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Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t the Su-30K and the Su-30 Mki fundamentally different aircraft? IIRC the Su-30k is the version designed by KnAAPO (operated by Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Venezuela etc) while the much more advanced Su-30 Mki is designed by the Irkut corporation (operated by India, Malaysia, Algeria and Russia) with canards and thrust vectors. So, I don’t think it’s possible to upgrade a Su-30 K to a MKi

Interesting development:

TASL has acquired IPR rights (whatever that means) of Grob G 180, a German dual-use jet aircraft. :thumbs up

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/80620506.cms

I have no real information on this of course, but I think the MKK/MKI and similar other customizations are actually variants coming out from the 30K/30MK family. The 30 in itself is an evolution of the basic Su27Flanker airframe.

Fundamentally I believe the air-frame of the 30K remains unchanged. Thrust vectoring is in the engine and avionics. Canards can be added in the leading wing edges with minimal change to the fundamental structure. A lot of the "I" in the 30MKI are around avionics, sensors and software. All of which can be integrated. So IMO, while it may be a lengthy/costly exercise - it will certainly be possible to update a 30K to 30MKI. Purely from an engineering perspective.

As a similar example - we can look at the IAF's Mig29 fleet. The planes have been extensively modified to bring them upto the Mig29 UPG standard which is somewhere below the prototype Mig29OVT / marketed Mig35 but way more capable than what they were when procured. Even visually the planes look different now, especially with the dorsal structure now more bulbous.

Just a little OT.
Now a days we need mostly surveillance capabilities aided with missiles and less of combat abilities. Shouldn't we develop more ultralight high altitude aircraft to cover our western and eastern borders ?

Will some country object to such aircraft at altitudes of 20 kms or what is the limit at which you can hover and take pics of your adversary? Low earth orbits allow you to be at 760 km (Iridium). You will need lot of them to cover the areas we want in as real time as possible. I think surveillance is really important to prevent the kind of things we are seeing today. Everything after that involves loss of resources.

The F4 Phantom at its arrival didn't have an internal cannon for dogfights. The idea was - with long range missiles and advanced sensors - it won't need to be in a close quarters fight. It relied on inaccurate external gun-pods for strafing etc. The Americans were in for a rude awakening when the little Mig-17s ran circles around the far more advanced fighter. Even today in cases like that of WingCo Abhinandan's - dog-fights are very realistic situations. So - capable interceptors and air-superiority / multi-role fighters are here to stay at least for another 2 decades IMO.

Light-weight planes = limited weapons payload as well. Its a catch-22. As for surveillance - basically you need a modern replacement of the U2. In a limited area theater scenario like India's borders - this is a bit impractical. The fast Mig25s used to do this duty in the IAF till retirement. In modern times - AWACS units and specialist equipment like the Boeing P8I do limited duties in these areas but at much lower & risky altitudes.

For anything on surveillance - ideally with high definition and high bandwidth G-Sync satellites for remote sensing & visual observation - aircraft are becoming redundant. Recent developments around Ladakh certainly put a bit of a "?" on the satellite intelligence actually available in real time to India though.

Since the advent of satellites, folks have been trying to write off aerial ISR platforms but I think the fact the Dragonlady is still out there is testament to the staying power of persistent aerial intelligence capability. Satellite coverage absolutely has been a boon and offers a lot of capability but it isn't without it's faults. More than that, is that a satellite will only be over the patch you're interested in for a specific amount of time. Shrishiva correctly alludes to this:
The only way to ensure you have a satellite permanently on station above your area of interest (in this case with a view over India's immediate neighbourhood) you'd have to park it up in geostationary orbit and I have a feeling that you'd really be stretching the imaging capability at that point.

Which is why, in the highest stakes missions you still want eyes above - take the mission to kill Bin Laden. It took intelligence from an RQ-170 Sentinel to finally convince leadership they had a strong enough case, and throughout Operation Neptune Spear the US made sure they had the Sentinel watching on providing persistent intel from up on high.

And that's the key really - you want a persistent capability. You want something to be high enough to be beyond the reach of your technicals armed with MANPADS, but not too high to run into the imaging pitfalls you'd encounter with a satellite. And no one wants a Gary Powers type incident so ideally you want this platform to be unmanned. So we're looking at a HALE (high altitude long endurance) UAV. Oh and remember you probably want it to be LO (low observable) too if you're going to have it loiter for hours on end over contested airspace. Et voila, you end up with something like the RQ-170.

