Mig-29K

[tigershark]

Does anybody have any updated information on Russia's delivering the first batch of Mig-29K's to India?  I read in a old article that that the delivery date was suppose to be in June.

Thanks

[shawn a]

12 MIG 29-Ks, and 4 Mig 29-KUBs, Deliveries starting in June. No new info.
Shawn A

[tigershark]

Thanks anyway shawn a, I guess MIG is late again nothing comes easy to this company it seems.

[shawn a]

Well, I have a lot of respect for MIG and the products they put out. It's not like Northrop, or Boeing, or Lockheed are never late, or overweight, or WAY over projected costs. Can you Imagine what it must have been like to maintain an aircraft company  during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union? When Sukhoi was stealing the spotlight with excellent designs? I feel that the -29 was as far ahead of its' time as the f-16 was. Avionics excluded. But ingenious solutions to the problems faced because of less effective systems were successful. Remember the Mig-29 has an absolute altitude record above that of the SR-71, (I'm sure it was a zoom climb, and not sustained level flight) The MIG-25/31 prototype also has the highest altitude record of any air-breathing aircraft, in 1977, the YE-155 flew to 123,524 ft!! (again, I'm sure that was a zoom climb, but hey, it beats the F104s record, and the F104 used an auxillary rocket motor)
 Russia is now just starting to recover from the turmoil of the breakup, oil revenues are being developed, and they have a customer base that has been for the most part satisfied with the products vs the price paid. MIG just needs a new design, and some respect for their legacy, and, of course, some foreign sales, and they'll do just fine.
Shawn A

[Webmaster]

No news on delays, but if I can speculate a bit...

The work on the carrier has gone way over-budget, it's delayed and will cost the Indians much more. It's possible that the MiG schedule has been somewhat relieved in accordance, now a company would never accept that normally, but if it had already been chasing deadlines, it may have been agreeable to both sides. Another possibility is that as a result of the additional funds needed for the carrier, India has had to shift funding away from MiG to the shipyard. Again, this may have been agreeable to both sides, as the Indians put the blame for the budget overruns on the Russians. Finally, in regards to the latter, or another dissatisfaction of the Indian, they might just have temporarily hold funding for the MiGs, which basically leaves the not-too-wealthy MiG with no other option than delay work.

But I suspect that there are delays again because of underestimated integration work of new state-of-the-art Russian sensors/systems and/or non-Russian sensors or weapons.

I have this vague recollection of reading about the maiden flight of the first MiG-29K single-seater for the Indians. I can't remember source and I am not too sure, but I think it wasn't that long ago. There's usually at least a couple of months between first flight and delivery of the first example. But my fear is that as it's the first built to this specification, it will take much longer.