Iran to Purchase Sukhoi-30 Fighter Jets From Russia

[Daneshmand]

Yes, that should be the goal. However ToT makes sense when the numbers are large. For a squadron or two worth, it won't make economic sense. Because to setup the production lines also should be economically viable and costs spread out over a larger number of air frames.

That said, if Iran goes for complete ToT, then the ToT for the Indian designed parts will also be transferred to Iran. Our main work came when Su-30 back in late 1990's/early 2000's was a plane with good physical handling but lacked in Electronics and Avionics. We changed it massively by integrating European and Israeli Tech in the plane into what came to be the Su-30MKI.

The difference was so dramatic that after that the customers(like Indonesia and Malaysia) wanted similar planes - so Russia modeled its newer variant by 'Russianizing' all the European and Israeli tech. We also designed some parts ourselves that bettered the original equipment. Like the Mission Computer.

In any case, Iran should definitely go for tech transfer. It would enhance the tech base in Iran.

For Iran, cost is not an issue. Technology is. Some day Iran will be sanctioned again. This is what every Iranian knows. Iran should use this breathing time to accumulate as much technology as possible.

A production line is very useful since it can then enable Iran to expand it and modify it to produce other models. For instance a production line for Su-30 would come in handy tomorrow if Iran wants to go for a deal to produce T-50. If Iran does not get a production line for Su-30, it should also forget about getting any ToT for a fifth generation fighter as well.

Iran is not like any other country (Malaysia, Eritrea or Egypt). It has to strive to have in-house enabling technologies. And you can't really put a price tag on technology. Since when you don't have it, then you simply don't have it.

you cant do that, so not dreaming about it please.

No maneuverability, no fighter plane. The modern fighter plane is designed and built around Energy Maneuverability Theorem. Otherwise, every one would just strap a big asszz radar on a A-380 and load it with 200 missiles and send it to battle.

 

[Chevil]

you cant do that, so not dreaming about it please.

which part is dreaming !?

For Iran, cost is not an issue. Technology is. Some day Iran will be sanctioned again. This is what every Iranian knows. Iran should use this breathing time to accumulate as much technology as possible.

A production line is very useful since it can then enable Iran to expand it and modify it to produce other models. For instance a production line for Su-30 would come in handy tomorrow if Iran wants to go for a deal to produce T-50. If Iran does not get a production line for Su-30, it should also forget about getting any ToT for a fifth generation fighter as well.

Iran is not like any other country (Malaysia, Eritrea or Egypt). It has to strive to have in-house enabling technologies. And you can't really put a price tag on technology. Since when you don't have it, then you simply don't have it.



No maneuverability, no fighter plane. The modern fighter plane is designed and built around Energy Maneuverability Theorem. Otherwise, every one would just strap a big asszz radar on a A-380 and load it with 200 missiles and send it to battle.

F35 is prime example of stress on avionic and stealth feature of aircraft .... you won't use Pugachev's Cobra maneuver in real war ( unless you are stupid or wish death ) .... hell even Sukhoi 27 could do this maneuver ....
so ordering a super maneuverable fighter like Su35 is not good options for a country with limit time , great need and low resources ( Iran ) ...

add Su 35 radar to su30 and both of them will get equall to almost all critical aspect , except that su35 is super maneuverable ....

 

[Hack-Hook]

Well, no one knows yet. No detail is out there. But Mig-35 is not as good as Su-35. There is simply no comparison. Su-35 has a class of its own among the fourth generation fighters.

but Mig 35 is not fielded yet only 10 prototype so far and they plan to introduce it in 2018.

 

[Daneshmand]

but Mig 35 is not fielded yet only 10 prototype so far and they plan to introduce it in 2018.

Basically Mig is bankrupt. They lost to Sukhoi. They don't have money to develop any new platform and are just toying around with what they have. Not to mention that the Mig-29/35 platform vs Su-27/30/35 platforms were analogous and a Russian imitation of the American doctrine of the cold war when US decided to have two sets of fighter planes. one a super-duper fighter plane too expensive to manufacture in great numbers and a multi-role cheaper one for mass production, in order to maintain both qualitative as well as quantitative advantage over USSR.

