[Lurking in Kansas]

Why do their planes always look like our planes?

/

[Dan Middleton]

It doesn’t.

[edcoil]

Aerodynamics

It what makes it a plane. If it looked like a submarine - it would not fly very well.

[MirrorField]

Why do their planes always look like our planes?

Convergent Evolution, shared public research and espionage. Not necessarily in this order.

Laws of physics are same to all of us. If certain shape in certain situation gives optimal results, items in that situation tend to look alike whether R&D was done by Boeing or MiG. Likewise, you cannot keep a natural law secret; someone else will eventually get the same idea, especially if he has broad hints and knows something is possible. There is a reason Teller-Ulam design for hydrogen bomb is/was also known as "Andrei Sakharov's Third Idea".

[China Clipper]

"We have begun testing the MiG-35 fighter for the Indian tender," said Alexander Karezin, director general of the Sokol company based in Nizhny Novgorod. When, and if, the MiG-35 wins a contract for the Indian MMRCA or any other tender, Sokol would be the manufacturing base for the aircraft. "

And before the Indians get the plane, Clint Eastwood and a crack team of rebels steal the plane and fly it to the Arctic Circle and eventually on to Greenland.

Roll credits...

[SJSAMPLE]

They’re quite different if you look a them.
The Russians have leveraged the Mig-29 and Su-27 designs for over 20 years.