MiG-29K: time for the last flight?
Let's talk about the MiG-29K.
Perhaps this aircraft can be called the most specific of all representatives of the naval aviation for some reasons. And we will now analyze these reasons. And the ongoing scandals, investigations and resignations in India prompted us to talk about the plane.
In general, scandals and whims performed by Indian stars... excuse me, politicians and military men (in general there is little difference, everyone dances) will not surprise anyone. It’s high time to take up an analytical calculator and calculate about the MMRCA tender and its results, I think it’s worth doing this in the near future.
For now, we’ll talk about the MiG-29K, of which the Indian Navy has twice as many as Russia has in similar structures.
Remember this scandal that overwhelmed all the media like a tsunami? When did India take offense and declare that literally all 45 MiG-29K aircraft that entered the Indian Navy from 2004 to 2010 turned out to be completely defective? And generally speaking story continues, someone is accused of ordering such filthy planes for bribes, they want to imprison someone (this is in India!!!) for not grabbing the trunk of the one who took bribes, and so on, a round dance until infinity. Mumbai serials just nervously smoke on the sidelines, and their directors drop everything and go learn their craft.
As Defense News wrote, the Indian Navy has lost hope of fundamentally correcting the problem and therefore has actually decided to abandon the use of the MiG-29K. Many problems have been voiced, but the main trouble is, in the words of DN, that “every landing looks like a plane crash.” After which each time you have to remove the engine and send the plane to the workshops.
But the worst thing is that the Russians do not want to repair and maintain their low-quality aircraft for free. In general, so much has been said on this topic that it remains to draw a certain conclusion: the Indians want to crash the MiG-29K on the deck themselves, and let us repair everything at our own expense. This is a peculiar approach, but it is what it is.
The Indian state-owned company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) cannot correct the situation without technical assistance from the manufacturer, since Indian engineers simply cannot make changes to aircraft designs. HAL is currently seeking funds from the Indian Navy to overhaul 113 engines on MiGs, including sourcing spare parts for them. And here's an interesting point.
Why are Indians looking for spare parts for the MiG-29, if MiG with its production facilities is here, very close? And this is where reality begins. As long as the plane is under warranty, as long as Russia pays for everything, you can drive it into the tail and head, banging it on the deck so hard that it rips the circuit boards off the fastenings. And then vilify Russia for low-quality aircraft. And demand free repairs.
But as soon as the warranty ends, that’s it. The search begins for Chinese-made spare parts, cannibalization of Romanian aircraft, and so on. Well, do-it-yourself work.
And then wagons of surprise about the fact that after the intervention of not the most direct Indian hands, everything is falling apart. What, as they say, they fought for...
But these are Indians, so the decision was made to abandon the MiG-29K and enter the world market to purchase carrier-based aircraft for the Navy. And, of course, the crows flocked to the smell of blood (sorry, dollars), the American Boeing with its F/A-18 Super-Hornet, the French Dassault with its Rafale M, the Swedish Saab with its “ Gripen Maritime". Ours are also present, but like this... at the door and laughing. And laughing for a reason.
And there are two nuances here that make the situation... no, not comical. Rather, thoughtful, because there is something to think about.
I'll start with a statement that claims to be original. The MiG-29K is not at all defective, as the Indians stated. They are completely normal, but... they are not quite decked. More precisely, practically not decked.
Here you need to understand in principle what a carrier-based aircraft and a pilot are. This is completely different from their land-based counterparts, because these are people and machines that constantly operate under extreme stress.
Taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier - okay, back and forth, but landing... On the deck, which, by the way, not only moves in three-dimensional space, it is located at an angle to the line of motion of the ship and actually moves in all three dimensions, because the pitching can reach a couple of meters in the vertical plane! And landing an airplane on the deck is a very difficult task; it’s not for nothing that American deck pilots say that this is a “controlled crash.” Logically, the plane practically collapses onto the deck with about five meters of its entire weight.
The British and Americans have come a long way in the 100 years of their aircraft carrier forces. Different. And, if the British were still trying to adapt the Hurricane and Spitfire land fighters to their aircraft carriers, the Americans never did such things. In the USA, they clearly separated flies from cutlets and built only airplanes for the Air Force, and for fleet - other.
