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The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming


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The Mig-29 was rumored to have been built off of technology stolen from the YF-17 program, so yes the F-18 comparison is fair. The YF-17 first flew in 1971, the Mig 29 in 1974. The F-18 comparison is fair. Yes the Mig-29 was designed to compete with the F-16 and F-15 which I don't believe it ever matched. I also served with the first western pilot to ever fly the Mig-29, AFAIK he was excited to be the first to fly the Mig-29 but he did note the deficiencies in the design

Fair points conceded by my comparitive ignorance, mind you, those "who stole whose idea" things seem to go around in circles and back to the stone age, but yes, I concede the point. I am quite sure there are deficiencies in the design, but I'm not qualified to judge them against anything else.

Your comment makes reference that it was only built to fight the first generation of the F-16. I am sure the version of Mig-29s we had at Maple Flag also went through upgrades over the years. Therefore I would conclude it didn't keep up with the F-16 over the years

Quite possibly, I'm not well versed in the various upgrade paths, but I can accept that whereas there may have been parity in the early 80's time frame, various factors such as economics, politics and culture may have widened that gap in favour of the F-16, probably in the field of avionics, build quality and suchlike. But I'm guessing.

This has nothing to do with me thumping my chest over a product built in the US as I am not American.

Yes, I was being stupid at that point, and I apologise, we do tend to see a bit of that in these discussions, but it was wrong of me to point that finger at you. There does seem to be a collective "wisdom" that everything that has been produced in Russia is a bad copy of US equipment and that cheeses me off a touch, as it isn't true. But, I hold my hand up for letting my annoyance at that influence my response.

I made the Su-27 comment in response to the comment the Su-27 was going to kick butt at the excercise. Certainly it is a powerful and rugged aircraft. But some of the featured the Russians have showcased at airshows are totally useless in combat.

I'm not convinced that airshow showcasing has ever really had anything to do with demonstrating combat ability, and has really been more of a case of demonstrating that the industry is alive and capable of producing impressive equipment. In the same way that much of the display routine of, say, an F-22 isn't really representative of its capabilities. BVR, stealth and systems operation are rather tricky to demonstrate. One could suggest that the TVC demo's done by the F-22 are a response to those shown by the Su-27 family and the MiG 29 OVT etc. But again, I'm let down by my knowledge of modern A2A combat. However, I don't think the comment about the Su-27 "kicking butt" was intended to be a serious prediction.

You and I both, there would have been no winners. But as a maintainer I can't help but appreciate technology and quality of work. I have seen first-hand the quality and construction of several Russian aircraft which I have been less than impressed with.

You may be right about construction quality, I have no way of knowing. However, given the issues that Russia has been fielding in comparison to the US over the last couple of decades, I suspect that the impetus to have "something" was greater than the impetus to have "something perfect". The Su-25 for example was a relatively crude machine in comparison with the A-10, but because of that, could live in a harsher environment, with less support and pampering, which suited the needs of the then Soviet Union. Plus, it was a more capable machine in some areas, ie supersonic performance when empty etc. So, crudity of construction is perhaps a bit misleading when it comes to determining efficacy. My old ex military landrover was as crude as they come, not very well built, leaky, rattly, noisy and uncomfortable in comparison to a modern "luxury" 4x4, but I know which I would rather rely on in an extreme environment.

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Who cares when it flew. MiG-29 was designed to combat against F-16, if you think otherwise, then you are obviously going against everything *actual* MiG-29 engineers has ever said, or Soviet policy. I for one claim it was designed to combat against Aurora, prove i am wrong. :rolleyes:

Also, MiG-29 was designed to fight F-16 of early blocks. Comparing MiG-29 9.12/9.13 to Block 52 F-16 is outright silly, but then again i just saw comparing between Su-27 and F-22, so i am not sure how to define word "silly" anymore. If you don't think MiG-29 could battle F-16, that is fine, we have different opinions there.

I am sure the version of Mig-29s we had at Maple Flag also went through upgrades over the years.

