Ukraine appears to be using US-made radar-hunting missiles to another kind of fighter jet

The Ukrainian Air Force used US-made anti-radiation missiles in their fighter jets.

There is photographic evidence of the missile being used by the Ukrainians. Two air-to-air missiles, as well as two R-27R/ AA-10 Alamo, can be seen on the aircraft.

In early August, photos emerged online showing debris from the Russian surface-to-air missile site after an attack on it.

The US government confirmed a couple of weeks later that the anti-radiation missiles were delivered to Ukraine and were being used by the MiG-29s.

—🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 9, 2022

The officials didn't give any information about how the missile was integrated on the Soviet aircraft, so it's not certain how the missile worked on this platform.

We included a comment about the integration in our story.

No details have been provided about how the missile was integrated on the MiG-29. As we already mentioned in a previous article, integrating the missile on the MiG-29 doesn't simply mean strapping a LAU-118A launcher and the AGM-88 missile to the MiG's pylons.

There is a lot more work that needs to be done to integrate them in the avionics and electrical systems. Also, another problem is how the Fulcrum's pilots will perform the targeting of the missile, which usually happens through a Multi-Function Display that cannot be found in the MiG-29's fully analogic cockpit.

Some analysts are suggesting a solution which involves a simple tablet linked to the missile to perform the targeting, possibly through the HARM in sensor mode. As the name suggests, the missile's sensor provides the pilot with a list of emitters that are being detected, from which one is then selected for the missile about to be launched.

Another mode could be the Pre-Briefed mode, however it does not seem very practical in a quickly evolving battlefield as the position of the enemy radar is programmed on the ground and cannot be changed anymore by the pilot once the aircraft takes off.

The video released by the Ukrainian Air Force gave some information, but it might not have been as detailed as expected. The same details should be applied to both of the jets. The missiles were loaded on the missile launchers used by both jets.

There is an interesting detail on the display that shows the aircraft's recognition of the AGM-88 as an R-27EP. The R-27EP is an anti-radiation variant of the air-to-air missile with a range of up to 70 NM and which homes on airborne radars.

The air-to-air role for which that avionic mode was designed is not being used by the Flanker and the Fulcrum.

It leads us to believe that the integration might have been simpler than we thought.

Even if the integration gives basic capabilities compared to a dedicated asset fully compatible with the HARM, they put the new capability to good use.