Speculation over who Mikoyan was building 46 brand-new MiG-29M jets for has come to a end with Egypt being revealed as the customer.
The MiG-29 is a twin-engine jet fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union, the MiG-29, along with the larger Sukhoi Su-27, was developed to counter new American fighters such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16.
The MiG-29M was developed as an advanced variant of the MiG-29, formerly named “MiG-33”, it was originally designed by Mikoyan in the Soviet Union during the mid-1980s.
The Moscow Times has reported that Russian newspaper Vedomosti cited two unidentified aviation industry sources. According to one of Vedomosti’s sources, the deal for the 46 MiG-29 fighter jets will cost up to $2 billion.
The Syrian Air Force ordered 24 MiG-29M/M2s however in July 2012 at the Farnborough Air Show, Russia announced it would not deliver weapons, including combat aircraft, to Syria until the crisis there ends.
In May 2013, RSK MiG’s director general, Sergei Korotkov, said that the company plans to sign a contract to deliver “more than 10” MiG-29 M/M2 with Syria and that Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying fighter jets to Syria.
In November 2013, it was reported that Egypt and Russia were negotiating an order of 24 MiG-29M/M2s for the Egyptian Air Force. In April 2015, Egypt instead signed a contract, worth up to $2 billion, for 50 MiG-35 fighters.
In exchange for a Mistral or two?
I think we can all forsee a situation in a few years where the Mistrals will become too “operationaly expensive” and Egypt will “seek offers” for the ships.
France would have known this when they sold them to Egypt in the first place.
Vladi always gets his way in the end.
waste products russia
Looks stunning
Bad move. The EAF has been using western hardware (mainly French and American) for years, this is not going to anything good for their supply chain. Plus, Russian aircraft aren’t known for their reliability
What? Thats exactly what they’re known for haha and they’re cheap
Tough and cheap is what the russians excell at lol im not some soviet fanboy but let’s not kid ourselves here
Perhaps, but the radical change in logistics; from spares, training (especially this) to different operating methods will bring quite a lot of challenges to the Egyptians.
As someone has already pointed out, what’s the chances the payment will be a pair of mistral ships? The ones that France wouldn’t sell to Russia because of the Ukraine crisis!?
Low reliability aircraft for a government that won’t be able to maintain them. Expensive paper weights.
migs what a load of crap they belong on the scrap heap outdated rubbish
Well I’m not the first to say this, but I reckon a mistral or two will just pay nicely for these and with change to spare!
What’s their logistics going to look like with this thing? What’s the last MiG model they used? The Flogger?
Ben , their logistics will look shocking… Another airframe from another country means new parts , new tooling and test equipment, new training , new everything. It took Egypt years to recover going from Soviet equipment over to US equipment the first time and now they want to do it again … Their best bet is wait and pick up some surplus F18’s in a few years
It’s highly unlikely Egypt will exchange the mistrals for them. If they were to do that, they would lose any chance of buying an defence equipment from any NATO country going forward. I can’t see Egypt wants to go completely into bed with Russia at the expense of its relationship with the US and NATO countries.
Egypt equip its army for the third Internatioanl war which its rings knocked now , the Arab world is now in the case of all-out war and there plan to split it to steal its oil and selling more weapons to arab thats is already happening now , and as long as the powerful army would think any force aggressor twice before it was attacked , I am Egyptian and I support the army to buy more more weapons only to defend our country and live safely amidst this crazy devastating
world