The design schools of MiG and Sukhoi differ in their fundamental approach to creating combat aircraft. This was stated to "Pervy Tekhnichesky" by Nikolai Chikunov, a first-category design engineer at the A.I. Mikoyan Design Bureau.
According to him, the Sukhoi school traditionally focuses on introducing technically unusual solutions. MiG specialists, first and foremost, aim to achieve the required combat characteristics.
If Sukhoi has a certain avant-gardism, something to try out, then MiG has a different trait. We have pragmatism.
Chikunov explained that such an approach does not mean the superiority of one school over another. On the contrary, the two schools could complement each other.
These are two complementary design schools, each of which treats the other with great respect.
The engineer concluded that MiG's pragmatic approach allowed technical solutions to be evaluated primarily from the perspective of their necessity for combat use.