IrAF Mig-29 Camo discreptancy?

[TaiidanTomcat]

I am reminded of the World War Two B-17 (or perhaps it was B-24) gunner who went down in history at an IPMS event several years ago for saying that Focke Wulfs were painted "purple and dark blue". And then he pointed to a 190 model in RLM 74/75/76 on a table and said "This one is painted right - exactly like that! Purple and dark blue!" His memory was fine - 50 years later he was able to match a color to what he saw during the war, and "by the books" his memory was right. He just had an odd way of describing what he was seeing - or perhaps to him, it really did look "purple and dark blue".

yep everyone sees colors differently, describing them doesn't take away from that confusion either.

[Raymond]

as much as id love there to be a camo'd iraqi mig-29...to quote zmey:

"pics or it diddnt happen!"

[Fustercluck]

Here is my theory:

The standard MIg-29 camo has a VERY green darker grey. Boom, there is your green.

The lighter gray has a light tan color. Tan=Brown. Throw is some color variation due to whatever the sun was doing at the time, and maybe a mistranslation or two and you have green and brown.

Hey its as good a theory as any other.

[Davfoe]

Yes, but by using that one could say that the VPAF did shoot down a B-52, not an SA-2. No pic prove it was an SA-2 and no pics prove it was an Atoll, yet in every "WESTERN" publication I have read it was an SA-2 and COULDN"T have been a Mig-21 with an "ATOLL". Also, as Iraqi aircraft were never really Photogenic, I wouldn't be surprised to find a few peculiarities, again, I'd have to go with the pilot and NOT with what WE, who where not there, think. Unless someone has a FULL photo id of EVERY IrAF Mig-29 no one can know.

Edited May 19, 2009 by Davfoe

[LanceB]

One teensy problem with that logic, Davfoe: If it always comes down to "believe the pilot, not what those who were not there think" then there were a heck of a lot of He113s shot down over Europe. There are even German photos of the "type", and it was featured in a report on the Luftwaffe compiled by British Intelligence. Thing is, there was no such aircraft in actual usage. There is no way all those pilots shot down "He113s" - and yet they said they did. So are they right and the rest of the world wrong?

Iraqi MiG-29 paint schemes are documented. They were two-tone gray. The Iraqis say so, the Russians who delivered them say so, everyone says so. Everyone except, granted, one US pilot who did a visual ID on one in the heat of battle and took it out. He <i>may</i> be right about what he saw, or thinks he saw. But without corroboration, I won't take one guy's word as gospel when what he says is so clearly in contradiction of what is known and established.

[boom175]

I have been working with pilots for 29 years know, while the vast majority are superior aviators, tactician's and the like the majority I have worked with couldn't tell you the camo scheme of a jet they just "dogfighted"(Sp )

Also, have we considered whether the pilot was misquoted or a "typo" got in the narrative..

Just some thoughts...

[Jennings]

It seems strange to me how a bunch of Armchair pilots can tell a fighter pilot, who was in the air saw the damned plane...can say he's mistaken it couldn't have been that color.......He was there and they were somewhere picking their collective noses.........If he says he saw in the green and brown MiG I'll take his word for it, after all like I said he was there and who know maybe the Iraqis tried it to see how effectivie it was.....after all they did bury some to see if they could hide them till it was over.....and they did have their tanks dug in so there was only one escape route and it got blocked. Anyway I believe he saw a green and brown camou'd MiG....

Scientific evidence about the incredibly fragile, friable, changeable, open-to-suggestion nature of human memory be damned, right? Fighter pilots are not God. They're wrong just as often as we mere (nose-picking) mortals. They take a crap in the morning just like I do, and they put their flight suit on one leg at a time, just like I do.

Accord to some sources..* ( ex. squadron in action Mig-29 Fulcrum, page 21 )

The day I start taking *anything* from a Squadron Signal In-Action book as gospel is the day pigs will sprout wings and fly. Possibly the single least reliable published "source" in the history of aviation research.

J

PS: I'm a pilot too, btw

Edited May 20, 2009 by Jennings