And here comes the Russian aviation fan boy

Lol, the Mig-29 hater is workin overtime i see 🙂

hardly, I already suggested plenty of times for them to use existing mig-29s and get them working again.
but again you don’t want to see that because it doesn’t fit your image of a mig-29 hater

First of all, lets not blow this completly out of proportion. You think 1/3 defence budget is a huge investment for a new AF? Well think again, its not. Look at several of the F-35A importer AF.. man its like 3 times the defence budget. Anyway, what else are Serbia gonna use it on.. their Navy? 🙂

f-35A is expensive and you know that, thats why many air forces are reconsidering it. What they could use it for? Perhaps you don’t know, they have other things such as an army, maintainance, salaries, pensions, other aircraft that can be used on.. you know..everything else to keep a military functioning.

Seriously Bacon, Its a onetime investment for the fly away price, after that is all about maintaining such small AF, with Flight sims, and limited flighthours etc, its not the worst case scenario..

not your money to decide. You already got one serbian poster here who disagrees with the purchase and a serbian news link worried about the financial ability.
Serbia’s economy is no longer the Yugoslav economy.. its only slightly higher than that of Croatia, another country having a hard time fielding numbers of aircraft.

from Serbian news
http://inserbia.info/news/2013/05/serbian-aviation-seeking-russian-wings/

For a modern variant of the airplane “Mig 29″, with mark “M2″, which could soon carry Serbian markings, military analyst Aleksandar Radic does not look as favorable. He believes that for the state and the army would be smarter to modernize existing planes “Mig 21″ and with that buy time needed for quality selection and providing the funds.

“Serbian budget is poor for maintenance and use of modern military aircrafts,” explains Radic. “The exploitation of a squadron would annually swallow at least third of the whole budget of the Serbian Army, which is about $250 million. Company MIG is not able to guarantee supply of parts and maintenance, which would put Serbia at risk and cost of testing the aircrafts and the problems of integration of modern systems.”

The biggest enigma of purchasing new aircrafts will be the payment method, which nobody has officially mentioned. Besides the acquisition of aircrafts is political decision, they also cost. Purchasing new wings with additional content (training, spare parts and equimpment), accoring to experts, could cost up to – EUR 1 billion.

Well, its your opinion, and you are entitled to it. To me it makes no sense to invest in old design and technology when rebuilding for future.

well that’s why you modernize and refurb them and thats what Serbia was doing. India is also doing that with their MiG-29s to last them another decade or two.

If Serbia should buy few planes, they should buy new frames of 4th generation orabove.

Mig-29 is already fourth generation.

Also, you keep saying that Serbia has already mig-29s, and that it should just upgrade more of them. Dude, here are 4. Thats it. 3 refurbished. 4th one .. (someone please fill in)

yup and they can’t even afford to operate those 4, let alone 6 new ones.
as for how many they have total. that’s a good question. They had 16 before the war, then 6 went Kaboom by NATO. Should be 10 left? need a confirmation on this as well.

How long do you think those frames will last. till 2020 maybe. They are old cans now, and they will be good for nothing in 2020. I can’t see even you disagreeing with this. Just won’t be safe to fly them anymore.

better tell that to India and Russia. they think the Indian Fulcrums bought in the 80s can fly 40 more years.

Gripen A/B is only compatible with basic weapons like AIM-120, AIM-9, AGM-65., etc. Not even sure if all versions of those..
Forget IRIS-T, A-Darter or anything of the sort.

perhpas you might be right on a-darter since SAAF uses the C-D

but IRIS-T..

here’s a Gripen B firing IRIS T
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/picture-saab-gripen-fires-first-iris-t-air-to-air-missile-214680/

Temptest 2000,
Not sure why you bring out western missiles as a problem. Serbia is willing to work with western countries. This is 2013 not 1995. Most eastern european air forces are using western things.
also Darter is not western, its South African, in case they really don’t want to go western.

6 Mig -29M2s make s perfect sense (if you can afford it), and a good start. They can add another 4-6 in few years if it becomes possible. The experience, and training, and maintenance Serbian airforce will gain is something to consider when spending money equipment. All that is considered when deciding to buy something after a long break.

it makes no sense
1. mig-29 costs alot more to operate being a twin engined heavier airplane
2. they already have mig-29s, in fact they even upgraded some..and even those aren’t flying. if they can’t afford to fly and fix regular mig-29s, what makes you think they can afford and fly newer mig-29s?

Milosevic’s wet dream :3

Personally, I think the Mig-29K will prove useful in the short-term. Yet, it may not last long if the PLAAF/PLAN can field such 5th Generation Types as the J-20 and J-31 in numbers. Of course the latter is a big question mark at this stage.

what do you suggest for a long term solution?
f-35? some future Russian 5th gen type?
is Russia even making a new naval fighter? would love to see them revive the idea of a stealth yak.

Hmmm…
That is the second crash. The first occurring after the Dubai airshow in 2011.

are you implying that customers should’ve went for the T-50 instead?