The Zhuk-ME airborne radar systems (radars) of Russian production, installed on the MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB fighters of the Indian Navy, often break down. This is written by the Western publication Defence blog, citing an alleged leak of internal documentation from Rostec.
The document entitled "Report on the reliability and characteristics of the Zhuk-ME radar for MiG-29K/KUB aircraft of the Indian Navy" was obtained from sources associated with Rostec. It refers to frequent failures of radar components and unfulfilled contractual obligations.
The contract for the purchase was signed by India with RSK MiG in 2004. However, it subsequently turned out that the reliability of the radar was much lower than the level specified in the contract.
The average mean time between failures (the time during which a repairable device operates failure-free between two consecutive failures) of the Zhuk-ME radar was supposed to be 150 flight hours, and the average mean time to failure (the average operating time until the next failure) — 120 hours.
In the period from 2016 to 2018, repeated radar failures were recorded on MiG-29K aircraft. At the beginning of 2016, reliability indicators were only 20 hours MTBF and 97 hours MTBF, which is significantly lower than the limit value stipulated in the contract.
The publication claims that by 2017, the average MTBF of the radar had decreased to 60 hours. During subsequent tests, the radar worked more stably, but Indian officials continued to complain about the "unsatisfactory performance" of the Zhuk-ME and indicated this in memos addressed to RSK MiG.
As a result, specialists from the NIIR Fazotron were forced to refine the radar, replacing some blocks in it. The work was supervised by KRET (part of Rostec). But in May 2019, the Indian Navy excluded the Zhuk-ME radar from the list of certified components for MiG-29K/KUB fighters.