Chinese purchase of Su-35

plawolf said:

The MKK represented the best readily available Flanker the Russians had available at the time. The MKI and MK2 were in effect paper airplanes that the Russians promised they could develop if given the required amount of money and time.

I think that experience would serve as another disincentive for the PLAAF to go for the Su35 as they would not want to be 'locked in' like that again in the future.

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You are basically saying that China didn't want to buy paper plane (Su-30 MKI ) so they went for somewhat less advanced but existing Su-30 MKK. That is fine, but currently Su-35 is not a paper plane . Paper plane would be PAK FA , and China is not a part of that project .

plawolf said:

The main reason the VVS didn't operate the MKK at the time was because Russia was still reeling from the collapse of the USSR at the time and was struggling to find the funds to afford fuel, spares and even wages to allow its pilots to fly even a fraction of their normal annual hours never mind buy new airplanes.

So the MKK was actually better than what the Russians themselves had. And eventually, when the VVS recovered enough to buy new aircraft, they opted to go with a version based off of the MKK/MK2.

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Well, Russia actually went to something similar to MKI version in Su-30 SM (canards, thrust vectoring, Bars radar ...) Su-30M2 based on Su-30MK2 is something of aberration, to keep factory producing them in business.

plawolf said:

As for why the PLAAF haven't as yet upgraded the radar of their MKKs, well I think that's down to the huge quantities of PGMs they purchased with those aircraft.

I'm sure the PLAAF has made changes and improvements to the rest of the avionics suit where possible to allow the MKKs to better function within the Chinese air defence network and to better work with other Chinese assets. But without Russian source codes for the weapons, and without wanting to diverge the source code of their own radars, there is simply no way the PLAAF could upgrade the radars on their MKKs without writing off all their Russian munitions inventory.

I think at this stage, there is little value in upgrading the radars given how much(or little) airframe time is left. Which is why the J16 is being developed.

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Not a very valid point, IMHO . First of all, those airframes still have lot of flying hours in them. I remind you that PLAAF and PLANAF still use much more obsolete fighters like J-7 , J-8 and JH-7 . With proper maintenance Flanker airframes could easily serve 40 years . We saw those Su-30s intercepting Japanese aircraft in air defense ID zone recently . Upgrading them with at least PESA radar would be beneficial . If China wants to keep using Russian weapons, they could let Russians upgrade them for a fraction of cost of buying new aircraft from Chinese factories or even buying Russian engines for planes like J-10B .

thunderchief said:

Not a very valid point, IMHO . First of all, those airframes still have lot of flying hours in them. I remind you that PLAAF and PLANAF still use much more obsolete fighters like J-7 , J-8 and JH-7 . With proper maintenance Flanker airframes could easily serve 40 years . We saw those Su-30s intercepting Japanese aircraft in air defense ID zone recently . Upgrading them with at least PESA radar would be beneficial . If China wants to keep using Russian weapons, they could let Russians upgrade them for a fraction of cost of buying new aircraft from Chinese factories or even buying Russian engines for planes like J-10B .

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The weapons cost something too.

thunderchief said:

You are basically saying that China didn't want to buy paper plane (Su-30 MKI ) so they went for somewhat less advanced but existing Su-30 MKK. That is fine, but currently Su-35 is not a paper plane . Paper plane would be PAK FA , and China is not a part of that project .


Well, Russia actually went to something similar to MKI version in Su-30 SM (canards, thrust vectoring, Bars radar ...) Su-30M2 based on Su-30MK2 is something of aberration, to keep factory producing them in business.

Not a very valid point, IMHO . First of all, those airframes still have lot of flying hours in them. I remind you that PLAAF and PLANAF still use much more obsolete fighters like J-7 , J-8 and JH-7 . With proper maintenance Flanker airframes could easily serve 40 years . We saw those Su-30s intercepting Japanese aircraft in air defense ID zone recently . Upgrading them with at least PESA radar would be beneficial . If China wants to keep using Russian weapons, they could let Russians upgrade them for a fraction of cost of buying new aircraft from Chinese factories or even buying Russian engines for planes like J-10B .

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What plawolf said is correct. China went with MKK project because they had experience working with knaapo and they wanted something developed quickly that they can induct into their air force. They worked very closely with the Russians to develop it. Su-30MKK had relatively old avionics, but has an improved airframe over Su-27ubk (said to have 85% commonality with Su-35ub) that makes it more suited for the role of fighter bomber. China has since used it to more or less develop J-16. More importantly, it brought a change to the PLAAF doctrine to become more of an attacking air force. That was really badly needed at the time.

On top of that, I think it's important to note that a few subsystems that were proposed to China by the Russians as part of the Su-30MKK project did not complete until several years later. By which time, similar Chinese systems already existed. So, there really isn't a lot of appetite in PLAAF for Russian products that are not ready to be delivered right away.

There is no real need for them to upgrade with Russian PESA radar at this point because Su-30MKKs are used in the role of ground attack aircraft. A new radar isn't going to give them ability to fire off new missiles and such.

GoodBoy Video: Russia Is Trying Very Hard To Sell Su-35 To China (My Words)

[video]http://i.56.com/goodboy/videos/#fromoutpvid=MTMyMDEzMjQ0[/video]

I'm surprised that we haven't been able to read any rumors about Chinese wanting to buy MiG-35's.

Broccoli said:

I'm surprised that we haven't been able to read any rumors about Chinese wanting to buy MiG-35's.

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No supercruising engines?

Broccoli said:

I'm surprised that we haven't been able to read any rumors about Chinese wanting to buy MiG-35's.

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Why ??? this segment is simply fulfilled by the J-10 within the PLAAF and therefore there's no need for another medium sized fighter. In retrospect it is funny or interesting that the PLAAF went a different was to the RuAF with its high-low fighter mix ... but for the MiG-35 there's truly no place within the PLAAF even if it would have supercruising engines.

Deino

Deino said:

Why ??? this segment is simply fulfilled by the J-10 within the PLAAF and therefore there's no need for another medium sized fighter. In retrospect it is funny or interesting that the PLAAF went a different was to the RuAF with its high-low fighter mix ... but for the MiG-35 there's truly no place within the PLAAF even if it would have supercruising engines.

Deino

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I was trying to be funny because it's quite clear that Russian press is running these stories so SU-35 would get some interest. MiG-35 hasn't been selling and it wouldn't be too surprising if Russian press claims at some point how Chinese want to buy it too.

There were also weird news about Finland wanting to buy Russian ballistic missiles because "NATO missiles aren't good enough" few months ago but of course it wasn't true.

Broccoli said:

I was trying to be funny because it's quite clear that Russian press is running these stories so SU-35 would get some interest. MiG-35 hasn't been selling and it wouldn't be too surprising if Russian press claims at some point how Chinese want to buy it too.

There were also weird news about Finland wanting to buy Russian ballistic missiles because "NATO missiles aren't good enough" few months ago but of course it wasn't true.

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I think there are limits to even the Russian media's levels of 'optimism' .

Broccoli said:

I was trying to be funny because it's quite clear that Russian press is running these stories so SU-35 would get some interest. MiG-35 hasn't been selling and it wouldn't be too surprising if Russian press claims at some point how Chinese want to buy it too.

There were also weird news about Finland wanting to buy Russian ballistic missiles because "NATO missiles aren't good enough" few months ago but of course it wasn't true.

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Ahhhh ... then SORRY ! ... You mean a similar funny story like this one:



Deino