The tradition, by the way, has continued to this day. The Navy has its own, the Air Force has its own. And no one in the United States would think of taking the risk of adapting the F-14 fighter, which was chic for its time, for the needs of the Air Force (yes, a little expensive, however) or the F/A-18, and vice versa, adapting the F-15 or F-16 for the fleet. To each his own, but this is the USA with its budgets.
You can delve into history and remember how the British suffered with converting land aircraft into carrier-based ones. Yes, the Sea Hurricane fought, but... the Sea Fire was better than its brother, and by and large, the British pilots breathed freely when the Americans shared the Corsairs with them.
So, the Mig-29 was originally designed as a multi-role fighter for the ground air force. Accordingly, the requirements usually placed on a carrier-based fighter when working on an aircraft were not even considered. Moreover, there was already a successful experience of converting the Su-27 into the Su-33, and nothing. It worked.
But the Su-33 is a separate issue, where the aircraft itself was designed from the beginning in such a way that no special modifications were required. Why, we’ll make a folding wing, thicker liners and more powerful shock absorbers - and that’s all, as they say.
This did not happen with the MiG-29.
In general, it is impossible to say that the MiG-29K is a MiG-29 with minimal modifications. The naval version of the project was distinguished by a large amount of fuel in the tanks (4 kg instead of 000 kg), the possibility of using outboard 3-liter tanks, while the maximum take-off weight with four missiles and three PTBs was even greater than that of the land-based MiG-650 - 800 kg.
Attention was also paid to increased loads during landing: the folding wings were made larger and the area of the tail was also increased. The design of the central fuel tank, the power compartment (this is the place where the attachments of the wings, landing gear and landing hook meet), and the nose section where the front landing gear is attached have been strengthened.
As expected, the landing gear struts were made longer, the working stroke of the shock absorbers was increased, and fastening units were added for towing by ship equipment and mooring aircraft on deck.
In general, the work was carried out, and as a result, the MiG-29K could take off from the deck of the ship and land on it. A certain role in this was played by the more powerful RD-33MK engines, which were almost 33 kgf more powerful than the RD-400 land version.
Now let's digress to aircraft carriers.
It is well known that aircraft carriers are divided into nuclear and non-nuclear in terms of propulsion systems, and into ejection and ski-jump carriers in terms of launching aircraft.
American and French aircraft carriers use catapults. British and Russian - with springboards. In general, it seems that the “Prince of Wales” should already have catapults, but with this barn everything is very complicated.
Of course, an aircraft carrier with a ski-jump is flawed. This is a ship that can only take on board fighters, helicopters and UAVs; you can forget about aircraft such as AWACS and anti-submarine aircraft. And a bomber with a full load simply will not take off.
But ski-jump carriers have one advantage: they are all-latitude. And they can operate anywhere, from the North to the South Pole. They are not afraid of low temperatures. That is why Britain, as not the southernmost country, and the Soviet Union, whose most powerful fleets were based in very cold waters, chose this principle.
Many critics today write that “In the USSR they could not build a steam catapult.” But, seriously, the phrase goes like this: “The USSR was unable to build a steam catapult that would operate in the range from -20 to -40 degrees Celsius.”
There is such a vile physical phenomenon as the “Mpemba Effect”. This is when hot water freezes faster than cold water. Why this happens, scientists are still scratching their heads today, but basically (there are exceptions) this is exactly what happens. And steam in the conditions of the White, Bering or Okhotsk Sea will very quickly become ice. It's simple - physics. And no steam catapult will function in such conditions. Electromagnetic - yes, but it is there, in the near future for now.
This white steam will become beautiful white ice
So the great Admiral Gorshkov had no fools at his headquarters when they relied on cruisers with vertical take-off and landing aircraft and ski-jumps.
Now let's return to the Indians. Due to our wretchedness and their eternal desire to save money, they bought the “Admiral Gorshkov” and converted it from us into the “Vikramaditya”. The TAVKR turned out to be a truly light aircraft carrier. With a springboard.
In the stormy waves of the Internet I came across this statement:
“The Indians who made the decision to purchase the Mig-29K for the former Russian aircraft-carrying cruiser were either bribed or outrageous cretins. However, it is possible to do both at the same time. Now they are biting their elbows and feverishly looking for a replacement for Migam.”
