchange for their hardware – something that might be a bit of a sticking point for SiCG.

You’re dreaming of new aircraft which is not possible right now.

For the CAS role I would ideally like to see SiCG pushing the Russians to design a single seat Yak-130 with better protection and ground-attack capabilities and allowing SiCG to build under license, or at least assemble this and the two seat advanced trainer variant in large numbers (maybe 100+). Failing this, the MiG-AT would be an acceptable second best (with the added advantage of being able to be linked to the 29M”s). Both aircraft would be excellent lead in trainers for the ’29s and could, if suitably adapted, be good light CAS aircraft.

Finally, the reason I’d choose the MiG-AT or Yak-130 over the G-4 is that I have serious reservations about the latter, even in its G-4M guise. I’d be glad to explain these reservations to anyone who expresses an interest.

As much as I love the Yak-130 and think it’s probably the best trainer around there is no need for a new trainer right now, G-4 when upgraded can serve all the way up until 2015-2020, no need to replace it yet, thats why I suggested after it’s service life runs out make a new trainer, which we could build and some money will probably be available in 2015-2020 when our economy is in better shape.

Mig-29s are not that hard to maintain as some people think, in SCG’s case it was hard to maintain due to arms embargo and in Germany’s case it was harder to maintain than F-4s so thats why they took them out of service. Mig-29SMT upgrade makes things a lot easier.

Like I said, upgrade existing types then buy some more stuff when there is more money in the future(2015-2020) and in the future SCG’s economy should be in much better shape.

You could buy now 15 Mig-29As for anywhere from 3-8mn each, not very expensive and upgrading 20 Mig-29As to Mig-29SMT should be another extra 20-40mn more. Upgrading J-22s would be a bit more, probably anywhere from 30-50mn.

I hate it when people are so anxious to kill our aircraft industry which still has a potential in the future. I think we could still build our own trainers and once had the capability to build even fighters(thats long gone now).
Like I said, in the future buy some multirole combat aircraft, could develop our own trainers to relace G-4Ms and establish an advanced air defense system which is the most important thing probably.

Like i said I doubt we’ll be buying anything really new now rather than upgrading.

I’d go now and buy a few used Mig-29s from Belarus or from Russia, those ones and the existing 5 to MiG to upgrade to SMT, then take a lot of those SMT parts and upgrade teh J-22 Oraos with them, including get new engines and such from US.

Thats why I doubt the Gripen, not only we’d probably not get the necessary weapons with it but it would take more money to set up an infrastructure for them to support them.

Thats why I said, go ahead with the Mig-29 and J-22 Oraos.

I don’t see why should we scrap J-22 Oraos, they have a potential to become good if upgraded correctly.

I would give them new engines, some good radar from Russia, arm it with all kinds of ASMs from Russia including PGMs, arm it with Yakhnot-Ms(anti shipping) and R-73s/77s for self defence and secondary air interception role. These aircraft are already proven. They would already be using similar stuff as Mig-29SMTs. Also I wonder what kind of engines could you put in them? perhaps RD-33/93(anything that could fit)?

G-4s are already being upgraded but they are limited, very limited, after all they are only armed trainers, I wouldn’t depend on them much for anything in combat other than some limited CAS possibly.

So in general I would:
-upgrade G-4s to new standard(obviously they are doing it)
-scrap all the Mig-21s, try to sell them to some African country if not scap them
-buy 15 more Mig-29s and send them along with 5 existing Mig-29s to Russia for SMT upgrade
-upgrade the 20 J-22 Oraos to a new standard
(scraping Mig-21s would save a lot of money)

All this should last until 2015, after 2015-2020 when more money is available I would:
-buy a brand new multirole plane to replace the Mig-29s and J-22s, somewhere either from 30 to 50 new planes, PAK-FA could be vg, we’ll have to see(it should be cheap). Maybe if we get friendly enough with the west Rafale or Typhoon might be bought or anything else maybe like Gripen
-develop a brand new AJT to replace the G-4s, this AJT should be built in twin seat configuration for training and single seat armed for CAS and light strke armed with some anti tank missiles and such to replace the Gazelles for anti tank role and other ASMs(I am not a big fan of attack helicopters but this could be a secondary use of newer trainers)(shouldn’t be that much money)
-when more money is available develop a new modern and high tech air defense system to cover all of Serbia, would be the backbone of our air defense(not the fighters, they would be just to support the SAMs and for interception and anti shipping)
-replace Mi-8s and other transport helicopted with a single type, possibly Mi-35 or NH-90 or whatever and maybe a navalized version for ASW
-maybe replace the Gazelles with a newer attack helicopter, I don’t care which if you don’t want the single seat armed AJTs.

Peru looks really good on paper with their Mirage 2000s and Mig-29s with R-77 and Su-25s and other older aircraft but their pilots are not very experienced in those Mirage-2000s and not sure whats the deal with Mig-29s. Chile’s AF is ok, they have one Phalcon AWAC and some upgraded F-5s and 10 F-16blk50/52 but Brazil in the future will be the best with upgraded F-5s, upgraded AMXs and then either SU-35 Super Flankers or Mirage-2000BRs and they also have some EMB-145 AWACS and EMB-145 RS.

Right now I’d probably put Chile as first but in the future no matter what comes out with FX program Brazil will have a better AF. I really hope they take the Su-35 SF

Btw Malandrao, any news on the FX competition, it looks like its going to be either M2KBR or Su-35, the Flanker being the better choice no doubt.

Of course Oraos are not so good now but if they receive the proper upgrades they will be good.

Not only buying 15 more Mig-29SMTs and upgrading the existing 5 and upgrading the J-22 Oraos would be three times as capable as 20 used f-16A/Bs.

There is no way Serbia will get F-16A/Bs, I guarantee you that, not only we don’t trust US but we’re smarter not to accept it because it would cost more to buy them all over and set up the whole infrastructure to support them.

Why should we get involved in the MAKO project when we could build our own AJTs? The G-4 is an example and in the future we could build our own aircraft, not fighters but around 2015 we will be able to make our own trainer, why get involved in an expensive MAKO project?