Iranian Air Force Receives First New Russian Fighters in Over 30 Years: How Capable Are Its MiG-29s?
Middle East , Aircraft and Anti-Aircraft
The Iranian Air Force has been confirmed by local media to have received new MiG-29 aircraft from Russia, marking the first procurement of new fighters by the country’s armed forces since the early 1990s. The arrival of the aircraft at Shiraz Air Base has fuelled speculation that very large scale procurements of MiG-29s could be made to revolutionise the capabilities of the country’s combat fleet. Although Iranian officials in January confirmed that orders had been placed for new Su-35 fighters, which are considerably larger and longer ranged, the possibility remains that the MiG-29 will be procured in greater numbers, with the aircraft having far lower procurement and operational costs which may lead them to be seen as more cost effective. The procurement has occurred three months after Iran was subjected to a large scale air assault by Israel, which was supported by the United States and other Western Bloc states, during which the Iranian Air Force has been assessed to have played a negligible role in defending the country’s airspace.
Developed as a medium weight fourth generation fighter in the waning years of the Cold War, modern variants of the MiG-29 have been brought up to a ‘4+ generation’ standard through integration of phased array radars, glass cockpits, modern avionics including advanced data links, and post-Cold War weaponry. The Iranian Air Force procured two squadrons’ worth of the fighters from 1990, although plans to acquire them on a larger scale were derailed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent successful application of Western pressure on Moscow and other Soviet successor states not to sell advanced military equipment to Iran. Although Iran’s MiG-29s have for the past 35 years been its most modern fighters in service, they are considered effectively obsolete by the standards of the 2020s. It is highly likely that newly delivered aircraft have been modernised to provide more viable combat capabilities than the Soviet era variants previously fielded.
The Iranian Air Force’s transition to field modernised variants of the MiG-29 is expected to be relatively smooth, with the service having received Yak-130 trainers from Russia from September 2023, which are considered optimal to familiarise pilots with operating ‘4+ generation’ and fifth generation fighter aircraft. Maintenance of modernised MiG-29 variants is relatively similar to that of older Cold War era models, with the vast majority of maintenance infrastructure being the same. Unlike the Su-35, which has a queue of orders from both the Russian Defence Ministry and from Algeria, MiG-29s can be delivered relatively quickly. Not only do modern MiG-29M variants have no known orders to occupy production lines, but Russia also maintains several hundred relatively new MiG-29 airframes in storage, many of them unassembled, which can be brought up to ‘4+ generation’ configurations such as the MiG-29SMT and MiG-29UPG. The MiG-29UPG was ordered by India in 2020.
The greater availability of MiG-29 airframes, and Iran’s expected ability to integrate them into service relatively quickly, makes the fighter an optimal choice to rapidly enhance the country’s aerial warfare capabilities. Fighters are likely to have integrated either the widely used Zhuk-ME passive electronically scanned array radar or the newer Zhuk-A/AM active electronically scanned array radar, providing an advantage over Israeli fourth generation fighters which still rely on less advanced mechanically scanned array radars. While older MiG-29s used obsolete Cold War era variants of the R-27 air-to-air missile as their primary armament, newer variants can integrate the modern R-77 and R-77M missiles with active radar guidance, the latter which has a significant advantage over missile types fielded by other air forces in the region. Although less capable than the Su-35, or than the F-35 that forms the elite of the Israeli Air Force’s fleet, modernised MiG-29s are expected to be more than capable of going head to head with the F-16I and F-15A/C/I fighters that form the backbone of the Israeli fleet. If procured on a large scale, the fighters have the potential to be a game changer for the balance of power in the air between the two states.
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