Now, ISR capability for the most part has come a long way. India might not necessarily need something like the RQ-170 though, that's clearly in the non-black world (ie, beknownst to us), unless India found a need for deep penetrating missions. As Reinhard correctly pointed out, platforms like the P-8 are considerably capable enough that all you'd really need is for them to fly parallel flight paths along the border and be able to collect a considerable amount of intelligence inboard across the boundary. In uncontested airspace you could park something like a Predator drone for hours on end like the Americans have done for over a decade now. Simple platforms whose greatest boon is their endurance. India could rely on a surge of Predator type drones flying border parallel flight paths on repeat at times of heightened tension (almost akin to Operation Chrome Dome but without LeMay's courting nuclear Armageddon for kicks). You lower the stakes considerably when you have a UAV conducting a role like that as opposed to a manned platform, especially when the risks of it being shot down are taken into account.

Last I remember India does have its own HALE programme led by DRDO, I believe it was called Ghatak but the latest images from Aero India have SWIFT marked on the model.
See: https://twitter.com/ReviewVayu/statu...535663624?s=20

The most easily identifiable and basic difference between KnAAPO & Irkut built Su-30s is the Tail fin. I am not sure if this is the technically correct way to describe the difference - the top of the Irkut built Su-30 tail fins(MKI/MKA/MKM) sort of tapers downwards while the KnAAPO built ones( like the MKK) are straight, parallel to the base of the tail fin. All Russian built Indian Su-30s(K/MK/MKI) were manufactured by Irkut. The other difference is of course that the Irkut ones have canards while KnAAPO built ones don't.
Top: PLAAF Su-30MKK, Bottom - IAF Su-30MKI


Su-30MKI(India)/MKA(Algeria)/MKM(Malaysia)/SM(Russia, Armenia, Myanmar) - Irkut built

Su-30MKK(China)/MK2(Indonesia,Uganda)/MK2V(Vietnam)/MKV(Venezuela) - KnAAPO built


The Indian Air Force had signed the deal with Sukhoi on 30 November 1996 for the delivery of 40 Su-30 aircraft from the Irkutsk plant in phased manner, spread out over four years - from 1997 to 2000. In September 1998, the IAF signed a deal for 10 additional Su-30s, originally destined for Indonesia, and thus bring the total number of Su-30s on order to 50

The first batch of eight Su-30MKs (SB 001 - SB 008), delivered to the IAF, had evolved from the twin seat Su-27PU( long range interceptor), which in itself is a two-seat fighter derivative of the Su-27UB trainer. These aircraft had the standard Su-27 radar, an in-flight refuelling capability, limited air-to-ground capability and a data-link system. The first deliveries of Su-30MKs arrived in kits at Lohegaon AFB in March 1997, where they were assembled and were formally inducted into the No.24 Squadron on 11 June 1997 by the then-incumbent Prime Minister, Inder Kumar Gujral.


The second batch, originally built to fulfill a cancelled Indonesian order, of ten Su-30Ks (SB 009 - SB 018) had limited PGM (Precision Guided Munitions) capability. Ten Su-30K aircraft, which was originally destined for Indonesia, was delivered in November 1999.


Sukhoi, as per contract, was supposed to deliver the next batch of eight (Su-30MKs) aircraft in 1998. Delivery was however postponed, because only in March 1998 did the IAF specify the requirements for the advanced avionics and signed the agreements with the respective companies. The ordinate delays finally led to the decision to have all future deliveries of the aircraft in the full MKI standard. In mid-2002, ten Su-30MKI aircraft were finally delivered in completely-knocked down kits to Lohegaon AFS. These aircraft were formally inducted into the No.20 Squadron on 27 September 2002.