I am sorry, but here you just show outright ignorance towards a plane you can't even write correctly.

PS: And please, point out what ideas was stolen from YF-17. Man, i have seen some ridiculous stuff said on ARC forum, but list just keeps growing...

Edited by Berkut
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Also, MiG-29 was designed to fight F-16 of early blocks. Comparing MiG-29 9.12/9.13 to Block 52 F-16 is outright silly, but then again i just saw comparing between Su-27 and F-22, so i am not sure how to define word "silly" anymore. If you don't think MiG-29 could battle F-16, that is fine, we have different opinions there.

As a side note, from a dogfighting perspective, the early block F-16 would have given the MiG-29 much more of a fight then the later block 40/42/50/52's. I just read an old article about US ANG F-16C Block 30 (or whatever the block was that had the GE engine) in an exercise with Bulgarian MiG-29's. The Bulgarians had previously gone against USAF F-15C's and F-16C Block 40's and didn't think that much of them in pure A2A dogfighting. They said the much heavier Block 40's lost speed quickly during hard maneuvering.

However, they were very impressed with the older ANG Block 30's, which had the same engine as the later models but were much lighter.

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As a side note, from a dogfighting perspective, the early block F-16 would have given the MiG-29 much more of a fight then the later block 40/42/50/52's. I just read an old article about US ANG F-16C Block 30 (or whatever the block was that had the GE engine) in an exercise with Bulgarian MiG-29's. The Bulgarians had previously gone against USAF F-15C's and F-16C Block 40's and didn't think that much of them in pure A2A dogfighting. They said the much heavier Block 40's lost speed quickly during hard maneuvering.

However, they were very impressed with the older ANG Block 30's, which had the same engine as the later models but were much lighter.

Article from a few years back, right? And yeah, pretty good article.

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How did that philosophy work out in Vietnam? I don't think you can walk 10' in the former N Vietnam without tripping over the remnants of a USAF / USN jet.

I think that statement needs to be qualified, as a large number of those US jets lost over N. Vietnam were due to SAM shoot downs. I'm don't know the actual percentage of A2A victories by NVA pilots and those by SAM's, Showtime 100 is a good example.

A highly qualified US pilot said of a Russian Machine (1st generation jet) "If I had been flying a MiG-15 in Korea I would have had many more kills". Which says a lot of Russian design and capability. This in no way says one side is better than the other. It still pans out to who's the better and more experienced driver. You could put a nugget in a dogfight and he might get lucky, though not often. Present day philosophy says it all. Topgun and Red Flag were created to give pilot/aviators without combat experience that very same. The line of thinking if they can give them in practice the experience gained in the first five missions, their chance of survival would be increased.

Watching "dogfights" on History channel two Skyraiders (prop) took out a MiG-17 (jet). Don't dismiss either sides aircraft. There is one word I'd use to describe all the machines concerned and that is "lethal".

There are too many parameters determining the outcome of a 1 v 1 encounter to avow one fighter is better than another, some of which are intangible.

Edited by #1 Greywolf
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Russians ain't coming to Red Flag. As for which aircraft is better.....pointless. Neither side will show their cards nor will they actually conduct an accurate live simulation. IMO, a better "bridge builder" would be for a joint relief mission, such as Angel Thunder or continue what we started with Russian intel/recon guys working with our SF on the basics.

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I think that statement needs to be qualified, as a large number of those US jets lost over N. Vietnam were due to SAM shoot downs. I'm don't know the actual percentage of A2A victories by NVA pilots and those by SAM's, Showtime 100 is a good example.

Agreed, there is always much more to something like this than just numbers. However, the A2A kill ratio of both the USAF and USN in Vietnam was horrible to say the least. And if you believe some of the NVAF reports, a fair number of American losses that we attributed to SAM's or AAA may have actually been shootdowns. I wouldn't take the official US statistics as 100% accurate. I'm not even sure that the USN has yet to admit that it lost that F/A-18 in Desert Storm to a MiG-25 even though that is pretty much accepted by all.

