YamaDJ already picked this one up, and he is correct. You aren’t going to be littering the countryside with tanks for long…
Vietnamese boats made from American drop tanks:
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YamaThe Finnish requirement apparently could also be partially met by UCAVs.
Just to muddy things further.
RFI asked for any possible UCAV options, but it’s unlikely any of the manufacturers have adequately capable UCAVs. Two-type fleet option is still studied too, but it’s equally unlikely.
YamaKuz’s arrest wires probably have not been repaired yet, so they launched the planes. MiG-29K’s are probably grounded during investigation.
Yama.
The Finland had not been acquired ground or anti-ship weapons for its F-18 C/D, and most important to mention should be that pilots did not training for ground or anti ship missions with F-18 C/D since 1995 until the early 2000’s.So its were just a political decision from Finland as I have mentioned before, then the F-18 C/ had not been officially dedicated for ground or anti -ship missions until the early 2000’s.
The same political decision would have been applied about the others competitors in 1992 with ground and anti ship capabilities or without it, like:Mirage 2000-5, JAS-39 Gripen A/B, F-16 and MiG-29.
That is all correct, but it wasn’t a political decision but strategic one. FAF was still in Cold War mindset where its 60-aircraft fleet was puny compared to say Sweden with its 400 jets, or USSR/Russia with thousands. It was thought that all fighters would be needed in air defense. There was no political obstacle in obtaining attack planes, as said Fougas and Hawks had attack role. Dedicated attack aircraft were offered to FAF (Lansen, Su-20) and sometimes it was discussed whether FAF should acquire them, but it was seen pointless to sacrifice fighter “quota” for attack planes which would have to contend with enemy air superiority and SAMs (FAF of course had no capability or resources for SEAD).
YamaAnother big problem is that it seems horribly expensive to operate; this was one of the complaints the Swiss had about the Typhoon.
It’s the spares cost. For some reason, it appears to have really expensive spares. It is a same thing with NH90 – it is not complicated to maintain as such, but spare parts are so outrageously expensive that operating costs are much higher than anticipated.
YamaAfter all the talk about Kuznetsov and her tugs.
So now Type 45’s don’t work in cold waters either?
YamaHow does Mig-29K has a bigger radius of action compared to Su-33 ?
Can Su-33 carry external fuel tanks?
MiG-29K carries about 50% more internal fuel than baseline MiG-29.
YamaTrue, but the same applied for the Su-30 and look how far it has made it.. One large user (India for Irkut, China for KnAAZ) and you get the ball rolling..
Finland was not going to get that ball rolling, however. Risking entire fighter strength on untested type with uncertain future was out of the question, such approach was once tried with Gnat and it didn’t work too well. Even Gripen was seen too immature in 1992, plus it lost to Hornet performance-wise too. And Defence Minister at the time was very pro-Swedish.
If Finland had bought MiG-29’s, they would have been similar to Malaysian ones, and likely out of service by now.
edit: MiG-29 brochure from ca. 1995:
YamaI had mentioned this FCMA treat since Finland’s selection came in 1992 after the end of the Soviet Union, once political factors are always preponderant in the military field.
Some details on the treaty:The F/A 18 C / D had been officially supplied from US since 1995 without the capabilities to attack the ground or sea targets even though it were equipped with the APG 73 radar, since that has been replaced the APG 65 in the early F/A 18 , as well as the attack capability has been officially introduced in the F/A 18 C/D from Finland as far I know in the early 2000s.
Yes, I know it says that but it is incorrect, even if it’s sometimes reported in Finland too. Article 13 only banned “aircraft designed primarily as bombers with internal bomb-carrying facilities”. Finnish Hawks and sometimes MiG-21’s carried bombs and rockets, and in the ’70s USSR offered Su-20. Finnish Hornets had all the same ground attack capabilities as US ones, just no weapons, because FAF had no money and no requirement. Since at the time RuAF had something like 2000 combat a/c, it was thought that small number of Finnish fighters would be too busy in a2a to make any ground attack. Of course by todays standards, FAF is huge :p
Most of the Treaty restrictions proved irrelevant as restrictions were often circumvented or simply ignored. The Treaty restricted Air Force to 60 aircraft, but Finns interpreted that it meant 60 combat aircraft, and Hawks and some of the Drakens didn’t count on total as they were classed “training aircraft”. Motor torpedo boats were banned, but the boats were simply reclassified as motor gun boats and did not carry torpedoes in peacetime, and so on.
