I always wondered what ‘world’ Russia belonged to after the USSR break up. Used to be second world.

Whatever relevance the nomenclature once had pretty much disappeared with the Soviet Union.

And yes it would be a mistake to consider Russia in the same category as China and India. Russia is far wealthier on a per-capita basis than either of those nations, both of which continue to have significant proportions of their populations – hundreds of millions of people in each case – in grinding poverty. That’s not to dismiss issues of poverty in Russia, or the great strides that both India and China have made in this area over the last several decades – indeed, China’s development has been described as ‘the largest poverty reduction program in history’ – but they really are different ball games.

Either way with the advent of PAK-FA I just don’t see there any potential RuAF interest in a smaller, less capable, two engine aircraft, especially a foreign one.

New, larger engine to serve both a prospective middleweight fighter and PAK DA?

Late addition: they might actually have ended up passing altogether on F-35 if it were too delayed/too expensive and they already had an aircraft capable in the strike role.

Super Hornet isn’t as capable in the strike role as Rafale/Typhoon? :confused:

IMO F-35 will suck an inordinate amount of money out of defence budgets and risk reducing the overall defence capability of countries.

That would certainly be another advantage of opting for a limited additional Super Hornet buy over the F-35: could probably afford to squeeze in a fourth AWD and ensure the P-3C replacement program (P-8 + Global Hawk) gets the unit numbers it needs. Maybe even another A330 MRTT or two!

The same country who might be interested in buying russian fighters TODAY is facing the option of buying either a bunch of flankers, or two bunches of fulcrums. That option won’t be there in the future. That’s my point.

And if it was there they wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway, just as they can’t afford to buy, maintain, equip, upgrade and fly modern Flanker/Fulcrum variants right now. Nations like Uganda have no real airpower future, that’s just the way it is.

and possibly another 24 soon. LOL

Oh, do tell?

The problem with larger aircraft is that they provide limited option to potential customers and limited customers in whole. The world is not exactly full of Indias and Chinas.

So it would make equally perfect sense to have a smaller, cheaper and easier to operate fighter in your “palmare” so as to provide more options against your competitors.

Problem is a lot of nations have been priced out of the game in any case, and most of those that haven’t are either part of the western sphere, pursuing their own programs, or both. You could probably count the list of prospective customers for a hypothetical medium-weight (not like anyone’s going to be pitching a truly light-weight fighter with internal bays) fifth-generation Russian aircraft on one hand: Iran, Vietnam … who else? I’m pretty sure Russia is counting those two as prospective PAK FA customers anyway.

If Russia was really interested in pursuing a new middleweight fighter (and it might not be a bad idea to stagger such a thing, optionally manned, for entry into service in mid-late 2020s) one idea would probably be to join up with AMCA. Only question is if Russia would be willing to play the role of secondary partner for an Indian-led program.

I’ve asked this question before, if a Mi-26 crashes a too high an altitude, how are you going to lift it out if it’s too heavy for even another Mi-26 to lift?

Break the V-12 out of storage. 😎

it would be great if MIG stars work on new light fighter,which even VVS has expresed need of it

Really? Given the enormous distances in Russia, the modern trend towards larger aircraft, the rise of unmanned platforms, limited state funds and the lack of Cold War or equivalent pressure Russia’s current near-exclusive focus on heavy fighters makes perfect sense to me.