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    Is Russia safe from F-22 and Β-2?

    medo
    medo


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    Post  medo Sun Apr 01, 2012 4:50 pm

    TR1 wrote:
    medo wrote:It's true, that main Su-35 Irbis X-band radar is PESA, but Su-35 also have L-band AESA radar, which supplement Irbis radar.

    Su-35 has AESA in addition to PESA? Since when?

    Do you mean those wing mounted arrays? Certainly not fitted yet.

    Well, a lot of articles connect wing mounted L-band AESA radar with Su-35. I could not say if they are or are not fitted on serial ones and when they will be, if they will be.
    ahmedfire
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    Post  ahmedfire Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:50 pm

    GarryB wrote:
    Try connecting a digital video camera to a 386 running at 25MHz and see what frame rate you can capture data at.

    Such a system wouldn't even be able to reliably burn CDs.

    The much faster CPUs have much smaller dies and are much more likely to be effected by electronic items including jammers and radar emissions...

    Compatibility is not really an issue, but it will create bottlenecks and problems in processing.

    what relationship does a video feed have to do with the onboard COP of a combat aircraft?

    they're not burning CDs, they are using tactical data links bytes and kbytes

    TADL is not video gaming - no mater what the movies trot out

    and those TADL's are going to literally hundreds of receivers.

    the problem space is not about what the aircraft can receive to transmit ,it's about filtering

    I think in real combat the MiG-29 will be shot down by F-22 at BVR ranges before the engagement gets anywhere near a merge.

    USAF is going to use it's advantages (numbers AND quality AND support assets AND overall networking AND EW),so no place for 1 v 1 engagements .


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    Mindstorm


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    Post  Mindstorm Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:40 am

    I think in real combat the MiG-29 will be shot down by F-22 at BVR ranges before the engagement gets anywhere near a merge.

    USAF is going to use it's advantages (numbers AND quality AND support assets AND overall networking AND EW),so no place for 1 v 1 engagements .


    Yes it is likely true ,but the crucial question is : true AGAINST WHICH and WHO ?

    To fully understand the sense of this question let take, as example, the bigger war fought by NATO (and particularly USAF) in the last 30 years : GW1 ; to even only prepare ( clear? only PREPARE ....) the GW1 air campaign against the Iraqi IAD - KARI - ( just some hundreds of times weaker than the weakest node of the URSS's IAD of the time Very Happy ) ,designed by French to repel attacks from a maximum of 60 aircraft for single sector and only from East and West (and NATO obviously attacked KARI from South ) , was necessary for NATO's Coalition more than six months...SIX MONTHS of frantic strategic airlift, dense aircraft transfers and logistical arrangement of the necessary assets and local base's arrangement !!

    This titanic operation not only required the big financial support of all the "aligned" nations in the Gulf but also the assent, by part of Saudi Arabia, to literally give to NATO almost all its airfields and ports for the logistical operations and to render possible the same war missions .

    Now some little questions :

    - What type of organic, extensive IAD and defensive ground network all those crucial assets in Saudi Arabia ,indispensable for NATO ,had to defend themselves and to prevent that even only the most elementary attack with ballistic/cruise missiles or ground forces offensive would have reduced them and all the NATO equipments and assets present to a pile of smoking rubble ?

    Response : None.

    But we can go even further : What organic, extensive ,high end IAD are present at defend the most crucial and highly widespread USA airbases around the world (let put Diego Garcia or Elmendorf AFBs) from obliteration through the military means previously mentioned ?

    Response : None.

    Note: This is the main reason for the strict ban or control of long range missiles (in particular ballistic ones) in international Arm Control Agreements ,while aircraft like F-22 , PAKFA or J-20 are not subject to any of those Treaties.

    - What type of high-end theatre and strategic level weapons Iraq had in its arsenal capable to render even only the initial NATO preparative operations a true suicide .

    Response : None. In GW1 Iraq had in total...12 working Long range bombers ,practically all export versions -or chinese versions- of early TU-16s moreover totally incapable to employ any type of stand-off missiles (only for comparison : in URSS, not in 1991 but 25 years before, was operative more than 870 domestic not downgraded versions of TU-16 bomber !!) and had only few mobile Scud launchers of the older type ,export version, with very limited payload and CEP in the order of 1,5 / 1,7 kilometers. Clear the concept?



    At the end of the day ,therefore, what you have said is surely true "USAF is going to use it's advantages (numbers AND quality AND support assets...." , and also at the basis of its doctrine, but this NATO "air centric" doctrine ,requiring for work very widespread bases around the world ,naturally impossible to insert and defend in a serious IAD , is founded on the rational that any opponent so advanced and/or powerful to have the military means to capitalize the extreme vulnerability (to the limit of the impracticability) of a similar doctrine to high end offensive means coming from area under the protection of enormous multilayered IADs, would be effectively "frozen" by the MAD element of nuclear equilibrium.



    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Mon Apr 02, 2012 6:16 am

    what relationship does a video feed have to do with the onboard COP of a combat aircraft?

    If you want to use an IIR seeking missile like AIM-9X then it would help if you could see what the missile sees.

