What are Mig-29s good for in 2023 and beyond?

What are Mig-29s good for in 2023 and beyond?

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  1. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Still good to intercept AMRAAMs.

  2. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Intercepting AMRAAMS with its fuselage

  3. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Museums, metal scrappers, raffle giveaways, there is still a lot of value in these frames.

  4. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    To be fair you probably could replace its bad engines with the F414 or F404, the avionics with the same avionics as the F-18.
    It would make sense if you want a MiG-Hornet hybrid as they are similar aircraft. The problem of the MiG is its avionics and russian engines, that aren't good.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      There's no way that'd be easier than building new planes
      Almost every Mig-29 airframe in existence is over thirty years old, just let it go

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Though lacking severely in the avionics and engines compared to their western counterparts, they're still good against other slavshit which is what slavshit-armed forces can usually expect to face. Use them if you have them, otherwise, don't.

        This. Also, to my knowledge only Russia, Ukraine, and Best Korea can build or extensively overhaul them, so not the most reliable partners to be dependent on.

  5. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Mig29s are sexy, one has to admit.

  6. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    They're good but held back by shitty russian engines and avionics. Sadly it will not be worth it to upgrade them when cheap surplus F-16 are going to flood the market once euro countries get their new F-35.
    Their ability to use rough airstrips or roads is great and better than the F-16, though. A good reason for Ukraine to get a bit more mileage of them during this war.

  7. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Until recently, if you were outside "the West", Russia was your only option for something that could approach western planes. This gave them a edge in foreign sales that performance and price alone could not justify.

    Today? China almost caught up to Russia technologically and they have advantages in domestic production, market access, lack of sanctions, and so forth. Secondary countries are building their own designs or developing planes cooperatively (SK, Japan, Turkey, etc..) and all of them are aggressively seeking additional partners and export customers at the expense of Russia. Steady customers like India have been unable to get planes because of sanctions, internal Russian production issues, loss of performance competitiveness, and have also moved along to western suppliers.

    Besides internal production issues and sanctions, Russia doesn't have the internal market to support the kind of civilian sector needed to fulfill their appetite for engineers and profitability. Their foreign sales, downsizing, and government subsidies allowed them to keep their design bureau alive the past 30 years, but they weren't able to get the SU-57 production online without a substantial foreign order which hasn't happened. Without continuing development, their planes will become increasingly backward compared to even secondary players + China

    I have sincere doubts they can continue without massive government subsidies and orders. That kind of support will only help them produce a fleet of increasingly obsolete airplanes, not stay current in a competitive sector. I recently read that the SU had 900K scientists working for the state in various fields and Russia has been reduced to around 70K. If they had problems before, you aint seen nothing yet.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >China has almost caught up to Russia.
      They passed them like 15 years ago by most accounts. Better EW, better A2A, better PGMs, actual LO aircraft, actually producing aircraft in large numbers, actually producing 1 (soon 2) 5th gen fighters. Engines were the one thing they might still be weaker on and even that is getting dubious.

      China might not rival the US any time soon, but it has surpassed Russia.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >They passed them like 15 years ago by most accounts
        I mean, I'm willing to give that in the current day they have broadly surpassed the Russians but I don't know about 15 years ago. That would have been about the time they were at the very beginning of their J-16 development program. At about the same time Russia was entering "full" production (yes, its Russia but they also were producing double digits a year so its not nothing) of the Su-34.
        I think you'd be better off saying 10 years which I'd still quibble with and push for 5 but at least then you'd have a defensible position.

  8. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Russia a shit, but I like this little migger like you wouldn't believe.

  9. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Like f16s they’re cheap and reliable bomb trucks once air supremacy has been established by the real homies.

  10. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Is Mig-29 good for you?

  11. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    There's honestly not much wrong with the actual aerobatic performance etc of the Fulcrum, it's very manoeuvrable, fast, and even has nice STOL characteristics which can be very valuable - as far as the raw numbers that concern purely the airframe, it's in the same ballpark as most comparable Western aircraft and even better in some areas. It's really just the dogshit avionics and dated weaponry that let it down, which is a huge deal. In theory a modernised version (eg the Mig-35) should actually be pretty decent, but if you're considering the Mig-35 that means you're buying Russian, and if you're buying Russian you might as well just pick up the Su-30 instead, which is in the same ballpark as to weight and capability but is more proven and has better economies of scale going for it.

  12. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Target practice.

  13. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It can ram enemy drones

  14. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Africa and South America (including Caribbean)
    I don't even mean that in a disrespectful way, just due to the low availability of combat air power in those areas a Mig-29 would still be an incredibly useful platform, even a complete gamechanger in some scenarios.
    Look at Haiti or Somaliland or Sudan, would do great work there.

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