That "dent in the short term" will cost billions of dollars in initial acquisition cost alone, tell me how much of a "dent" will a squadron of a western equivalent twin engine fighters such as F-18 and F-15 cost us? Please elaborate. Then how much will the lifecycle cost be? How much will it cost us to build the supporting facilities, buy new weapon systems (bombs, rockets, missiles), train pilots, buy simulators, acquire maintenance tools and jigs, stock up on spares, train ground crews and maintenance workers, etc? How much time and effort will it need for us to build the capabilities and proficiency to operate the new type of craft efficiently? Please elaborate, since financial cost alone does not paint the overall picture. Time and effort must be factored in as well.
Swapping fighters is not like buying a new car. When you swap your old car with a new one, you don't have to learn to drive again since cars basically operate the same way. Good luck putting an ace Flanker pilot with thousands of flight hours on an F-18 cockpit and ask him to fly the damn plane without any conversion training. Thousands of flight hours on the Flankers does not translate into automatic veterancy when operating a new type of plane.
Then let's talk about the Flanker airframe, what can we do with them except to scrap them or give them away on grants to some poorer third world countries? Good luck trying to trade them in through the dealership because Rosoboron is still having difficulties selling second hand airframes from Belarus or Ukraine. Basically we will most likely write off billions of dollars worth of airframes that we just bought around 10-20 years ago.
That's what I don't like about some of you western fighter jet fanboys, always oversimplifying things and always thinking that we will only pay peanuts and will not spend tons of time and effort just so that you can have your wet dreams fulfilled. Can someone please get into details, crunch sama data and financial numbers, before pushing your agendas just because you think that fighter A sucks and fighter B rules because you said so, or because it have the one ring to rule them all called AESA radar and Link 16, or because you think that fighter A is "wholly superior" to fighter B without explaining in which aspects was it superior on?
And after all is said and done, billions of dollars spent, countless manhours dedicated to acquire the Flanker replacement, we will only be replacing a 4th gen twin engine fighter jet with another 4th gen twin engine fighter jet. I probably can justify wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money on replacing the Flankers with a 5th gen fighter like the KFX, F-35, or the new European 5th gen design. At least we will be paying for the generational leap in capability. But if we're only getting yet another 4th gen fighter with similiar or debatably slightly superior characteristics then I say the smart money is to PASS on it, because it will not justify the hefty spending and painstaking effort.
Oh and I forgot, if you're complaining about the Flanker's maintenance cost and readiness then you ought to know that the US had offered the F-15 numerous times but we rejected them every single time because we baulked after seeing their acquisition and maintenance cost numbers.
You don't think the Su-35's wouldn't cost billions either? Whole thing cost more than $1 billion for 11 jets, so theres not much difference when it comes to that. If we're talking about the F-15 you don't need to add much more when it comes to supporting infrastructure, weapons, spares, training either since we already established some of that from our existing F-16's. Like I said before the F-16 and the F-15 was made to complement each other their commonality don't just stop at the engines but other components as well. If our budget is limited, we don't have to buy that many stocks of new weapons since our F-16 fleet already has a stock of weapons that they can share with the F-15 (AIM-120's, AIM-9X/P, AGM-65, Mk. 82, JDAM,etc.), the same applies to a certain level for maintenance tools and spares as well since they have high commonality up to the point where they can interchange engines and the commonality doesn't just stop at the engines and armaments by the way, the F-15 and F-16 as well as the F-18 if you choose that, also share a good number of sub-components they can share with each other as well. Like any other new acquisition including the Su-35's if you insist would of course need time and effort to introduce and operate within the fleet, but I can say this though, you're going to have less time and effort with the F-15 and maybe a bit with the F/A-18E/F since we already have 30+ years experience with F-16, some of the foundations for us to operate F-15's are already here, if you want to just go ask Air Force officers themselves even former KSAU said it:
I mean if we're comparing Lifecycle costs, dont you think our current Su-27/30 are bad at it already? They're probably the most expensive thing to operate within the Air Force inventory and with the needed overhaul to eastern Europe every few years don't you think the Flankers we have already have shitty lifecycle costs either?