Under this doctrine, Americans designed and produced F-15 and F-14 as the super-duper version for their air force and navy respectively and F-16 and FA-18 as cheaper ones for air force and navy respectively.

Russians followed with Mig-29 and Su-27. Qualitatively, Su-27 is very much superior to Mig-29 platform. This is one of the mistakes Iran did when in late 1980's it opted to purchase Mig-29 from Gorbachev. This mistake should not be repeated again.

 

[Hack-Hook]

which part is dreaming !?

converting Su-30 to Su-35
if you can convert Su-24 to Su-27 or Su-34 you can do that.

 

[Chevil]

converting Su-30 to Su-35
if you can convert Su-24 to Su-27 or Su-34 you can do that.

I was referring to Avionic and radars .... technically you can add and AESA radar to even a F4 ....
the big question is : Which version we want to buy !?

just don't forget that Su35 price is higher than Su30 and we need 100 fighters .....

2015 :
su-35 -> 65 million dollars
su-30 -> 37 million dollars

so if we consider su-30 plane price as 45 millon dollars ( negative view ) , then we need to spend 45*100= 4,5 billion dollars for 100 sukho 30 ( and if we want to produce these under license in Iran, we need to add extra 3-4 billons dollars on it and then we need to buy suitable missles fore these birds that mean we should spend 2-4 billions dollars in this field as well !!! ) ... total price will be something like 12.5 billion dollars ...

for Su35 we need to spend more than 17 billion dollars ...

 

[Daneshmand]

converting Su-30 to Su-35
if you can convert Su-24 to Su-27 or Su-34 you can do that.

Su-34 is not a conversion of Su-24, they are completely different platforms. From design stage they are separate from each other, though both were designed for a similar role.

Su-30 and Su-35 are a single platform in the sense that they share core designs with each other. And though a country like Russia which is a technology developer might be able to convert Su-30 to 35 as a kind of R&D project, but it won't make sense for it to start an expensive conversion process since it makes more sense to build new Su-35 and just upgrade Su-30's but not fully convert them.

From Iran' perspective, this should not be an issue. This is a good thing, that these planes are of a single platform and even the T-50 is using alot of technologies from this platform. This means any investment Iran makes to acquire technology of this plane and its production line would be highly beneficial for Iran for decades to come. Such a production line and its accompanying parts manufacturing capability would enable Iran to become self sufficient not only with Su-30 but also with T-50 if Iran in future chooses to go ahead and purchase a ToT of T-50 as well.

The argument I am making is that, it is not important if it is Su-30 or 35, more important is to get a ToT for this platform and forget about dead platforms such as Mig-29/35.

 

[Chevil]

a visual comparison between Su35 and Su30 ( wich version !? )

http://planes.axlegeeks.com/compare/214-227/Sukhoi-Su-35-vs-Sukhoi-Su-30

 

[Hack-Hook]

Basically Mig is bankrupt. They lost to Sukhoi. They don't have money to develop any new platform and are just toying around with what they have. Not to mention that the Mig-29/35 platform vs Su-27/30/35 platforms were analogous and a Russian imitation of the American doctrine of the cold war when US decided to have two sets of fighter planes. one a super-duper fighter plane too expensive to manufacture in great numbers and a multi-role cheaper one for mass production, in order to maintain both qualitative as well as quantitative advantage over USSR.

Under this doctrine, Americans designed and produced F-15 and F-14 as the super-duper version for their air force and navy respectively and F-16 and FA-18 as cheaper ones for air force and navy respectively.