YamaThe competition in Finland had been started in the late 1980s and involved the following candidates: F/A 18 C/D Super Hornet, JAS 39 A/B Gripen, Mirage 2000-5, MiG 29 and F 16 .
The most important factor about this competition were that all candidates should not have been equipped with ground or sea attack capabilities, because of the FCMA treaty signed with the Soviet Union in 1948.
In 1992 the F/A 18 C/D Super Hornet won the competition, and the version has been chosen by Finland were the most advanced among the F/A 18 C/D in the 90’s, since it had been incorporated the new APG 73 radar that allowed the F/A 18 C/D simultaneously engage 8 targets with AIM 120, as well as a new and advanced ECM system.
In any case, the Soviet Union had not been allowing the multi-role MiG 29M available to Finland under the restriction of the treaty, as well as with Su 27M and Su 30M.
With the end of the former Soviet Union had been suspending almost the entire process of acquiring new aircraft’s since 1991, and only a few programs for Russia would remain as the MiG 29K for the Russian Navy which were the shipped version of the MiG 29M.
Finland has discontinued the FCMA treaty and as far I know until this time the Russia has not expressed itself on this fact, as well as Finland has been introduced the attack capability on F/A 18C/D since the early 2000s.
Paris Peace Treaty had no relevance on the program, since it only banned combat a/c with internal bomb bays (and even that was irrelevant as USSR had already sold Il-28’s to Finland), and German made aircraft. With exception of MiG-29, all participants had pretty much similar ground attack capabilities. Finland simply did not buy any ground attack weapons with the aircraft, because there was no extra money.
YamaI wonder if it had been possible to re-engine Mirage 2000 with M88. Sure it has somewhat less thrust, but it is also 500kg lighter and much more compact, and has better fuel economy. So you would get a lighter Mirage 2000 with much more range.
YamaDoes anybody have any details on the ACF project that the French Air Force originally wanted instead of the eventual Mirage 2000? Like the Mirage F1 the Mirage 2000 seem to have come into existence through the failure of the French Air Force’s original plans.
I think France made a mistake in passing over the Mirage 4000 but I don’t see the Rafale as a mistake. As for a French 5th generation fighter I don’t think the money exists for it unless their government were to invest a lot more in defense.
As I understand, ACF was pretty much Mirage G with fixed wings like F2 and M53 engines. IMO, it was aerodynamically quite old-fashioned and uninspired design.
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As said navalizing Mirage 2000 wasn’t plausible, but there was such a plan for Mirage F1. With M53 engine, I think it would have worked well. However there were two problems: first of all, French military was horribly cash-strapped and SuE was cheaper and hey, Crusaders are still good for few more years…second, French carriers were just too darn small. Even Crusader, which was reserved for smaller USN carriers, required special modifications to be able to operate from them. If Foch & Clem had been just about 5000 tons larger, it would have opened much more options for Aeronavale when it came to combat aircraft. Instead they were stuck with small obsolete a/c which forced everyone’s hand when Rafale came about, since this time they could no longer afford to “skip a generation” and it forced various size, visibility and landing speed restrictions on the design.
Maybe French should have just gone the RN way; dump the catapults, build ski jumps on their carriers and buy Sea Harriers…
YamaI am quite sure that MiG’s MLU incl. extension of the airframe life would not be more expensive than MLU of the F/A-18C without it..
Why would that be? Kind of upgrades done for Finnish F-18’s (land attack capabilities, radio and datalink upgrades, IFF, ECM system, attack pods, cockpit upgrades etc) would probably be even more laborous to upgrade on MiG-29. As said, only thing where MiG would save money was HMS/missile combo.