    One of its party tricks is to display an image of the target in the cockpit display to allow the pilot to pick a part of the target aircraft to lock and home in on. To display that live image of the target you would need an onboard computer network that can handle video feed at a decent frame rate.


    I remember using an Amiga 500 in the mid 1980s waiting several seconds for a HAM (hold and modify) picture image to load which it did a few lines at a time... in combat that would not be acceptable.

    they're not burning CDs, they are using tactical data links bytes and kbytes

    The F-22 is touted as the super jet of the 21st Century, but it seems its guts are old junk.

    I think in real combat the MiG-29 will be shot down by F-22 at BVR ranges before the engagement gets anywhere near a merge.

    That is most likely the American hope, and if the enemy is Bangladesh then they might have a chance, but if the enemy is Russia it might not be so easy. Even the C model Mig-29 has a built in Gardenyia Jammer that can probably deal with the old C model AMRAAMs the F-22s are packing...

    USAF is going to use it's advantages (numbers AND quality AND support assets AND overall networking AND EW),so no place for 1 v 1 engagements .

    So why did they fit the F-22 with a gun?

    Where are all these extra F-22s coming from that will give them a numbers advantage?

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    Corrosion


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    Post  Corrosion Mon Apr 02, 2012 6:51 am

    gloriousfatherland wrote:ECM pods sould deal with missile threats due to the weakness of the onbard radars.This is why dogfighting still exists and fighters are built to be manueverable.

    Overall I agree with your statement.

    But many people will disagree as you can see with the creation of F-35. So if an airforce has everything at your disposal, including one of the best avionics, strength of numbers with networking, aided with AWACS and other assets, then that airforce wouldnt have to worry very much about dog fighting. But this is assuming that the enemy is poorly armed with no AWACS, outdated equipment which is not networked together.

    So when USAF with not so manuverable F-35s goes against the opponent as I explained above. F-35 wouldnt have to worry about dog fighting.

    When USAF goes up against a well armed and well defended oposition, which can also play some tricks to get its fighters in close to F-35s, F-35 will end up dog fighting and might not like it.

    Now lets take the examples of other potential users of F-35. This is where it will get interesting. So you have airforces that will operate F-35, possibly downgraded versions and wont have the assets that USAF will have at its disposal. Now here it will be really tested. So in any discussion we can have on a suitability of a particular platform, we have to take in account its operating environment.
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    Post  GarryB Mon Apr 02, 2012 8:10 am

    The question really becomes what is the purpose of dogfighting.

    Traditionally it was the case that you got behind your enemy and shot them down with your forward facing weapons because it was the best position to shoot at him because he generally couldn't shoot back like he would if you were both face to face, and also if you matched his flight speed the closing rate would allow plenty of time to shoot him up whereas with a head on engagement the closing speed would limit the time you had to put in a burst of fire.

    But this is the 21st Century. Forward firing guns were selected in the past because it was easier to aim the whole aircraft at a target than have someone point a swivel gun while the target and aircraft you are firing from is moving.

    As shown on attack helos however a fully articulated gun turret with a helmet mounted sight controlling the gun with laser range finding and a ballistics computer means shooting down other aircraft might need very little manouver performance with some aircraft.

    The high off boresight missiles and the helmet cueing systems combined with all aspect homing missiles also makes "getting on the enemies tail" even less important.

    Testing with F-16s and Mig-29s in the early 1990s clearly showed that while the F-16 has some advantages against the export model Mig-29 with certain extra downgrades (like engine and the use of the ferry tank) and in 62% of cases the F-16 successfully got onto the Migs tail the F-16 was found to not win a single engagement because the Mig pilot had already launched what was deemed to have been a kill shot.

    In other words the Mig pilot looked at the target and pressed a button on his flight stick which got the R-73s seeker to turn to where the system detected his helmet was looking and it tried to get a lock. When it got a lock the reticule in the pilots helmet started blinking and he knows he has a lock on the target he is looking at and can fire the missile at the target. The thrust vector control system on the missile will allow it to turn at extreme angles at launch to follow a target and the seeker will lock on the front of an aircraft as well as the rear...

    It was the performance of the R-73 and helmet mounted sight that resulted in the US pouring funds into AMRAAM, which up to that point had only had token support because the general belief within NATO through the 1980s was that Soviet pilots were robots and the NATO pilots would slaughter them in close combat with their superior aircraft and superior missiles.

    The results of the training with German Migs was a huge kick in the balls and the immediate reaction was a focus on BVR combat because WVR combat would be far too costly... considered suicide in fact for many western fighters that did not have the performance of the F-16.

    After that it was BVR combat using superior situational awareness to defeat the third world enemies...

    The Soviets actually had articulated guns in cannon pods, though they were mainly used for ground attack. There was a 23mm twin barrel gun pod that could depress its guns up to 30 degrees downwards so the aircraft, like an Su-17 could go into a dive and start firing and then pull up from the dive and the computer system would depress the guns and keep them on target. The gun pods could even be fitted facing backwards...

    The other pod I know of was fitted with the 6 barrel 30mm cannon of the Mig-27 and could not only depress 30 degrees but could be traversed 45 degrees left and 45 degrees right and had 500 shells ready to fire.

