Russian Fighter Showdown: Su-35 vs. MiG-35 (Who Wins?)

Charlie Gao

Security,

They aren't fighting in the air, but for a big contract in Egypt.

Egypt recently turned heads with its decision to purchase twenty advanced Su-35S fighter jets from Russia. This adds yet another unique airframe to Egypt’s inventory, which currently fields Rafales, two generations of F-16s, MiG-29s modernized to near MiG-35 standard, and two generations of Mirages.

What could the Su-35S add onto this lineup? What could the political repercussions of the buy be?

Given the capabilities of the other aircraft in their fleet, the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) is probably looking into the Su-35S primarily as an air superiority fighter.  The Su-35S has an Irbis-E PESA radar that is known to be extremely powerful, although it lacks some advanced functionality of AESA radars.

Su-35Ss also feature advanced thrust vectoring engines and integration with all the latest export Russian air-to-air missiles. This is an advantage over American F-16s, which are not equipped with the latest export AIM-120 AMRAAMs and AIM-9X missiles due to the United States’ desire to preserve the military superiority of Israel in the region.

The Su-35S is also a single cockpit aircraft. While it can shoot the latest Russian air-to-ground munitions, the Egyptian MiG-29M2 (called MiG-35 by some observers) has been delivered with the PPK targeting pod, making it the more likely aircraft to be used by the EAF for air-to-ground work.

The Egyptian MiG-29M2s could also be considered “budget” aircraft not optimal for air-to-air work as their PESA radars are less powerful and versatile than those found in proper MiG-35, which sports an AESA radar. The MiG-29M2’s PESA isn’t nearly as powerful the Irbis-E PESA found in the Su-35S. The MiG-29M2 also is slower, and a MiG-29 variant (reported as MiG-29M, but also reported as delivered in 2018) is said to have crashed in late 2018.