My point was to dispute an earlier post about quality being much more important than quantity. I don't think anyone would argue that US fighters were technologically superior to those of the NVAF, however, in the long run, that bought them a sub 2:1 kill ratio. Not acceptable by any standard. Personally, I'd rather have lots of fighters that are good, rather than a few fighters that are great. Keeping in mind that those "great" fighters typically have low availability numbers and require huge bases and thousands of mechanics to keep them all flying.

The quality vrs quantity good philosophy has worked out well for the US since Vietnam but keep in mind that in every other conflict, we have had the advantage of quality, pilot training (for the most part) AND numbers. I'm not too sure how things would work out if instead of going up against a few Iraqi / Yugoslav MiG-29's, the US was going against hundreds of Russian flown MiG's instead.

Anyway, this subject is fascinating put probably deserves it's own thread (assuming we could keep things civil enough to avoid lockdown).

Edited by 11bee
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Anyway, this subject is fascinating put probably deserves it's own thread (assuming we could keep things civil enough to avoid lockdown).

Agreed 100%, its always a shame that what could and should be a reasoned discussion degenerates into dogma and vitriol. Seems like people have lost the art of being able to disagree amicably.

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Re: the MiG-29 I'd just like to remind everyone of something... I don't know about Iraq but I suspect it probably wasn't much better a situation, but I don't think the performance of Yugoslav MiG-29s can be used to form an opinion of the TYPE's performance in *any* way - plain and simply, because they were essentially non-functional. They could get in the air and fly, and that's about it, but much of the electronics including the radars were either unserviceable or just barely operational. So, of course, the performance of decrepit aircraft is going to be far different than the performance of well-maintained aircraft that are performing properly...

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I reed with fascination where it all went away from the original topic.

With out going into anymore debate I can only say that the F-16's and other Western aircraft were regular visitors to Kecskemet AFB for joint exercises. Official reports of the encounters were never published but we had plenty of opportunities to speak to the participating pilots (on both sides) and the F-16 (different makes) was nowhere in comparison to the MiG-29 when they were allowed to fight as they wanted. The R-73 and the helmet mounted sight was something that no western fighter had any answer to if used skillfully! In a war there are very few „rules of engagement, you use what ever you have to win.

Going back to the original subject, it is going to be interesting to see any Russian participation in the US excersise.

Best regards

Gabor

Edited by ya-gabor
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Re: that helmet-mounted sight, I read something interesting just the other day, that the one used by the Russians was/is almost a direct copy of the sight invented by the South African Air Force (reference: "Vlamgat" by Brig Gen Dick Lord)...

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This debate has become rather funny and even polarizingly silly.

IMO, and history shall back me up. Any combat pilot/aircrew regardless of nation state they fly and train for and flying in a general contemporary airframe if he/they are over confident to the point of cockiness, underestimating their opponent as long as said opponent is a contemporary to him/they and the aircraft the opponent is flying also a typically contemporary aircraft will likely see the cocky, arrogant combat pilot/air crew GET HIS/THEIR ***ES FLAMED!

But sadly history tells us each nation will see its society being brainwashed into thinking its military is 100% the best all the time and no typically contemporary foe can or will ever defeat them in any way.

Being confident in yourself, your training, your supplied gear and even your doctrine are all good things in general especially in military life. But being cocky and arrogant, thinking your gear is so much better will likely see you in combat meeting a pine box quicker than you had feared or even thunk possible. Countless combatants of any and all arrogant regimes, societies, ideologies have met this fate in our collective human history.

History in the end has never been kind to anyone, any military, any nation or society that has acted and conducted itself as a belligerent even if they did so in self-righteouness and trust me here, all too many people, militaries, nations through history have acted as such thinking they were righteous.

To end had the Cold War ever went hot NOBODY WOULD HAVE WON! No matter what military hardware you had or training and indoctrination you received.