    Wouldn't be too hard to reposition the gun forward in the pod to allow say 15 degrees elevation and 40 degrees depression and 40 degrees left and 40 degrees right traverse using the optics in the IRST and laser range finder to track targets. The 23mm cannon would be sufficient and should be able to carry a lot more ammo than a larger calibre weapon...
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    Post  victor7 Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:30 am

    From "Janes How To Fly And Fight In The MiG-29" By Jon Lake ....



    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE:
    A growing number of NATO fighter pilots have now flown against NATO's own MiG-29 so the aircraft inherited from the East German air force and taken into service by the Luftwaffe when the two Germanics reunified. A smaller number have even flown in the German two-seaters, seeing air combat with the MiG-29 from both sides of the coin. These pilots have included a number of USAFE F-16 pilots. They have a uniquely interesting perspective on the MiG-29 because they fly what is nominally NATO's equivalent to the aircraft. Frontline aircrew who've flown the Luftwaffe MiG-29s have seen what the aero-plane is actually like as a fighter, and have not simply flown it merely as an aerodynamic demonstration
    with its weapons systems turned off.

    A USAF F-16C squadron commander whose unit was one of those which has fought mock battles with the German MiG-29s commented that: "We started off with simple one versus one BFM engagements with the MiG-29 from various starting parameters, offensive, defensive or neutral. We then progressed to two versus two, and then we went to the four versus four and we even did a few two versus 2 + 2, two of us against two German F-4s and two MiG-29s. As a rule, we felt like we did very well. In the BFM, we learned some significant lessons, especially with maneuverability comparisons between the aero-planes, the differences in thrust to weight ratios, some of the advantages and disadvantages of the two aircraft and exploring the various air speed regimes".

    1. ERGONOMICS AND COCKPIT WORKLOAD
    Some of his pilots (who cannot be named because they went on to fly operational missions over Bosnia) described what they saw as the MiG-29's strengths and weaknesses.

    Two things jump out at you right away when you fly the MiG-29. The first one is the antiquated avionics, they are totally not user friendly. You have to make a lot of switch changes and so on that we just don't even have to think about in the F-16.

    By comparison with western jets, the MiG- 29 cockpit was, I thought, somewhat thrown together. There didn't seem to be much human engineering put into it. To be fair, though, the Russians do have much greater standardization between the cockpits of all their fast jets.

    It's actually remarkable how similar they've made the cockpits of the Su-27, the MiG-29, the Su-25, and even the older jets. Maybe the human factor in MiG-29 cockpit design was to make it as close as possible to the MiG-21 and MiG-23 cockpit.

    But they do not have a HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) philosophy in the same way that we do in the F-16. In the F-16 I can select missiles and fire the gun and drop bombs all with my fingers on the stick and throttle. In the MiG-29 just launching a missile requires so many switch changes where they have to take their hand off the throttle, change the switches, look down inside the cockpit, and then look back up.

    Whereas in my F-16 I can switch radar modes, launch missiles and never have to take my hands off the controls or look down inside the cockpit. I can look outside the whole time and that's a great advantage.

    It's pretty difficult to focus up close and then refocus your eyes out to ten miles. If the MiG-29 pilot is trying to lock us up with his radar, he's not looking outside, he's looking at the radar scope. He may be looking at the radar picture in the HUD, but he's still not going to be able to see us outside beyond 10 miles. So we like to do a rope-a-dope kind of thing, whereby I get to about 50 nautical miles and get a radar lock on this guy (there's no reason for me to look into the radar scope anymore) and now I'm looking out there, at where I know he'll appear. My eyes are focused at about 10 miles and I'm just waiting to see a wing flash or smoke or something and then it's 'OK, I can see him, I can break radar lock'.

    Now I can flow to an engagement on this guy, where he doesn't get any situational awareness of where I'm coming from. If he's got a RHAWS scope, (a radar warning scope), he'll get the clock position of where I'm coming into the fight but if I can see him, I can break lock, there's no need for me to lock him up on the radar anymore. And if he doesn't get me with an 'Alamo' before the merge, his life gets very difficult. Once I get inside about 10 nautical miles, he can't shoot me with a radar missile, so he's going to have to shoot me with a heat seeking missile. But now in the cockpit the MiG-29 pilot's got to throw the switch from radar to helmet sight, he's got to activate the IRSTS and arm up the 'Archers'.

    So while he's doing all that, if I blow past him before he can take a shot on me, he's got to go back into the cockpit, go back to radar mode to select his radar missiles and deactivate the 'Archers' and meanwhile I'm going by at high Mach, trying to get away. If he can't get me with an 'Archer' as I blow past him, he has to go back to the 'Alamo'. But his ability to actually do that is very very difficult in terms of his radar. He'll have lost lock on me as I pass, and if he breaks lock, his radar display, and scan automatically jump back out to the 70 nautical mile range settings. He can't change that, till he gets an actual radar lock on me. So as I blow past him and he turns round to try to lock me up, he's going to have to have GCI tell him where to lock, because he's not going to be able to see me at that short range with his radar at that setting. By the time he can lock me up, I'm already outside his weapons parameters so the chances of him shooting a missile at me are slim.

