Not that it would surprise anyone here. Yet, I believe India’s only real option is the F-35C or F-35B. (I favor the former) As the Naval PAK-FA is yet to be developed and would be 20 years off! Further, the latter is really to big to operate efficiently from the Vikramaditya and/or Vikrant.

So, personally I see little option. Of course India could continue to operate the Mig-29K’s, N-LCA, or possibly Rafales in the future. Yet, all are likely to be outclassed by a number of 5th Generation Types after 2020-2025.

Yakovlev did have a model of a 5th gen looking svtol aircraft.

How so? Can it maneuver ?

jf-17 is not known for maneuvering it’ll be fine

looks like a single mig-29 engine in the butt.
this is basically the unmanned stealth jf-17. i bet the PAF wish they waited for this!

With all this talk about it being pointless for Serbia to have an air force because it surrounded by NATO. What if we have a scenario in a few years were Serbia does become a member of NATO and then hostilities or a minor conflict erupt with one of its neighbouring NATO countries. In this case NATO wouldn’t be able to invoke Article 5, leaving it up to military’s of both countries to defence their interests.

If Serbia was to buy aircraft like the J-7, Yak-130 or Jf-17 as some people are suggesting. These aircraft would be most likely insufficient to defend itself against neighbouring forces which in all probability be operating F-16s, JAS-39 and Old Gen MiG-29 by that time.

If Serbia eventually buyers more MiG-29M later down the track to deploy a fleet of atlest 12 to 24 aircraft. This will give the Serbian air force a good fighting chance over many of it neighbours or at minimum match their capacity.

On the flip side of the coin the Flanker would just be overkill. Why does a country with such a small and mass need a long-range heavy fighter like a Flanker.

Half of Serbia’s neighbors don’t have an air force.
but Bulgars existence alone does complicate it.. now that Turkey is gone, they are facing Serbia was angst.

TR1,

The Russians are certainly interested in maintaining some sort of presence in Serbia (although perhaps not an overtly military presence). That said, Russia is certainly very interested in Serbian security matters – not least because Serbia is the least stable of the countries through which Gazprom is building the South Stream gas pipeline.

———————————————————

More generally, I think some of you are missing the point a little. It could well be true that the M2 is the best option for Serbia but that does not mean to say that Serbia can afford it. No plane or capability is worth Serbia’s economic future at a time when that is threatened more than its military security. I doubt I need to explain in detail to anybody here that, beyond air policing, the M2 is only useful in a full-blown conventional war (in which scenario the small number of airframes calls into doubt its usefulness yet again). Serbia’s main security threat (beyond air policing) is low-scale conflict and counter terrorism against the potentially separatist ethnic or religious groups in the Preševo Valley and Sandžak. MiG-29M2s are of no use for those conflicts whatsoever. A much more useful capability here would be equipping the armed forces (the Gendarmerie and army) to be able to operate at night and in poor weather – something like TI equipped ground vehicles, helicopters and UAVs would be more apt than fast jets. Somebody said the M2 comes with a useful ground-attack capability – I would argue that, in Serbia’s case, that capability is far from useful.

With that in mind, raising debt in order to maintain a capability that would only truly be of any use in the extremely unlikely event of a conventional war against another state (again, Serbia is surrounded by NATO member states) is a hugely risky – I would almost say, potentially dangerous – move when the money could be better spent on supporting locally sourced equipment and training more suited to the country’s threat profile.

your rational words fly over the head of mig-29 fanboys here who just wanna see a shiny new planes. almost all of them aren’t even from Serbia (except for Wander) so they won’t have to deal with funding issues.
I agree.. more G-4 upgrades for you guys until the economy gets into shape and funding permits re-introduction of new supersonic fighters.

Actually I think if Serbia and Croatia aren’t really that interested in maintaining even a basic all weather air policing capability, then outsourcing the function to NATO/Russia would be the smart thing to do.

I’m sure the Russians would love an airbase so close to Western Europe.

Most of the rest of the Balkans doesn’t have any air policing capability and neighbouring countries that do seldom have much more capability anyway.

lets see
Serbia’s neighbors

Bosnia: no fighters
Croatia: dying mig-21 force
Kosovo: no fighters
Makedonia: no fighters
Hungary: 14 Gripens
Bulgars: 16 Mig-29s only. mig-21 to be retired, su-25 grounded
Romania: 12 F-16s to replace Lancers

I could see your point.. very impotent neighbors.. yet 16 Bulgar Fulcrums are a cause for concern, especially the aggressive nature of Bulgar foreign policies.
perhaps Wanderlei is right and Serbia should get a newer better model of mig-29 to counter the older migs..

In the Croatian forums there is discussion of maybe obtaining some of 8 ex-Yemeni MiG-21s that the Yemenis cancelled the overhaul. Two of these 8 were ex-Algerian birds.

The Yemenis originally contracted a Ukrainian firm to overhaul 30 of them but only took delivery of 22 and then cancelled the contract on grounds of poor work.

The Croat enthusiasts are denying the poor workmanship claim and instead are stating Yemen made up the story so they could cancel the MiG-21 overhaul order which became superflous once MiG-29SMT’s were delivered.

By any standard, Croatian fighter force is a pathetic joke. Most of the 10 airframes are unserviceable and there are no pilots qualified for night or bad weather flying.

In a recent bombing exercise, the only pilots qualified to fly ground attack missions were the squadron commander and test pilot.

in other words, they are no different than the serbian af