NATO feared this jet in the last days of the Cold War but it never seemed to reach its potential. Why?

by David Axe

Late in the Cold War, the Russian air force deployed the Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter as a counter to the U.S. Air Force’s nimble F-16.

Four decades later, the MiG-29 is fading. Hundreds remain in service in the air arms of Russian allies and clients—not to mention at least one strong rival—but in its native country, the Fulcrum is nearing the end of its useful service life.

The twin-engine MiG-29 represented a major advancement when it first entered service in 1982. “The aircraft’s exceptional thrust-to-weight ratio, agility and the first operational helmet-cued sighting system for the R-73 [infrared]-guided dogfighting missile made it almost unbeatable in a [one-on-one, within-visual-range] engagement,” Justin Bronk, an analyst with the London-based Royal United Services Institute, wrote in an October report. “For its time, the radar was also competitive with those carried by other light fighters such as the American F-16C.”

Mikoyan ultimately built around 1,600 MiG-29s. They flew for no fewer than 39 air forces. Two dozen air arms still operate the type. Perhaps most notably, Poland—a former Soviet client that now is no friend of Russia—still has around 30 MiG-29s.

But in the post-Cold War era, the Fulcrum fell out of favour as more air arms, including Russia’s, demonstrated a preference for larger, more powerful fighters such as the Su-27 and its variants.

“The major weaknesses of [early] MiG-29 variants was inadequate range due to low fuel capacity and engines with high fuel consumption,” Bronk explained.

Mikoyan partially fixed this problem with the recent MiG-29SMT version of the fighter, which features a large dorsal spine carrying extra fuel. “However, the net effect of the additional fuel and the weight growth from upgraded avionics and other equipment has been to destroy the one major advantage that the aircraft had during the Cold War: its exceptional thrust-to-weight ratio and agility.”

As a result, the latest MiG-29s are dogs. Mikoyan has been pushing the MiG-35, a new-build MiG-29 with more underwing hardpoints and attachments for a modern advanced electronically-scanned-array radar. But the radar isn’t ready yet, so the plane-maker has delivered the initial MiG-35s to the Russian air force without the sensor.

The future is bleak for the MiG-29 in Russian service. Today the air force and navy fly just 98 MiG-29s alongside around 460 Su-27s and variants. Most of the air force’s Fulcrums belong to a single unit that flies the type as an adversary, standing in for foreign F-16s during war games.

“The additional logistical expenses involved in operating small fleets of different types further reduce the attractiveness of significant orders of MiG-29 and the follow-on MiG-35 derivative for the [Russian air force], which is perfectly satisfied with the Su-30SM and Su-35S (which are already in large-scale production),” Bronk explained.

As a result, the Kremlin has ordered just 50 MiG-29SMTs and six MiG-35s, “mostly as an industrial support policy to keep Mikoyan in business.”