    I talked to the western-trained MiG-29 pilots, who admitted that 'yeah, our chances of locking you guys up as you flew past us in a merge were slim-to-none because of the way the system is set up'. So you can see that he's hampered quite a bit just by the systems that he has. Here in the western world we give the pilot a lot of autonomy and so consequently we have built systems in the aero-plane that give him more situational awareness. In the eastern block the guy who had ultimate control was the ground controller. When they first started using MiG-29s in the integrated Luftwaffe, they were still actually using the ground control people. That's what the East German pilots were used to (although the MiG-29 pilots had more capacity for autonomous decision making than those flying earlier Russian-built airplanes). Too a large degree they're still quite dependant on that, even with western-trained pilots. Just because the onboard systems were not designed in the Western way they don't have the situational awareness that they would like to have in the cockpit. They don't have the level of on board automatic threat prioritization that a western guy can take for granted".
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    2. FLYING CONTROLS AND MANOEUVRABILITY
    "I was afraid that the 'Fulcrum' was going to out-maneuver us at most speeds, that it was just too powerful and that it was going to have more energy than we have. I had no idea what to expect from the pilots and I had a good healthy fear of the 'Archer' also.

    One thing you notice straight away on going from the F-16 to the MiG-29 is the flight controls. The movement of the 'Fulcrum' itself is sluggish compared to the F-16 and that was noticeable the first time you take the stick and try to do a turn. It just seems like there is a second or two delay and you don't get the crisp, clean quick movements that you get in the Viper, at least in roll". (Note: This is a common misconception among pilots who have flown only one frontline type, especially where that type has a very sensitive, limited travel stick. The F-16 stick was originally designed not to move at all, but only to sense pressure. The MiG-29 stick is designed to move, and to move a long way. While you do need more stick deflection and displacement
    to maneuver than you do in, say, the F/A-18, the aircraft responds just as readily, unless you are timid in your control column inputs). "It takes a lot more work and a lot more control input to effect the same maneuver. The position of the controls - the positioning of the rudder pedals, the length of the stick, it was all very different. It was an environment that it would take me a few hundred hours to get used to. But if your flying background was the L-39 or the MiG-21 it would all be very familiar.

    The aero-plane is very good in pitch, so when you're in a turn, it turns very well but its ability to change direction is less impressive. I didn't think it rolled as fast as the F-16 did, in an aileron roll. MiG-29 pilots who flew the F-16 were really surprised at how fast it rolled, they could almost bang their heads off the canopy and that's real nice because it means that we can change direction in a heartbeat.

    Once you get into the turn the 'Fulcrum' is highly maneuverable and I was surprised that at low airspeeds, with the nose down, it could transition to a nose up pitch authority remarkably quickly. I thought wow, this jet can really pitch its nose around in a slow speed fight and could really cause us a lot of problems. It certainly did cause problems with the guys who got slow with it and we kind of purposely stayed out of that regime.

    Some people's plan was to get in close and have a 'knife fight' while others used their turn capability and energy to give them sustainability, taking care to fight a two circle fight, staying out of the slow speed fights which single-circle fights inevitably degenerate into. A lot of people are very impressed by the MiG-29's ability to point the nose away from the axis of flight, which is obviously most relevant in the slow speed regime. The aircraft's nose authority is pretty significant, especially when it's tied into the missile. If you can point the missile seeker heads away more pressure you can pull through that, and then you can go beyond 26° AOA and beyond your 9g.

    So in the MiG-29 you have soft limits, which can be overridden to go to higher alpha or higher g. You can accept a progressive degradation of flying qualities and you can accept that it will become progressively more likely that you will depart, but you can over-g it or over alpha it by
    comparison with the placard limits. You might want to do that in order to out-turn your opponent or to avoid the hill you were about to fly into or to turn just that bit tighter to defeat the enemy missile. But you can do it. That's nice for a fighter pilot to have. Its telling you that if you're going against an adversary and you need a little bit more out of this jet to save your life, you can have it. If you really, no kidding, need to pull that little bit more, if it's worth running the risk of departing, or over-stressing the aircraft, you can do it. In the F-16, the computer just says no way! It's nice to have and that's kind of one thing I wish we had in the F-16.

    I pull as from the direction you're flying that gives you an impressive off-boresight capability. That's the one capability that we've all sweat over! Some of the differences in slow speed maneuverability between the MiG-29 and the F-16 were down to the totally different design
    philosophy. We have a limiter, which ensures that we cannot exceed the airplane's g and
    alpha limits, period. You can pull as hard as you like and the black boxes will not let the airplane exceed 9 g, and will not less us rake the nose too much. The airplane won't let the pilot get himself in that much trouble! In the MiG-29 when you pull on the g, you start feeling a limit on the stick, but by applying hard as I can in the F-1 6, but once I reach the limit the computer goes 'Uh-oh I'm not going to let you have any more than that, you can have that much and that's it'.

