Published: 9/25/1998

Rosvooruzhenie (Russian Armament arms-trade agency) held a press-briefing at Farnborough'98 on 9 September, during which Yuri Klishin, deputy Russian Air Force commander for armament procurement programmes, said that the MiG-29SMT has performed well in flight trials, in which four Russian Air Force pilots participated. He added that he does not mind using foreign components and even aiming systems on Russian Air Force aircraft, let alone export versions, provided that the final product remains Russian. As an example of fruitful co-operation he mentioned using foreign processors and liquid-crystal panels in multifunction displays on the MiG-29SMT. "We can master production of these elements, but this will take years," he said. Another participant in the briefing, ANPK MiG (Aviation Scientific Industrial Complex MiG) general designer Mikhail Korzhuyev, said he expects an order for the upgrade of 20 MiG-29s into SMT standard from the Russian Air Force and for 120 more airframes from MiG-29 users in Europe and the Middle East, including Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. In some cases modification work can be performed locally. The cost of modernisation is said to be 30% of that for a new series-model MiG-29 fighter, but for this extra money the customer can get a fourth-generation aircraft performing more than six times better in long-range air engagements and eight times in ground-attack missions. Moreover, the SMT costs half as much to operate, which is achieved by installation of a new built-in computerised check system. The number of man-hours for maintenance is also halved. (DF998.1) (VK)  

Article ID: 282