Here's my 2 cents worth regarding the EAF SU-35 Deal that I posted on ACIG a while back.
From an Egyptian regime military mouthpiece page we have the following information regarding the Su-35 saga.
The deal is currently 'suspended' pending major improvements stipulated by the EAF, but considering the current international climate I would say that the deal will be cancelled altogether, even if the EAF pilots were still in Russia at the time of the report being written.
So here is a summary of what was in the report:
There indeed were 5 aircraft delivered to Egypt. These 5 aircraft were subjected to a considerable amount of testing and were trialled in several exercises, including international exercises in Egypt (read with the French) and the results were disastrous.
The IRBIS-E radar did not function as advertised and detection ranges were just over half of what the Russians had been claiming. Furthermore, the Radar could not guide a missile beyond 100kms, which made it useless if you had longer ranged missiles. Further to this the IRBIS was prone to malfunction and there were too many cases where the system failed in mid flight and would also lock up and require rebooting. The Egyptians complained to the Russians about these issues and stated basically that the aircraft was not as advertised and would not be accepted by the EAF. All 5 aircraft were promptly disassembled and shipped back to Russia pending the Russians coming up with an AESA radar based on that in the Su-57 to replace IRBIS along with a host of other requirements/improvements the Egyptians stipulated before they would be accepted. To add further insult to injury the EAF promptly informed their Algerian counterparts of the issues they'd identified.
The report further stated that the deal breaker was the aircraft's performance and not CAATSA. Due to US pressure on South Korea, certain components and materials required for the production of the radars have been withheld which has held up any further work being done in that regard.