Russians followed with Mig-29 and Su-27. Qualitatively, Su-27 is very much superior to Mig-29 platform. This is one of the mistakes Iran did when in late 1980's it opted to purchase Mig-29 from Gorbachev. This mistake should not be repeated again.

well ,there is no doubt we have the both F-16 and F-15 in USA army but I honestly doubt a latest model F16 would be easy game for a latest model F-15. about Mig-35 and SU-35 well there is no doubt Su-35 is larger and have more powerful engine have more hard point but the mig-35 is more Agile use the exact trust vectoring system that F-35 use (something that even F22 don't use) can pull higher g , have higher trust/weight
both plne use the same missiles and cannon , well I must admit Su35 can use better air to ground missiles.they can use the same bombs except for KAB-1500about the radar well mig-35 come with AESA radar with detection of 60 target at 250km and tracking of 30 and engaging of 8 target, while SU-35 come with a PESA radar with the ability to detect and track 30 target at up to 400km and engage 8 of them

 

[Chevil]

well ,there is no doubt we have the both F-16 and F-15 in USA army but I honestly doubt a latest model F16 would be easy game for a latest model F-15. about Mig-35 and SU-35 well there is no doubt Su-35 is larger and have more powerful engine have more hard point but the mig-35 is more Agile use the exact trust vectoring system that F-35 use (something that even F22 don't use) can pull higher g , have higher trust/weight
both plne use the same missiles and cannon , well I must admit Su35 can use better air to ground missiles.they can use the same bombs except for KAB-1500about the radar well mig-35 come with AESA radar with detection of 60 target at 250km and tracking of 30 and engaging of 8 target, while SU-35 come with a PESA radar with the ability to detect and track 30 target at up to 400km and engage 8 of them

Mig company product have bad quality , last time they sold some Mig 29 to Algeria and after 1 year , because of their bad quality , Algeria send Mig 29 back and asked for Su 30 ....

even in our air force , Mig 29 are known for their bad quality ... these are our air force newest aircraft buy our air force want to retire them completely ...

The Fatal Shame Of Russia
Algeria to return 15 MiG aircraft to Russia over inferior quality
Algeria returns 'faulty' MiG-29s

At the same time the government began an investigation of the aircraft industry. Within two years several aviation company executives were tried and convicted for passing off defective, or used, aircraft parts as new. Many of these parts made their way into MiG-29 jet fighters that were sold to Algeria.

The publicity this scandal received caused the government to look more intently into the counterfeit or defective aircraft parts situation. Russian aviation officials were alarmed when, upon inspecting 60,000 aircraft parts, they found that nearly a third of them were counterfeits. While most of the substandard fake parts came from neighboring countries, many were made in Russia. China wins first place when it comes to stealing technology and producing counterfeit goods, but Russia is solidly in second place, turning out about a third as many counterfeit goods as China. Russia's neighbors, many former parts of the Soviet Union, have the same bad habits. But Russia and China together produce about 80 percent of counterfeits. Using old and now substandard parts was just one variation on the crime of selling bad (cheap) parts as good (much more expensive) stuff.

they simply used soviet era spare parts on these new Migs ...

that why we should ask for production line in Iran ... we should check every spare part before using it ...

 

[Daneshmand]

well ,there is no doubt we have the both F-16 and F-15 in USA army but I honestly doubt a latest model F16 would be easy game for a latest model F-15. about Mig-35 and SU-35 well there is no doubt Su-35 is larger and have more powerful engine have more hard point but the mig-35 is more Agile use the exact trust vectoring system that F-35 use (something that even F22 don't use) can pull higher g , have higher trust/weight
both plne use the same missiles and cannon , well I must admit Su35 can use better air to ground missiles.they can use the same bombs except for KAB-1500about the radar well mig-35 come with AESA radar with detection of 60 target at 250km and tracking of 30 and engaging of 8 target, while SU-35 come with a PESA radar with the ability to detect and track 30 target at up to 400km and engage 8 of them

F-15E will dominate over any F-16 model. They don't call it air superiority fighter for nothing. Similarly F-22 designed as an air superiority fighter will dominate over any F-35 (and practically anything out there except perhaps T-50 and the Chinese 5th generation fighter project).