    Sometimes I would really love to have just a little bit more, I may depart the aircraft, but it may get me out of a situation that I need to get out of. Because the MiG-29 pilot does have the
    ability to do that, now he does have an ability to really raise his nose at low air speed, he can exceed 26 AOA and that's nice to have. Even if he can only do so momentarily. That gives them the ability to do a tail-slide or to do the cobra maneuver. The cobra maneuver can only be done at certain times, it has to be done at low air speed and is normally done from straight level flight, but it's a hell of a maneuver. Suddenly the MiG-29 can decelerate to almost zero forward speed, while simultaneously raking the nose back to 90° from the direction of flight. Awesome!
    And if the MiG-29 pilot does 'over-cook' it, departing from controlled flight is not necessarily that big a deal.

    When I flew the MiG-29 I pulled the nose up to do a loop and I guess I pulled too much g at first, to the top of the loop. Once inverted the jet started to depart, the nose slicing back and forth. I actually did depart at the top of the loop and there I was still in afterburner trying to do this loop, but it was just sort of slicing back and forth. So I released the stick and the MiG flew
    itself out, real nice and stable, that was really very nice. I was kind of surprised and very impressed by that. And if that benign handling was not enough, there is actually a button on the stick, which returns you to wings level, slight nose up, if you get really disorientated.
    Of course you can get into trouble in the MiG-29, especially when differential, asymmetric engine thrust enters the equation.

    If the afterburners don't light up together, there can be a powerful yawing moment, and to avoid problems, the established procedure is to plug in burner before rolling in to a tight,
    heavily banked turn at low level. That was amazing to me because I fly single engine jets, so I never had to really deal with that, but because they are flying twin-engine jets, (and because it's such a high performance jet) they can experience problems, but probably no more than the pilots of any twin-jet.

    In conclusion I was pleasantly surprised to see that the F-16 actually out-maneuvered the
    Fulcrum, at least outside the low-speed, high alpha end of the envelope. I never got slow
    enough myself to give the MiG-29 that advantage, I tried not to and so I personally never got into a slow speed flight. Obviously that's the one we want to avoid. I would probably give the MiG-29 a slight advantage at lower airspeeds (certainly anything below 200 knots), but at higher speeds (above 325 knots) I was pleasantly surprised that we could turn and burn a little better than the 'Fulcrum'. However, it's worth noting our configuration, we had no wing tanks, no centre line tanks and even had the LAUs removed off the wing, so we were as clean and as light as we were going to get. It probably would have been a little closer competition had we had a centre line tank and if we'd had the LAUs fitted, let alone loaded-up."

    Interestingly, this pilot, and his colleagues were careful not to have claimed to have beaten the MiG-29s in the majority of closein dogfight engagements, while the German MiG-29 pilots remained sanguine that 'inside ten miles' they could beat 'anybody'.
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    3. ENGINE LIMITATIONS
    "While we were flying lightweight and clean, the MiG-29s were flying with a centreline tank so that obviously imposed limitations on them. We'd have to do some exercises out in the area in order to get his centre line tank empty before we could really start maneuvering.
    Their tanks were empty, and the status of that tank makes a big difference to the g limits that they can use, but even empty, they were flying with limitations which were not typical of the aircraft in its operational configuration.

    Also we were flying against German MiG-29s, which have had their engines de-tuned to make them last that little bit longer. They've also noticed a small decrease in thrust moving from JP-4 to NATO standard JP-8 fuel. I remember the detuning of F-15 engines when we were having problems, so I can't help but believe that detuning the MiG-29's engines has had a huge effect. We noticed it tremendously when they did that to the F-15. I think any time you detune a motor that's going to have a significant effect in BFM. You don't usually notice it too much in the beyond visual range arena, but you do significantly notice it in the maneuvering
    fight, because as you get less thrust, your sustained turn rate goes down and you lose
    that advantage.

    It's difficult to gauge exactly how much difference that 10% thrust reduction makes, however. From the pilot's perspective I personally would say it can make a very significant difference. Its going to depend on the scenario obviously, but I did talk to one of the German pilots, and he said that it really bothered him that they did it. Obviously he understands why, you know, they've got to save their own engines, but that bit of thrust can make all the difference in some scenarios.

    We flew a number of comparative acceleration runs against the MiG-29. We both slowed down to about 150 knots and then went into afterburner. The first guy to 400 knots called terminate. The MiG-29 was able to out accelerate me initially, but by the time I got to 400 knots, he was still only at 360 knots. So he initially beat me off the starting block, but then I passed him.

    The F-16's General Electric engine is a self tuning engine, and so its will tune itself in the airflow according to airspeed. Of course, the fact that they had tuned their engines down by about 10% could also account for the way I was able to out accelerate the MiG.

    I think if his engines were 100%, we would be pretty much equal. He might then be able to beat me to the 400 knot point. Certainly it felt like the airplane had a lot of thrust, and it was nice to have two engines that kicked in quickly and reliably, giving you and lots of maneuverability.
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    Also the MiG-29 engine smokes more now, so it's easier to visually acquire the aircraft. It
    always was an aero-plane that seemed to smoke more than a lot of Western types, and the de-tuned aircraft smoke even more. I'd say it's comparable to visually acquiring an F-15 Eagle, it's a lot easier than finding an F-16. I know that those guys in their 'Fulcrum's had a tough time picking us up and keeping sight of us, even in a small turning circle like a BFM engagement,
    especially with the limited rearward visibility they had in the MiG-29.

