Russia To Complete MiG-35 ‘Fulcrum-F’ Tests By Year End

Russia is planning to add MiG-35  ‘Fulcrum-F’ Combat Aircraft into Moscow’s aerial arsenal as soon as 2018, following test completion by late 2017.

The export variant jets could be delivered by 2020, IHS Jane’s reported.

The MiG-35 is the next generation fighter jet, to follow the MiG-29 that’s been under development for over a decade.

It "can take off from a very short lane, take off and land on unprepared airfields, and can be stored without a hangar for a period of a few months," said MiG spokeswoman Anastasia Kravchenko.

The stealth jet was not exhibited at the Paris Air Show but, it will make an appearance at the MAKS Air Show in July outside Moscow, Kravchenko said.

The suitors so far have been from south and southeast Asia, Latin America, and neighbors like Kazakhstan, Kravchenko said.

The MiG packs 12 percent more engine power than previous Russian models, she added.

 "If we’re talking about fifth-generation technologies, we can safely say that we have some of them integrated and not in tests, but in use by this jet," Kravchenko told Military.com.

Russian Ministry of Defense officials would not reveal how many new MiG aircraft would be produced off the bat, Tarasenko noted.

"But already today the Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces said that they are planning to gradually replace all the current MiG-29 aircraft with the MiG-35 model," he said in an interview with IHS Jane’s on June 24.

There are currently about 350 MiG-29s in the fleet to pair with heavier model Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker and MiG-21 Foxhound aircraft.