Korea has never operated a non-US fighter and I don’t think that’ll change now.

About the only country that is a potential buyer of Rafale or Eurofighter in whole of East and SE Asia is Malaysia.

The rest are all either firmly with US or firmly with Russia and have been for decades.

Personally my money is with F-15.

how about taiwan?.

The MiG-29K being sold to India is a modernization of the MiG-29K initially developed in the 1980s-early 1990s for the Soviet/Russian Admiral Kuznetsov* (and Varyag, which ended up sold to China).

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how is that modernization of MIG-29K from 1980s?. Can you modernized F-18C to F-18E?

Fundamental differences.
1. MIG-29K has 5 wet stations.
2. 4 weopon stations per wing.
3 enlarged fuel capacity to 5000kg.
4 RD-33MK engines. Cannot be installed on legacy fulcrums.
5. quad digit FBW with no mechanical backup.
6. 6000hr airframe life. It alone needs different structure and materials. legacy Fulcrums can only be modernized to 4000hrs.

It has higher top speed, ceiling than Rafale/F-18E. and this was created on very paltry sum of money. converting a land based fighter to Naval is not a big deal now considering past experiance and money. the rest is done by supercomputers.

There is 90% unification in MIG platforms. so i dont see so much difference. Its a very minor development issue in overall context.

What’s the latest on A-40 MPA/ASW — is this definitely going ahead?

As for Fulcrum for Air Force vs. Navy … realistically Russian carrier capabilities are still in skills maintenance mode; the objective with MiG-29K was to get fresh airframes at low cost; RuAF is now operating in a higher gear. It will only be from mid-2020s that we see the true emergence of Russian carrier capability, with multiple new carriers (at least two, hopefully three) paired with new aircraft, i.e. LMFS.

PAK-DA, upgrade to bomber fleet, air refuellers will practically delay or abandoned the need of carriers. Hypersonic missiles will need larger aircraft . and modern BMD ships are much more effective in area defence.
2 to 3 carriers means realistically only one in operations with medium size short range aircraft. no even enough to deal with Libya.

How so? Do you seriously believe they entered into a contractual obligation, knowing full well they are actually NOT able to meet it?

How dumb do you think they are? The Russian aerospace industry went there once before, with the same customer no less (the infamous Il-76 contract) and the result was and continues to be a disaster. One would hope they at least learned their lesson well enough not to repeat this mistake!

so what if contractual obligation cannot be met?. you are not dealing with some bankrupt country waiting for this one contract. there is lot of contracts there is slippage. and no one provide advance fighter on the fly. they have to be sufficiently customized for customer. it takes long time. even BAE will supply Eurofighter after 5 years to Oman.

As I said above, I can only hope they weren’t stupid enough to REPEAT a mistake which is so basic that there is really no excuse for making it ONCE, let alone after having made it before.

Aviation products are highly unique. there would be delays and cost overruns. there is no such thing as sticking to deadlines. Even standardized products like B787 takes time to meet deadlines.

There’s nothing wrong with 24 MiGs per se – but not in the air force, where they will be logistical and infrastructural orphans to a large extent. Unless a certain minimum threshold is exceeded, it is more cost effective to just buy more of whatever Flanker version the service sees fit. Same story with the Su-30SMs for the navy, which really belong with the air force in favour of more MiG-29Ks.

How do you know there will be only 24?. what about repeat order. RSK MIG has to support world wide MIG-29s and MIG-29K. It is not cost effective to buy Flanker they dont have that capability. MIG-35 TWR is no worse than SU-35. It is high agile aircraft for aircombat. It cannot be compared to bomb truck like Su-30SM that require two seats. AESA radar alone provides 60 target track. One aircraft can provide battlefield picture for whole regiment for silent attack. Its ground survellence modes have super SAR mode with long range survellence for SSBM/MLRS attack. Its different level of electronic functionality for medium size fighter.

Be careful what you wish for. I would venture to say that so far, everything I said on that topic has proved to be sound, even some deductions which were shown to be, if anything, on the conservative side and generous toward the Il-476. Even I would not have expected the Y-20 (which I correctly predicted to have superior aerodynamics and cargo hold cross section) to be rolled out and flown only a few months behind the Il-476, for example. Similarly, one of your favourite arguments used to be to ask why China didn’t take over the languishing An-70 project (to which the answer of course is that Ukraine could not allow them to do so without support from Russia, who in turn had every reason NOT to consent). Well, it turns out that Antonov does appear to have lent every bit of assistance to the Y-20 based on their An-70 experience that they could without recourse to Russia. Short of actually taking the project over (which, as stated, was an impossibility), China did precisely what you claimed they didn’t (and the absence of which, according to you, proved the inferiority of the An-70), going further than even I had anticipated. All in all, it is hard to see how the real facts could have turned out to be even more at odds with your fantasy arguments than they actually did – you have been refuted comprehensively.

Trust me, in terms of your credibility you would do well not to draw too much attention to your track record in that debate.

Chinaese need to fly alot of thing to show off. how many L-15 you have seen in operatational regiments the lowest denominator?. Y-20 had flown but it does not mean it can be operational withall reliability and safety. Its dysfunctional aircraft with oversize body and tiny engines. It will remain in flight tests for long time. (where is your An-70 engines on Y-20?). where is modern production line of An-70?. and where is the signed order An-70?. IL-476 got decent size order right after second flight.

you are right, its over 10 years not 20.
mig-29k is a recent export order (as in within the last 5 years).
UAE is considering Rafale, they are Arab.

It is not over 10. as MIG-29K was sent to IN starting in 2009. IDF F-16 starts around 2004. Now days aircraft development is measured by its electronics/engine power supply/standoff weopons integration. it is long time UAE considering Rafale. once they sign it and actual deliveries start than we will see. by that time MIG-35 will be further modernized.

Other thoughts regarding this MiG contract:

– Skat revival: GOOD! I thought Skat was a surprisingly competent design, development of which should never have been interrupted in the first place. Rather than subsidising the MiG-29M airframe which had pretty much missed its window of opportunity on the international market by 2005, when the Eurocanards started to become realistic prospects, this UCAV should have been pursued aggressively.
– MiG-35 order: Pointless IMHO, especially in such pathetic numbers. 24 additional MiG-29K for the navy would be far more useful, or spend the money on giving the batch already on order the best possible avionics fit (preferably both!).

It’s sad really, when the MiG-29M/K failed to catch on in the late 1980s and early 1990s it put MiG on the wrong foot, and that appears to have remained so ever since – always coming a step too late with certain projects and being too slow to adapt. Sukhoi’s much cited political clout may have contributed, but there’s no denying that the company was also severely mismanaged in its own right.

what exactly late with MIG-29K/MIG-35. It is reasonably priced. Both have stronger engines/radar and better loaded flight performance than F-16CFT/Rafale. There is very good export prospects provided production line can made them faster.

We’ll have to see. Training athletes for the Olympic games is a little different than the preparation for national defense. It is a question of priorities. My $$$ is on Israel. Selling weapons does not give the customers the ultimate ability in using them.

we can discuss in some other thread. It is not about priority but the scale of money and mental/physical determination to win against countries on large scale gold medal tables that employ multi ethinic teams. There is no reason for them to lack of on Pilot training including introducing thrust vectors/ even higher G limits. and even more standoff weopons, bigger jammig pods, more engine power supply, more long range variants of R-77 that are not exported.
Limited population and limited budgets cannot achieve this thing. Israel simply don’t have that much choice should Russia make a stand.