    But apart from the smoke I really didn't have too many complaints about the engine. It's a big strong engine and I guess its only real problem is its lifespan, but as far as response and power and everything, I think its a good one. They also have some unique advantages, engine-wise.
    It's very impressive the way those engines can keep running in the face of what must be
    severe air flow distortions in the intake. I flew a tail slide in the MiG-29, and that was just
    eye-watering. The tailslide is pretty much a like a deliberate whip stall. You engage full afterburner, pull the nose up to 90° (straight up) and then let the airspeed decay and decay until the MiG flies back on its tail. We can't do that in the F-1 6 due to the intake, the way the intake is designed.

    The MiG-29 is real nice at low speeds and high angles of attack because he has the dorsal vents for the engine over the wingroots. They open at low air speed and high AOA so that the engines
    can draw air from the top side of the aircraft even if the main intakes can't feed the engines. That prevents the engines from stalling or surging".

    4. In The Cockpit
    "The view from the cockpit is not as good as we enjoy from the F-16, either. They obviously came to a different judgement when coming to the inevitable compromise between drag, birdstrike resistance, and absolute unimpeded all-round vision. If you fly in close formation
    with an F-16 and a MiG-29 you would then be able just to see the necks and maybe the tops of the shoulders of the MiG-29 pilot, and then only if he sat really high. In the F-16, we sit so high that we can put our arms on top of the canopy rail and so we have, pretty much from our elbows up above the cockpit sides, so visibility is much, much better. But having said that, the F-16 is atypical even in the West, and to be fair, the MiG-29 cockpit isn't so very different from an F-15 or Tornado cockpit.

    And once you're in the cockpit, it's pretty tight and constrained. You're wearing the helmet and then they hook up the oxygen hose, the communication cord and everything and you're having to weave your arm around all this crap so you don't get tangled up in it. Our system is real nice, our oxygen hose is out of our way, strapped to our chest and it goes up underneath our arm so it doesn't cause conflict in the cockpit at all. But in the MiG-29 you have the communication cord and the oxygen hose and the g-suit hose, all individual, and all just flapping around down by your left side and the ergonomics of it was pretty surprising.

    In the F-1 6 everything you really need is built into the centre console so your instrument cross check is very simple, it's more of a vertical cross check. When we're in an instrument flying environment, wanting to cross check between instruments it's a closely-spaced pattern, a left to right narrow U-shape, down and up, down and up, down and up. So you look at the main altitude indicator versus the compass, then of course the tacometer's on the right side.

    The human factor is very friendly, your cross check is very osimple, and in any case you can go all the way up to the HUD and that has everything you need, so you don't actually need to scan
    round the panel. In the MiG-29 there are instruments all over the place, so the cross check is more of a Z or a zig zag They have to look left for the ADI (the attitude indicator, and that's your primary instrument in instrument flying), then they have to look back to the right side for the
    engine instrument to set the engines. And then back to the centre to monitor their compass, navigation and then back to the right side again, for their vertical velocity indicators etc. etc.

    So the cross check is more left and right, left and right. That's pretty difficult moving your head left and right or moving your eyeballs left and right versus moving your eyeballs up and down,
    especially when you're in the weather. When you bank the jet, you really don't want to be
    moving your head that much, and especially not from side to side. You can get vertigo very
    easily due to the inner ear fluids really getting going and so its real nice to keep your head
    nice and still, just flicking your eyeballs down and across and up, not too far".

    5. DOGFIGHT WEAPONS
    "The MiG-29's HUD is not as useful or as sophisticated as ours. It's pretty much an 'iron sight'. They do get a funnel type of sight for the gun, but it doesn't really do anything, it's not tied to the radar. It moves left and right to show you the effect of g, showing you that if you fire the gun the bullets will go down the flight path to the left or to the right, but it's basically similar to the gunsight of an A-10, with no F-16 type 'level 5 pipper'.

    In the F-1 6 the radar will take a lock on the target aircraft and it will show you where you need to put the pipper to put bullets into him. It's constantly computing impact points and once you learn the system, it improves your accuracy quite a bit. It gives you the ability to fire at a target outside of 4,000 feet away. But I don't think the Soviets designed it thinking that they would ever get into a gun fight. They can't even fire the gun unless the centerline tank is gone. And they can't fire if the speed brakes are out. So it's not really designed to be employed, it's there as a token weapon or for emergencies. Or maybe for use against a transport or a helicopter. But you've only got 1 50 rounds and the rate of fire is very slow: boom, boom, boom, rather than b-b-b-b-b!

    But if the MiG-29 pilot can get his nose onto you at close range, if he uses his low speed capability and 'portability' to force you to blow through past him, then a few rounds of 30-mm could spoil your entire day. And because their gun is a 30-mm cannon, if a shell does hit you it really does cause damage. It's totally the opposite philosophy to the US 20-mm, which is fast firing and which has a high velocity. One hit from a 20-mm s>hull neeUn'i be ihai big a deal, plenty of guys have come home after one or two hits.

