An article about the Maintenance heavy and expensive MiG-29s Malaysia bought in 1999 (same time as us )
Full Frame: Malaysia's MiG-29N : Fulcrum Most Tenacious (daisetsuzan.blogspot.com)
This is an interesting excerpt from the article:
Cheap To Own, Expensive To Use
Part of the reason why the MiGs were expensive and difficult to maintain was that Russian equipment were generally not made to match the high standards of their western counterparts. They are generally simple to operate and rugged to allow for operations under austere conditions but are certainly not made to last.
They are relatively cheap to produce in large quantities so if any were to break down, they can be easily replaced rather than repaired. According to Mark Bobbi of IHS, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union's massive defense spending resulted in and allowed for hugely wasteful procurement practices where by aircraft manufacturers such as Mikoyan Gurevich and Sukhoi would design so called " throwaway aircrafts ", expected to operate for ten years or so with little or no maintenance before they were scrapped and replaced with all new aircrafts. So if you are trying to get some Russian or legacy Soviet equipment repaired, be ready to face some real hurdles.
The quality of service and support from Russia is also simply not at the same level as those from Western companies like Boeing or Dassault. Apart from the language barrier, the work culture is entirely different. Business ethics may be non-existent, as the Russian supply chain is notoriously known to be the most inefficient and corrupt.
To make matters worse, the Malaysians themselves imposed restrictions as to who could supply parts and carry out maintenance works on their aircrafts. It seemed that only companies majority owned by indigenous people could qualify and they of course seized the opportunity to inflate prices, since there was little transparency and almost no competition. In the end, each
Fulcrum would cost $5 million to service annually, and that's in US Dollars, not the Malaysian Riggit which in recent times had fallen to historical lows.
TLDR, BAF should avoid purchasing any Russian fighters in the future
We probably faced similar issues with maintenance of these fighters.
Notice the different new nosecone.
