Originally posted by user
Yeah dont tell me you work in burger King LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh gosh, does that mean you’re going to be bug burgers, BK rival?

Originally posted by plawolf
[B]PILOTGHT:
on the other hand, u have the russians (and chinese/indians) who already had lots of dedicated fighters, but badly needed/wanted percision strike ability. their answer was the su30km. the su30kms were just basicly su27UB trainers with a much refined ground attack ability. and in the mkk’s case, heavier load carrying ability, no doubt at the expence of TWR and manoverability (and thats added onto the UB airframe which was never as agile as the single seat flankers). even india’s mkis that were design as more of a multi-roler then just a fighter bomber will have difficulty matching the TWR and agility of the likes of the su35/37 if for nothing more then the fact that the mki has a second seat.
[/B/

I’m sure you mean Su-30MK, not KMs, there’s no such thing as KMs..

, its not even like i suggested a totally different plane as an alternative. the su35/37 and su27SMS are just basicly the single seat versons of the mki and mkk respectively. if u still dont like it, then why not compare the twin seat versons of the rafale with the MK?s and see what the outcome would be.

The Su-35/37 is NOT the same thing as the MKK or MKI. The Su-35/37 uses a different air frame with different materials being used as well as a slightly different radome area. The MKK shares some of the building components, while the MKI uses the larger radome.

I too think this is a good comparison.. keep in mind that the primary aircraft the Rafale was inteded to replace were the Super Entendard and the Jaguar, both were ground/sea oriented, and the MKK also being ground oriented. Export wise, we see the French pushing the 2 seater version .

Originally posted by ELP
When you are talking about maintenance I hope you don’t mean to imply that the MiG-29 is even an equal of the F-18, I just don’t see that happening. Jets like the F-16, F-18, Mirage 2000 are very advanced in the maintenance/ ease of working on the jet. You want to do an engine change competition between an F-18 and a MiG-29 and the 29 crew will loose. Unfortunately the manufacture and customer support of the MiG-29 has never delivered much on the promise. The ” Oh those are ‘A” models, ” excuse doesn’t wash. If the MiG-29 was such a superb combat system, more countries would buy them. The producer of the jet has shot themselves in the foot more than once.

From an F-16 maintenance person-

“I’ll start by saying that the F-16 is much easier to maintain than the examples you compared. I spent 6 months at Transient Alert at MacDill while the 56th was transitioning to Hill AFB Utah and I got to see a Mig 29 up close. We had two of them actually and thats how I got an up close look at their construction. I was shocked to see that there was no logical ordering of panels on the Fulcrum, everything looked like it was just patched and thrown together. We all noticed it right away.

The Russian pilots told us some horror stories about the training and abilities of there maintenance teams, they complimented us on our professionalism and knowledge of aircraft.

The F-16 was designed to be easily maintained and flown in all weather environments. Ask any Crew Chief and they will tell you “Give me a speed handle, a screw driver and a rubber mallot and I can fix it”. Its not quite that simple but every panel on the F-16 can be removed with a speed handle, and most of the components are LRU or line replacable units, you just open a panel and replace a malfunctioning unit, good examples of LRUs changed by Crew Chiefs are Engine Start System Controllers, Main Engine Control(MEC) on GE powerplants.

So overall there is no comparison of ease of maintenance between the F-16 or the Mig 29 . The F-16 wins hands down.”

———

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/MiG-29-2b.htm

———————————-

This is an excellent read on how, before you sell something in the big leagues, you better have some credibility on customer support, which the MiG-29 saddly lacks….

“This is why the Austrian defense minister rightly observed that maintenance costs would end up canceling out the savings made on the cheap purchase of the planes. “

http://www.avia.ru/english/articles/doc6.shtml

———————————

http://www.fabulousfulcrums.de/NEWS/Presse_Schweiz_01.htm

As for the air to ground weapons comparison, there is none, The Hornet wins hands down on having a wide variety of proven all weather, inexpensive systems. Add to that, The air to ground radar and computer integration is certainly farther ahead.

Lastly A2G man machine interface: Since the A model of F-18 the pilot has had the ability to easily switch between A2A and A2G with the sensors and switchology and make things work. Yet Jets like the SU-30 and MiG-29M2 are still 2 seaters. Why is that? Well, the Russian industry still hasn’t found a workable model ( computer avionics man-machine interface ) to have one crew member weaponeer PGMs and A2A in a ONE SEAT jet.

Oh yeah, Also call me when the MiG-29M2 can do all weather bombing up to the level of the F-18C (single seater) A Glonass, GPS like varient of the KAB-500 is a step in the right direction. Now convince me that Glonass is reliable and secure.

Why is this important? Inexpensive all weather strike.

Good luck.

Very interesting Elp! How bout the Flankers.. Is the maintenance and life air frame stories similar to that of the MiG-29?