    Anyway, each approach has its adherents, and who's to say who's right? But what they do
    need is a more accurate, more user-friendly sight. The MiG-29 won't be winning any gunnery meets without one, that's for sure. Even more impressive is the MiG-29's primary air-to-air weapon, the R-73 missile, allocated the reporting name AA-11 'Archer' by NATO. Many people have claimed that the 'Archer' is actually the best close-in dogfight missile in service, anywhere in the world. The Israeli Python 4 has its admirers, and the new British ASRAAM is also much admired, but at the end of the day, the 'Archer' is superior to anything in the US inventory.

    There are those who say that we had designed a similar type of missile long ago, and that this (fictional?) missile was compromised to the Russians and that's how they developed the 'Archer'. But we still don't have anything like 'Archer', and they do, so can you really believe they copied it? I guess that story originated when we in the West couldn't believe they could
    produce anything worthwhile, unless they copied it straight from us. But personally I think the Russians learned the lessons of Vietnam and the Middle East wars, then just went out and spent more money on the technology.

    We really were quite impressed by the 'Archer', whose envelope is extremely lethal with a very high g capability. The missile can turn very well, using forward-mounted control surfaces, 'ruddervon' control surfaces on the fixed rear fins, and a vectored-thrust rocket motor. The seeker has also got a very wide look-angle. Obviously it's better to fire your missile straight at a target and make its job easy - the more it manoeuvres, the more energy it will lose. But it's a useful capability for the missile to be able to turn hard, either to overcome the target's efensive
    manoeuvring, or to allow you to fire at a target that's not straight in front of you, slap ahead on the nose. The 'Archer' has got a very impressive off-boresight capability, it's really a very good dog fight missile and to be honest with you, if you get into a dog fight with that missile, you are going to have a difficult time staying out of its parameters.

    So I'd have to say that we are a little paranoid about the 'Archer' and its ability to be launched at targets up to 45° off the MiG's nose. There are still a lot of unknowns about the missile, they did not have any tapes that they could show us, they don't have any VTR machines in their 'Fulcrums', you know and there's no way to validate their BVR shots during peacetime training. A lot of the times we flew, we'd come back and it was just a big grey area, whether they could have shot us, whether it would have been valid, they can't tell exactly what they're locked onto anyhow with their avionics.

    So, you know, like I said, we have a healthy respect for the missile, but because of the unknown aspects, we really just don't know exactly how good it is. However, we expect that it's very good indeed and that it could make a huge difference in a BFM-type engagement. And Vympel are about to start production of a enhanced version of 'Archer' with an even bigger angle on the seeker which will be even more frightening. When this new 'Archer' that we've been reading about comes in it will be even harder. Any time you improve on a good thing, its always kind of more difficult.

    We need a missile like that in the USAF, that's our big complaint these days. I'd like to see them
    evaluating the 'Archer' for the F-16, prior to us getting a decent Western short range missile.

    There's a range out there, probably a short (only just) BVR range, where the 'Archer' has its greatest advantage, and where the 'Archer' is most scary to us. Inside ten miles they're not thinking 'Alamos' any more and have probably even jettisoned them. But before we can get into a turning engagement ourselves or get close enough to VID (visually identify) or get a Fox Two against the 'Fulcrum', there are 'Archers' on the way, and they're extremely difficult to defeat.

    I'm not sure exactly what the reach of the AA-11 is actually, and of course, in any case the Russians have a different version of the 'Archer' than the Germans and there are new sub-variants coming out all the time. But, at the end of the day there's a range out there where we can't see the 'Fulcrum', can't tell that the bandit is a 'Fulcrum' and yet they can shoot 'Archers' at us. That's not a good situation to be in.

    6. POINTING THE NOSE
    The 'Cobra* is a dynamic deceleration which allows the aircraft's nose to be rotated rapidly to extreme angles of attack, allowing it (and weapons or sensors) to be pointed at a target which may not be directly in front of the MiG-29.
    During a turning fight, the MiG-29 is lagging behind an enemy F-15, and though slowly 'catching up due to superior turn performance, cannot bring weapons to bear. By performing a Cobra in the horizontal plane, the MiG-29 pilot can point his nose and the gun and missile seekers across the circle at the F-15. Because of the helmet mounted sight, the pilot does not need to point the aircraft directly at his opponent, but merely needs to get the F-15 in his forward hemisphere.