Even if we buy Su-35 to complement or replace them it won't have the same commonality with the Su-27/30 like the F-15 does with the F-16. One example is their engine, Su-27/30 uses AL-31F's that arent even interchangeable with each other because one is from UMPO and one is from Salyut, meanwhile the Su-35 uses the newer UMPO AL-41F. At least with the F-15 and F-16 they can actually share or at least share parts for the F-100-PW-220/229.
If you're going to use another analogy again, then I'll use it again for you, this time with cars. You'd actually find it surprising that the cars analogy can also be used with fighter jets just like you did with iPhone vs Android which I gotta give credit to you, its a very good analogy to explain military datalinking. This is gonna be silly but screw it bear with me here, right now we're operating the F-16 and Su-27/30 as our mainline fighters, think of the F-16 as something like a Toyota Innova and the Flanker as like a Mitsubishi Pajero if you will. We're operating 2 cars from 2 different brands, we have the Innova (F-16) which is the daily driver and the Pajero (Su-27/30) as our weekend getaway car or whatever you wanna call it. Then lets say, the time comes that we need to get a newer Mitsubishi Pajero (Su-30 to Su-35) but we also have the option to get a Toyota Fortuner (F-15E), it'd probably be better to get the Fortuner (F-15) rather than the Pajero (Su-35) since we can get the Fortuner (F-15) from the same dealer as our Toyota Innova (F-16) and you only need to deal with that one Toyota dealer/shop for maintenance, repairs instead of having to deal with 2 different ones from different brands and I think we all know that the interior and dashboard of a Fortuner and Innova looks very similar to each other and even based on my own experience I got to borrow tools from my friends Fortuner to change a flat tire on the Innova I was driving and you'd have little to no trouble getting used to it just like the F-15 and F-16.
I don't see how us allegedly 'western fighter jet fanboys' oversimplify things when our preference of US jets are based on the long established US jet presence that is already here for more than 30 years (even more if you consider the Sabres, F-5's and A-4's), meanwhile you have EU and RU fanboys pitching in their jets solely because of political factors (which we can and have circumvented and have also considered) rather than financial and operational factors. At least our wet dreams require less time and effort to achieve and is more beneficial in the long run rather than just to appeal to the political benefits of certain people. By the way, I never said that Western jets are superior because of AESA and Link 16 (despite AESA being more and more relevant), I even said Russian jets are superior in flight characteristics but those aren't relevant when you're doing a BVR engagement from miles away. What I do keep insisting though is the fact that with our current established infrastructure, we are way more suited to operate US/western jets and yes, it will take time and effort, but probably less than if we're buying anything else. Look, if we're a country like Vietnam or Myanmar right now, I would probably be pitching Flankers, Fulcrums or even Felons all day, but guess what, we're not.
If you want my suggestion on what we should do with the Flanker airframe, I don't mind
@san.geuk 's suggestion, just keep using them until they wear out, those things need overhaul and get sent back to Belarus or Russia every few years anyway. If other countries won't buy or if dealers don't cut it either, why not sell them to adversary air like Air USA or Draken? I'm pretty sure they'd consider having a handful of Flankers for adversary air, I mean Air USA literally bought the rest of the RAAF's ex-F/A-18A/B fleet. Plus I never said anything about having to replace them now when they're only 10-20 years old, but there will come a time they need to be replace, especially with the difficulty and expense the Air Force has in operating them.
I actually agree with you that we need to work on getting 5th gen's but that time is soon but not now, but the thing is we actually need all 3 workhorse, heavy fighter and 5th gen low-observable as sensor/sniper plane. I never said anything about excluding 5th gens, I think a lot of members here would know I'm a big F-35 fan and I want those in the TNI-AU fleet more than anything, but with the size and needs of our country we actually need all 3 and they complement each other, especially in a network centric force, which we are developing. Just look at the USAF for example, the largest and most advanced air force there is with F-35's and F-22's but they're still investing in F-15's to serve as the bomb/missile-trucks for the F-35's and F-22's. Point is I do see we need to get 5th gens as well, but I won't exclude that there is also a need for twin engine heavy bomb trucks that would support and complement those 5th gens you mentioned.
