Flanker has never been “fighting” to exist, MiG-29 has been since the early 2000s.
Flankers have been the preferred aircraft almost since their inception…
Now funding for their programs is a different story but it’s sure as hell more reliable to get that than if it were a MiG-29…
you can read how “Fun” was the development of Su-27, it’s avionics and engines. Engineers literally fought for survival of this aircraft.
I mean compared to mig 29. Everyone wants flankers, there’s more flankers in service than mig 29. Basically every single mig29 project died other than 2005 mig29m while flankers have been successful on the export market.
In this scope i to agree, because Su-27 is pretty much MiG-29+ in terms of functionality. MiG-29M could have a solid chance, but…
Yeah true, but like after it got off the ground it’s been way better off than the non-stop blunders like… MiG-35… MiG-29M/K 9.15/31… MiG-29SMT 9.17 and 9.18 (The latter only having literally one customer)…
Like the only MiG-29s to have some success is 9.19, 9.12/13 and 9.41S at this point…
and there’s about a dozen in between all those mentioned…
if you look only at production versions - yeah, i agree. But by looking at unrealised potential for greatness - Flankers had so much just wasted by simple fact of Russia having literally nothing in terms of money and technology after the fall of USSR.
Because of sukhoi protectionism.
MiG-29 doesn’t really offer anything that Flankers don’t offer already. So i am not sure about protectionism actually having an impact on that.
mig re branding their plane for the 20423th time to try and sell it to someone
Surely mig 35 is not a reskinned mig29m!
Well, to be fair internally it recieved some neat stuff. Airframe itself… depends on who you ask.
tbh the only one that recived something unique was the one of version that was for the Indian MMRCA competition with the integrated OLS-K and Zhuk-AE, all other versons are just rebadged 29Ms
All i want is Su-27M 710 with 2 al41f1 which is single seater but canarded, without the irrelevant heavy electronics (like khibiny) or the heavy RAM
boy would you love my suggestion (it’s been pending for over 2 months now)
gaijin please!