No. 24 Sqdn, the first IAF FLanker sqdn, later converted to the SU-30MKI and Upgrades of the first 18 aircraft (eight Su-30MK and 10 Su-30K) to Su-30MKI standards and specifications were found to be technologically & economically infeasible. These were put in storage and later exchanged with Russia for new Su-30MKIs. Many of these heavily flogged ex-IAF Su-30K/MKs , after upgrade to Su-30KN standards, now serve with the Angolan Air Force.

ex-IAF SU-30K/MK in Angolan service

From what I recall, the reason being for the distinctive canted tail tips on Russian aircraft is due to the way they package antennae in it. I can't seem to find where it was I read this I'm afraid but will post if and when I do.

https://www.defencetalk.com/military...al-tails.7594/
This is the best I could find, with one of the stronger responses suggesting it might be a deliberate vortex negating effect however. That runs counter to what I remembered so, yeah - why do the Russians favour that particular shape in the tail fins?

I referred to my copy of Yefim Gordon's Su-27 book again and here's what the reference to those distinct tail type difference between Irkut built & KnAAPO built SU-30s states:

Irkut built Su-30s (Notice the tail type & presence of canards)
Algeria - Su-30MKA


India - Su-30MKI


Malaysia - Su-30MKM


Russia - Su-30SM


Armenia - Su-30SM


Kazakhstan - Su-30SM


Myanmar - Su-30SME


The original Su-30K/MKs delivered to the IAF in late 90s were Irkut built airframes


KnAAPO built Su-30s (Different tail type & lack of canards)
Indonesia - Su-30MK2


Uganda- Su-30MK2


Venezuela - Su-30MKV


Vietnam - Su-30MK2V


China - Su-30MKK

Basically, the Su30 is the Heartech platform of fighter jets. Half the jets of Russian origin flown by ‘cost sensitive customers’ are derivatives of the Su30. If only they could incorporate the fuel sipping nature of the K series petrol engine rl:

According to this analysis, Mig 21 has been one of the least accident prone aircraft historically in IAF fleet, while Mig 23 has the worst record:



Reason why Mig 21 gets a bad name is because IAF had a huge number of this aircraft in its inventory:



Not to forget that Mig 21 has been in service for a long long time:



Full article:
https://airpowerasia.com/2021/01/23/...-iaf-aircraft/

Thanks for these charts and fresh data.

The primary reason for MiG-21 crashes was that young pilots did not have an advanced trainer to cut their teeth on before being put into a MiG-21U trainer. With its acceleration, landing speeds in excess of 320 kmph, rocket like takeoff and very thin wings the MiG-21 is the car equivalent of a super Ferrari. For an entire generation from c.1984 to c.2008 our pupil pilots had to step up from the benign Kiran Mk. II to the MiG-21U. And even when you have passed your MiG conversion your life experience in fast jets is simply not enough especially in lo-lo flying. For 25 years our bureaucracy questioned the need for a fast jet trainer!!!! And then in the mid 1990s to save money the MoD purchased spares made in Bulgaria. Their lack of reliability added to our woes.

Surprised at the Ouragan accident numbers. Might have been because most pilots flew a jet first time on a Ouragan or a Vampire. The MiG-23 was one aircraft we did not need and bought in as a silly over reaction to Pakistani F-16s.

I think these charts are missing the main numbers, accidents are measured per hour flown or per flight. If I have a 2001 E230 used once a month and a 2001 M800 used daily and the
M800 breakdowns more doesn't mean the M800 is less reliable :)

% yearly loss does not consider the fact a Mig-21 might be flown 30 times a year and a Mig-25 only 10 times a year. Also average duration of the flight maybe substantially different for each aircraft.

Actual numbers in service and time the aircraft has been in service has no bearing on crashes per flight or flight hours. (not considering wear and tear due to age and improper maintenance).

F-15 Eagle with 2 IAF Su-30MKI (pic from ongoing Desert Flag exercise in UAE):



Source: Twitter

Can't make out whose F-15 that is though - South Korea, Saudi Arabia and USA are all participating in this exercise, and all of them have F-15s in their inventory.

Whenever you see any Flanker family aircraft alongside others it really drives home how enormous the jets are! Awkward though it might look on the ground, the F-15 (once airborne) has always been to my eyes the best looking of the F series jets currently operational.

I doubt anyone would be able to tell whose F-15 it is from that photo. All I can make out are the tips of the tail fins are red but other than that it's a pretty normal loadout with what looks like twin drop tanks.

Wasn't aware of this Desert Flag exercise series. All the more surprised to hear of South Korean participation. How long has this been ongoing? I would imagine Indian and South Korea were later additions to the exercise?