GORKHALI
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For heaven's sake, ultimately whichever aircraft you finally choose,please, please do not buy the Russian MiG-35 is the plea from strategic affairs expert Ashley Tellis to the government of India with regard to the $11 billion deal for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft that the European, Russian and American manufacturers are vying for. Both in his report released recently titled 'Dogfight! India's Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft Decision,' and during the interaction that followed its release, Tellis -- Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace -- pilloried the Russian aircraft saying it was the'weakest of the contenders'. 'It does not have the sensor suites that the Indian Air Force would like to see,' he said, adding, 'It brings no new weapons to the game from an Indian Air Force point of view.
'MiG-35's mission performance
traditionally has been horrible' While acknowledging that 'it is a decent airplane, where the
aerodynamic effectiveness is
concerned', Tellis argued, 'there are no order of magnitude improvements and its mission performance in terms of readiness, maintenance traditionally has been horrible.' "And, I am not sure that the Russians have figured out how to build a machine that is really efficient in terms of spending more time in the air rather than spending moretime in maintenance," he
said. Thus,Tellis predicted confidently that"the Indian Air
Force is unlikely to think of the MiG-35 as essentially the answer to its problems." 'IAF appears less-than- enthusiastic about the MiG-35 for many reasons' In his report, the erstwhile Bush Administration official, who is well plugged in to both the Obama administration and the Manmohan Singh government,noted that the IAF had told him that the MiG-29 like its predecessor the MiG 21, "though a forgiving airplane,has poor handling qualities and terrible cockpit ergonomics." Thus Tellis argued that "whether the new engines and digital engines controls on the MiG-35 will liberate it from the angle of attack limitation.
'MiG-35's mission performance
traditionally has been horrible' While acknowledging that 'it is a decent airplane, where the
aerodynamic effectiveness is
concerned', Tellis argued, 'there are no order of magnitude improvements and its mission performance in terms of readiness, maintenance traditionally has been horrible.' "And, I am not sure that the Russians have figured out how to build a machine that is really efficient in terms of spending more time in the air rather than spending moretime in maintenance," he
said. Thus,Tellis predicted confidently that"the Indian Air
Force is unlikely to think of the MiG-35 as essentially the answer to its problems." 'IAF appears less-than- enthusiastic about the MiG-35 for many reasons' In his report, the erstwhile Bush Administration official, who is well plugged in to both the Obama administration and the Manmohan Singh government,noted that the IAF had told him that the MiG-29 like its predecessor the MiG 21, "though a forgiving airplane,has poor handling qualities and terrible cockpit ergonomics." Thus Tellis argued that "whether the new engines and digital engines controls on the MiG-35 will liberate it from the angle of attack limitation.
he is a Senior Associate wit the Carnegie Endowment for 