The call should be to all true and more 'just' people and more so 'just' societies to keep swords sheathed, only to pull the sword out when ultimately needed to thwart a belligerent acting against them. These said to be 'just' people and again more so 'just' societies should all stop diplomatically, politically, sociologically and ideologically brow beating others in almost indignant self-righteousness.

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Who cares when it flew. MiG-29 was designed to combat against F-16, if you think otherwise, then you are obviously going against everything *actual* MiG-29 engineers has ever said, or Soviet policy. I for one claim it was designed to combat against Aurora, prove i am wrong. :rolleyes:

Also, MiG-29 was designed to fight F-16 of early blocks. Comparing MiG-29 9.12/9.13 to Block 52 F-16 is outright silly, but then again i just saw comparing between Su-27 and F-22, so i am not sure how to define word "silly" anymore. If you don't think MiG-29 could battle F-16, that is fine, we have different opinions there.

Actually, the MiG-29 was not designed to fight the F-16, it was an example of congruous evolution to the F-16. Both were design at pretty much the same time to produce a lightweight, cheaper alternative to a heavy frontline fighter, the F-15 in the F-16's case and the F-X opponent from Sukhoi (which would result in the Su-27) in the MiG-29's case. Thus you get an aircraft with very similar capabilities to the early F-16. The small delay between the two simply reflects that the Soviet fighters were designed in response to the F-X program, and therefore weren't started until after the US programs.

It's interesting that both the MiG-29 and F-16 programs evolved for essentially identical reasons (the need for a cheaper, lightweight alternative to a massively complex but massively capable heavy fighter). It's unfortunate that the MiG-29 never saw the level of development that the F-16 or F-18 platforms did, but kind of ironic that the Su-27 would see arguably more development than the F-15 would.

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3566114847_512d6feba4.jpg

But if you're desperate for a reason to hate on the USAF, maybe you'll get lucky and you'll catch 'em walking on your lawn.

Who cares that the Russians are coming to Red Flag...The Japanese were invited first. :woot.gif:

laughingmaniacally.jpg

As others have said, I doubt the Russians are gonna give away all their trade secrets, but it'll help to draw up better scenarios for fighting against each other.

Would love to see Japanese F-2s and F-15s compete against the Raptor. Maybe if Mitsubishi makes its 5th Gen stealth fighter, maybe we might have a head to head. Who knows.

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Who cares when it flew. MiG-29 was designed to combat against F-16, if you think otherwise, then you are obviously going against everything *actual* MiG-29 engineers has ever said, or Soviet policy. I for one claim it was designed to combat against Aurora, prove i am wrong. :rolleyes:

Also, MiG-29 was designed to fight F-16 of early blocks. Comparing MiG-29 9.12/9.13 to Block 52 F-16 is outright silly, but then again i just saw comparing between Su-27 and F-22, so i am not sure how to define word "silly" anymore. If you don't think MiG-29 could battle F-16, that is fine, we have different opinions there.

I am sorry, but here you just show outright ignorance towards a plane you can't even write correctly.

PS: And please, point out what ideas was stolen from YF-17. Man, i have seen some ridiculous stuff said on ARC forum, but list just keeps growing...

Speaking of writing correctly, are your posts written in code?

It was no secret when the Mig-29 was discovered it was thought it was developed from technology from the YF-17 program.

The rest of your post is written in code and I don't care to decipher it. Ironic that you stated I couldn't write correctly.

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The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), or in Malay, Tentera Udara DiRaja Malaysia (TUDM) is operator of both the M-29 and F/A-18D. The MiG-29N/NUB was acquired in 1995 in the air superiority role and the F/A-18D Hornet in 1997 to provide an all weather interdiction capability.

In 2011, the TUDM gave Boeing a contract to upgrade the 18D with new avionics suit, similar to the Swiss and Finland just did. It is likely that the 18D will be in TUDM inventory for many more years.