Similarly there is no comparison between Su-27 platform and Mig-29 platform. They were designed for different roles. You can upgrade and push the design to its limits but you can not exceed its limitations.

And there is simply no sense in choosing Mig except for its catchy name, when Russia itself is not buying from it anymore. In fact Russia went as far as forcing Mig to share its technology with Sukhoi in order to build T-50, not other way around.

 

[PoKeMon]

I hope the agreement is similar to Indian agreement with Russia for co-production of the planes and not like the Su-30 agreement Venezuela had done with Russia, wherein just a few planes are bought from originating country with no transfer of technology.

How about co-owning the Indian production line at Nashik?

India is going to procure 40 more Su-30, thus almost 90 more Su-30 to be produced. Current rate is 10-12 fighter per year, with Iran getting involved, we can churn out 20-25 a year easily.

 

[Hack-Hook]

Mig company product have bad quality , last time they sold some Mig 29 to Algeria and after 1 year , because of their bad quality , Algeria send Mig 29 back and asked for Su 30 ....

even in our air force , Mig 29 are known for their bad quality ... these are our air force newest aircraft buy our air force want to retire them completely ...

The Fatal Shame Of Russia
Algeria to return 15 MiG aircraft to Russia over inferior quality
Algeria returns 'faulty' MiG-29s


they simply used soviet era spare parts on these new Migs ...

that why we should ask for production line in Iran ... we should check every spare part before using it ...

they dealed with that situation , but that example won't apply here the mig-29 was a plane with a history of 30 year of production with hundreds of airplane around the world ,so it's normal there will be a lot of tempting old spare around for corrupt official but it's not the case with mig-35 its brand new airplane which is not fielded yet so even if they get tempted they can't find old parts.

 

[Daneshmand]

well ,there is no doubt we have the both F-16 and F-15 in USA army but I honestly doubt a latest model F16 would be easy game for a latest model F-15. about Mig-35 and SU-35 well there is no doubt Su-35 is larger and have more powerful engine have more hard point but the mig-35 is more Agile use the exact trust vectoring system that F-35 use (something that even F22 don't use) can pull higher g , have higher trust/weight
both plne use the same missiles and cannon , well I must admit Su35 can use better air to ground missiles.they can use the same bombs except for KAB-1500about the radar well mig-35 come with AESA radar with detection of 60 target at 250km and tracking of 30 and engaging of 8 target, while SU-35 come with a PESA radar with the ability to detect and track 30 target at up to 400km and engage 8 of them

Another thing to note, is the fact that once you have a platform you can upgrade it with PESA or AESA or optical systems etc etc.

If you have a superior platform, those upgrades would go a long way. On a poor platform those upgrades would not mean much.

Sukhoi platform by the way has a very large diameter nose cone which allows for a very large AESA radar in future. And again Mig-29 platform is a dead platform. There is no fifth generation mig after this. It is the end of the line. And when tomorrow Iran will be surrounded with 5th generation fighters as other countries buy their 5th generation fighters, Iran will again be left with an antique air force if it chooses Mig. And this discussion is moot since Iran has already said, it is negotiation with Sukhoil and not Mig.

they dealed with that situation , but that example won't apply here the mig-29 was a plane with a history of 30 year of production with hundreds of airplane around the world ,so it's normal there will be a lot of tempting old spare around for corrupt official but it's not the case with mig-35 its brand new airplane which is not fielded yet so even if they get tempted they can't find old parts.

That is right. By the way Mig-29's performed very poorly in Iraq when confronted with F-15's and F-16's. In fact F-16 can beat any Mig-29 out there in a heart beat.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

I hope the agreement is similar to Indian agreement with Russia for co-production of the planes and not like the Su-30 agreement Venezuela had done with Russia, wherein just a few planes are bought from originating country with no transfer of technology.

Is this deal affected by western embargo on weapon sales to Iran?
I recall that nuclear deal has some grace period of few years before weapons can be sold but not sure if it is binding from UN or only west