Its the range in relation to combat radius/range and its future home base. Only F15 is close enough for AU requirements regarding range. Draw a circle of SU35 combat radius/range by putting Iswahjudi as a center, then you will see what the role of heavy fighter with excellent range can provide additional layer of defense either for future Viper ska in Kupang or west, north, south side of it. There are other options if we decide not to go for Heavy fighters but it might require additional numbers of airframe, maybe twice as much.
KFX is to be avaiable 2026++, and as like any other new fighters it would take time to mature (bug fix etc). The range of KFX is 50% more than F16 but still less then SU35/F15. With this KFX time frame I can understand why AU still want SU35. By the time kfx is mature enough we hopefully would already have enough workhorse (Viper), perhaps after that we can start to retire the old SU while slowly adding more numbers to KFX. Thats some of the reason why AU still need heavy fighters I think. Price wise F15 cost more then SU35, but we can always argue one fighter acquisition cost and life cost. Put politics and commonality into that mix and prolly we can understand why its not easy to go on with SU35 or even switch to other type of fighters. We all can argue back and forth about it, but its important for us to understand that AU need to operate effective in any missions or assignment. By having medium range fighters with only 1 air tanker avaiable is not a wise choice. With future plan to get it is still uncertain I guess it would be wise if we stick to heavy fighters for now.
Bruh those 11 SU35 price already comes with missiles and stuffs
