*nods* It appears to me, that when the house of cards fell for the russians, they had to make some calls on what they could afford to do. It appears they made the choice between the SU27 and the MiG29 to continue to support, maintain, and further develop the SU27 because it was felt that while the 29 was a better pure dogfighter, the Flanker by virtue of being larger, could be pushed into being a true multirole fighter, and hence, if they could only support so many squadrons....
A reasonable choice I will admit.
And I wouldn't say that the Germans was in a hurry to ditch the 29: They kept them for a good while, and ever rebuilt them as well to further increase performance. I think they passed them on the Poles more because of trying to settle on fewer types than because they didn't like them: a lot of the Pilots that flew them preferred them over allied designs.
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Member of the Bofors fan club! The M1911 of automatic cannon.
Proud fan(atic) of the CV90 Series.
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