No, not cretins. At that time, no one in the world was trading aircraft carriers except Russia. How the Indians bought the Viraat and the former Hermes from the British is a separate topic, but there were no more such ships for sale. I had to take what I had. And while the Harriers were flying, Viraat was depicting something. The Harriers ran out - the Viraat was also written off, because it itself was old (built in 1953), and a more recent ship arrived.
"Vikramaditya". Okay, we bought it, the MiG-29K is worthless crap, here we are now... What now? "Rafal-M"? Hello, is it okay that his wings don’t fold? Yes, they are not so wide-legged, but still. On the Vikrant, the new aircraft carrier, the elevators were made taking into account the size of the Rafale, but the Vikramaditya, excuse me, was developed for the MiG-29K. And it turns out that 3,20 meters is not in favor of the Frenchman. It doesn't fit, in short.
The size of the elevator for lifting aircraft on the Admiral Kuznetsov is approximately 14 x 16 meters. But the plane is placed on the lift at an angle, because the same MiG-29K is almost 18 meters in length, and the Su-33 is even more, at 21 meters in length. And it turns out that diagonally and every centimeter counts. And here - three meters...
A naval version of the Swedish "Griffin"? Yes, perhaps the plane is really small. But it basically doesn’t exist yet. When it happens, then we’ll talk.
F/A-18? Here you can be completely calm: it won’t take off. The Rafale (24 kg at takeoff) maybe, if you’re lucky, the Griffin (500 kg) for sure, but the Super Hornet with its 14 kg may not even be a dream. Damn physics again. But it won’t take off from the springboard, and if it does take off, it won’t be for very long. The MiG-000K with its estimated weight of 29 kg, the Rafale - yes, but the American is only in danger of bumps.
Yes, I specifically cited the maximum take-off weight, because flying like the Su-33 flew in Syria with half the fuel supply and a couple of bombs is not even funny.
So what now? And now the Indians have two aircraft-carrying ships.
One, which is older, “Vikramaditya”, it can only operate MiGs, but in the future Saabs are also possible. The second, which was no longer built as an aircraft-carrying cruiser, but as an aircraft carrier, that is, by changing the design of the ship to suit everyone’s wishes, it can and will operate Rafales. Although no one has canceled the MiG-29K.
There could, of course, be a third option, the F-35B. Now it would be a life-saving means of greatly increasing the striking power of aircraft carriers and would fit perfectly into a springboard design. It is still a VTOL aircraft after all. But alas, no one will sell it to India. Indians have long dreamed of getting into that very cherished program, but alas: they, like the Turks, are denied entry. Close cooperation in the military sphere with Russia kills this idea completely.
So overall the choice is small. However, two completely different aircraft on two ships is not very convenient. And if we also take into account the fact that the Rafale costs twice as much as the MiG, without being particularly superior to it in flight and combat characteristics...
In general, the situation is twofold.
Of course, the situation with supplies (more precisely, not deliveries) of MiG-29K/KUB to India is seriously affecting the position of RSK MiG OJSC in the world market. But let’s be honest – on the inside too. The MiG-29 is frankly retiring, the MiG-35 has not entered production (6 aircraft is not a series), the aircraft requires a new engine and fundamental changes in terms of stealth. The result is a situation where the Sukhoi concern wins a complete and unconditional victory in the videoconferencing. Fair enough, by the way, because Sukhoi can provide an aircraft for every taste and income. Have a lot of money and want a “super” class? - here's the Su-35S. There is not so much money - Su-30 is in stock. No money at all? – Please, we will modernize the Su-27. Promising projects for the future? – No question, Su-57 and Su-75.
RSK MiG, unfortunately, has nothing except the MiG-29, which, alas, is not in demand as much as it was 40 years ago. As for the MiG-29K, the aircraft still has some chances, at least as long as India operates the Soviet aircraft-carrying cruiser and its copy.
It is especially worth considering the fact that the Vikramaditya has a service life of 30 years, that is, until 2043, and the Vikrant even more - until 2060.
But RSK MiG has something to seriously think about. Apart from India, there are no and will not be buyers for the MiG-29K, and the regular MiG-29, despite its cheapness, is not so attractive to buyers precisely because of its age and the lack of advanced modifications.
But it’s probably still too early to write it off?
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