And it doesn’t address the point that MiG would not only need an MLU, it would have needed an SLU (Start-of-life upgrade)…
No big deal.. It was developed far enough at that time, much further than say Gripen-E at the time Brazilian AF made a decision to get them..
It was not discussed, even very last Russian briefings just before the acquisition decision concerned only MiG-29S (and, rather bizarrely, MiG-31).
However, if Warsaw Pact and SEV had kept going for just a year or two longer, Finland probably would have ordered a squadron of MiG-29’s. Finland was desperate to balance out its bilateral trade with USSR and weapons were one of the few high-tech items Soviet Union could offer to Finland. But the trade system collapsed in late 1990 and terminated the economic necessity of Soviet made weapons.
YamaThere are many problems with that comparison as the flight hours were not directly compatible.. NATO counted flight hours from the time when engines are started to the time the engines are shut off.. On the contrary, Soviets counted flight hours from point of take-off to point of landing, plus taxiing. That has put Russian aircraft into severe disadvantage on the paper, that is why Russians have adopted western methodology to make up the numbers.
The service life of the MiG-29 could be extended twice, upon inspection and approval of MAPO.
Taxing and warm-up have negligible effect on service life, compared to such things as flight and training profiles etc which are more or less unique for each air force. As such you can’t compare across between different AF’s, one end-users 8000 hour plane might last only 4000 hours for someone else.
I was bit unclear regarding MLUs. MLU is an update of the aircraft systems. Finnish Hornets have had two MLUs, in fact: but not an airframe refurbishment, which MiG-29 would have necessited at this point. Note Malaysia, which acquired MiG-29’s and Hornets at same time than Finland, and its MiGs are pretty much shot. Yes airframe life can be extended, but it costs money. FAF has already ruled out F-18 airframe refurbishment as an economically unviable option for H-X requirement, even though it is technically well possible.
Well, FAF were getting their first Hornets in 1995. When someone compares basic 9.12 with F/A-18C, then it’s nothing short of a wonder that the Hornet wins. They should have taken MiG-29M, instead.
MiG-29M was not available when decision was made (1992). What was available were MiG-29SD/SE.
Yamawhat happened:
Mirage 3/5 (2nd gen), Jaguar and Mirage F1 (3rd gen), Mirage 2000 (4th gen), Rafale (4.5 gen). (no 5th gen)In the other thread, a lot of us agreed that the existence of the Rafale pretty much limited the future of m2k evolutions compared to the F-16 and MiG-29 series.
Do you think France should have skipped one generation, for example.
alt 1: M3/M5 -> F1 -> skip M2k and M4K -> Rafale. In this scenario, the F1s would go on a lot longer, with more significant upgrades, until replaced by Rafale.
alt 2: M3/M5 -> F1 -> M2K -> skip Rafale -> 5th gen aircraft. In this case, M2Ks would go a lot longer through more evolutions and rather than a 4.5 gen aircraft, it would go straight to a 5th genthe Navy would have to find a different way to adjust such as using the Super Entendards and F-8s longer, or adopt the F-18C until either the Rafale or the 5th gen came into service in either option. (not sure if the M2K could ever be navalized, although the Skyray and the Tejas N are also delta and could also land on a carrier)
Aeronavale needed a new aircraft. There was absolutely no way to use F-8’s any longer, they were already about 5 years beyond the “This time we REALLY have to retire them” date. SuE in theory could have adopted Mica but would have been quite laughable as 21st century air superiority fighter. F-18 would have worked well from CdG but not so well from old carriers.
The thing is, nobody really expected USSR to collapse and Rafale program to take so long. Deliveries would have started by 1991 and Rafales would replace all old fighters in few years, by 2000 only combat a/c would be Rafales and Mirage 2k’s and France could start looking for their successor. If someone back then had suggested that Super Etendard would soldier on in combat role until 2016, he would have been committed.
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