In 2009, the TUDM anounced that all MIG-29N would be retired in end of 2010 due to unsustainable cost to keep them flying. The decision was reversed in 2010 due to internal political pressure. The MIG-29N will keep flying until TUDM decide on the new MRCA purchase, likely in 2014.

An interesting tale of 2 airplanes.

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It has recently come to light that the F-15, F-16, F-18, Su-27, MiG-29, and the F-22 were all copied from the Avro Arrow. The MiG-25 was copied from a barn, and the B-52 was a copy of a WWII Japanese Telephone Pole Support.

So nyah. :monkeydance:

Alvis 3.1

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It has recently come to light that the F-15, F-16, F-18, Su-27, MiG-29, and the F-22 were all copied from the Avro Arrow. The MiG-25 was copied from a barn, and the B-52 was a copy of a WWII Japanese Telephone Pole Support.

So nyah. :monkeydance:

Alvis 3.1

HAHAHA!!!

I will back up all of Alvis' comments from my large collection of self written aircraft history volumes. (volume 1-999 available...vol 1000 coming soon)

Sean

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How did that philosophy work out in Vietnam? I don't think you can walk 10' in the former N Vietnam without tripping over the remnants of a USAF / USN jet. As far as the construction goes, don't make the mistake of confusing "crude" with durable. Soviet jets were designed to operate off of 2nd rate airbases and even unpaved runways. They were also designed to operate with much less of the support required by NATO aircraft. They may not have been designed to last 4,000 flight hours but in a war, that is pretty much irrelevant.

What you just stated here is pretty much what I was getting at, I didn't say they were not durable aircraft. In fact, I did say they are rugged aircraft. I watched two Mig-29s get re-built in our hanger where the techs put it back together with a sledge hammer. The Russians have always built at a low cost so they can pump out a large volume of machines. They fight a war of attrition.

As far as the MiG-29 being an inferior jet, from all I have read, it was a very good dogfighter, on par with most Western designs. Where it was at a disadvantage was in the BVR realm, as the kills in Iraq and Yugoslavia will show.

BVR is the way of the modern day. As for dogfighting, I heard first hand it did not do well at Maple Flag in 2005. In fact, A-10s killed two with guns and the Mig-29s didn't claim any kills the entire excercise. I have a friend who is in a Luftwaffe Mig-29 unit (he is an ex-Luftwaffe Phantom guy) who said at the time they won't ever bring the Mig-29s back to Maple Flag as it performed too poorly. They couldn't wait to replace it with the Typhoon.

Lastly, keep in mind another important fact. Before the USAF/USN finally deployed the AIM-9X / JHMCS combo in the early 2000's, the MiG-29 / Su-27 had an huge advantage in the dogfighting arena due to the the AA-11 / R-73 Archer all aspect IR missile (that was by all accounts, in a class by itself) and a helmet mounted sight to cue the Archer at extreme angles. You may not realize how much of a concern this was (and still is) to the West. It was a first-rate bit of equipment that overnight changed how Western jets would have to fight their USSR opponents.

Yes these weapons are a threat and that is why it is so importmant to get the first shot off BVR. WVR won't happen then but the west is still working on weapons to counter the advantage Russia has WVR.

A MiG-29 pilot didn't have to get his nose onto an F-16 to kill it, he could lock it up and launch an Archer while having his nose 90 degrees off his target. The West had nothing comparable, the vaunted AIM-9L wasn't even in the same league.

I think the published numbers are in the 45-60 degree range, not 90 degrees. One of the risks with this weapon is it could take out it's wingman (which did occur in 1991 in Iraq).

I'm the first one that wants to wave the flag when it comes to topics like this but you need to give the Russians credit where credit is due.

Technology wise I blasted them, I still think they would be a solid avdersary. And I didn't give them enough credit for their WVR weapons.

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It has recently come to light that the F-15, F-16, F-18, Su-27, MiG-29, and the F-22 were all copied from the Avro Arrow.

Alvis 3.1

Sort of, they were all built by Canadian engineers who lost their Avro jobs. :)

Add the Shuttle to that list.

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