Business Insider India has updated its Privacy and Cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the better experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we\'ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Business Insider India website. However, you can change your cookie setting at any time by clicking on our Cookie Policy at any time. You can also see our Privacy Policy.
7 photos of the MiG-35, a highly maneuverable fighter jet that Russia hopes will keep the MiG corporation in business
7 photos of the MiG-35, a highly maneuverable fighter jet that Russia hopes will keep the MiG corporation in business
Daniel BrownDec 4, 2018, 02:39 IST
Russian Aircraft Corporation
Advertisement
Russia will soon finish all testing of the new MiG-35 multirole combat aircraft.
"From the viewpoint of conducting the final tests, we expect that in 2019 we will complete the entire complex of tests," Ilya Tarasenko, Director General of Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG, said last week, according to Sputnik, a Russian state-owned media outlet.
The first batch of six MiG-35s will also be delivered to the Russian Defense Ministry soon thereafter, Tarasenko added.
Russia has high hopes for the MiG-35 as a successful export, marketing it as a 4++ generation fighter. But it "is essentially an upgrade of the MiG-29KR," a Russian defense industry source told The National Interest in 2017.
The final version of the MiG-35 was first shown at Aero India in 2007, and has generally been described as an upgrade to several different MiG-29 variants.
The RD-33 engines make the fighter jet, like the MiG-29, one of the most maneuverable jets in the world. The engines also make it hard to visually track and very capable in close air-to-air dogfights.
The MiG-35 can be armed with Kh-31 anti-ship and anti-radar missiles, as well as different kinds of KAB-500 bombs. It's also armed with a 30-mm cannon.
But MiG-35s still don't have active electronically phased radars, which allow the aircraft to track multiple targets at once and remain rather stealthy.
AESA "radars are under development and could possibly be retrofitted into existing MiG-35's," Sim Tack, the chief military analyst at Force Analysis and a global fellow at Stratfor, told Business Insider.
"In the future I would expect Russia to push those upgrades heavily if they have the budget for it though," Tack said, but "the lack of a phased array radar is a really significant drawback when it comes to operational performance."
The lack of an AESA radar may also hinder the MiG-35s chances of being a successful export, for which the aircraft was mainly designed.
Egypt is the only country thus far to have purchased the MiG-35.
The "MiG-35 is pretty much the Mikoyan design bureau’s last hope for survival given Sukhoi’s overwhelming advantage," The National Interest's David Majumdar wrote in January 2017.