    7. THE COBRA
    Despite not having a fly-by-wire control system, the MiG-29 is capable of many 'edge of the envelope* maneuvers. The Cobra was developed as a flight test point by Mikoyan's then Chief Test Pilot, Valery Menirsky, was stolen for airshow use by Sukhoi's Victor Pugachev,
    and has since become a combat maneuver.
    From balanced flight (with no yaw), the MiG-29 pilot closes the throttles to reduce airspeed.
    The pilot'breaks' dynamically into the manoeuvre with a hard, snatched pull back on the stick,
    overriding the limiters. The elevator travels fully nose down, pitching the aircraft nose up. As the nose rotates rapidly upwards, the pilot has already returned the stick to a neutral position, but
    the nose continues to rotate. The pilot has a limited amount of control, even with the wing fully stored, with aileron and throttle affecting nose position. With the nose rotated, the pilot may take a missile 'snapshot'. The pilot slams the stick forward to lower the nose, simultaneously opening up the power to accelerate away, aiming to acheive minimum height loss in the manoeuvre.
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    8. GRAND SLAM!
    "The MiG-29 pilot has a formidable ability to point the nose of his airplane away from where he's flying, and obviously where he can point the nose, he can fire a weapon. That's very significant, since it means he doesn't have to maneuver around the sky trying to get his
    airplane stabilized, flying along a 'route' where its pointing at the target - following it along in a tailchase, for example. If he can get so that the target is somewhere out in his forward hemisphere, out to the left, perhaps, he can pull the nose round to briefly point his
    weapons at the enemy. Briefly, but long enough to take a snapshot. In essence, the MiG-29 pilot can use his pitch authority and high alpha capability to briefly point the nose away from the direction of flight ('off boresight') and towards his enemy.
    As if that's not bad enough, his primary closein weapon has a wide angle seeker, meaning that it doesn't actually need to be pointed right at the target, but just within about 45° of it. To fully exploit this capability the MiG-29 pilot uses a simple helmet-mounted cueing system, sometimes known (probably erroneously, if you want to get picky) as a Helmet mounted sight, to which the missile seekers could be slaved. The difference between what the MiG-29 pilots have had since that airplane entered service and the helmet-mounted sighting systems now in development or entering service is significant. Their system simply tells the missile seekers where to look, by using head position sensors to 'tell' where the pilot is looking. There may be a simple symbology to confirm lock-on, but that's about as far as it goes. Whereas some of the systems being developed for the next generation of Western fighters are very much more sophicticated and complex, able to display complex symbology and weapons aiming information to the pilot's helmet visor, and often with laser eye protection and who-knows-what-else. But they will be bulky and heavy, and we're still waiting for them, while the MiG-29 pilots have had their simple, cheap, and lightweight system operational for years. It may be
    inferior, but its useful, and they've got it.

    To activate the helmet sight and to slave the missile seekers, the MiG-29 pilot toggles a
    switch in the cockpit labelled 'Helmet' in Russian, with Cyrillic letters which could be
    pronounced as schlemm. Appropriately enough, 'Schlemm' means 'Grand Slam' in
    German, and naturally, the German MiGdrivers tend to call 'Schlemm' rather than 'Fox
    2' when simulating the launch of an 'Archer' using the helmet sight.

    During the engagements between our F-16s and the MiG-29s, we got to hear the radio call alltoo-often, usually when the MiG-29 appeared to present no real danger, with his nose
    pointing nowhere near you.

    There are a lot of different opinions about the helmet-mounted sight, even among the
    guys who use them. But fighting against someone wearing the helmet sight and able to use it to its fullest advantage I was surprised at the very large off boresight angles at which they could shoot you. I think that was impressive.

    What that meant in practice was that the MiG-29 pilot could be in lag, with his nose quite far away from being pointed at you, and yet he could look up (usually laterally, but also up through the top of the canopy) and still be able to shoot the missile. Normally you're accustomed to reacting to an aero-plane that has to point at you or almost at you in order to present a threat.

    Normally your opponent has to get his nose close enough to you to get his radar looking at you. The visual cues that you have to use in a dogfight now with the MiG-29 are very different. You have just got to assume that this guy can shoot you even without pointing his nose at you, so he appears to be able to threaten you much more often than other aero-planes can. A two-circle fight was his worst-case scenario, giving him the hardest time trying to employ the sight, because of the higher g and higher speed, and the higher relative airspeeds. I was in a Lufbery with a MiG-29, a sort of two-circle vertical fight, and every time he would bring his nose up close to me, like 30°, I would have to be putting out flares because of the helmet sight. It was
    neat because I'm coming down hill and the guy is coming up hill to meet me, I'm
    popping flares and he's calling shlemm (their codename for a simulated AA-11 firing) on the radio. And even though I'm going to be passing him in just a second at high speed in this two-circle fight, that's a real firing opportunity for him.

    That's a significant capability. In a one circle fight he was much more able to use the helmet sight, because whether I was in a neutral stack with him or whether I was reversing, we're both in the same plane, and while he tries to get on my tail he is able to look over and let the system
    settle out, let the IRSTS and the helmet sight settle out and then he will get a nice lock, without having to get his nose pointing at me. Some pilots refuse to wear the helmet sight because they find they can lose sight of a guy even when he's right in front of them. They feel that the sight gets in their way and restricts their visibility. In the dogfight arena, while it provides good off boresight capability, it is a heavier, bulkier type of system and so there's some complaints about
    that. But other guys have got used to it and like it a lot. Certainly, when used properly by a pilot whose trained with it quite a bit, it can be a highly effective weapon.

    If you know somebody's wearing the helmet sight, which you'll never know, you'd really want to stay further behind him than you would normally. But it's very difficult to actually quantify what difference the helmet sight makes. With no VTR it's hard enough to scientifically debrief a normal missile firing, to state with certainty whether it would have hit its target. We come back from a training mission and look at each other's tapes and can validate shots and everything like that, but the MiG-29's pilots couldn't do any of that. They have even less of a clue when
    they're wearing the helmet mounted sight if a shot was going to be good or not. But it's
    another element of uncertainty to dial into your calculations.

    And if helmet sights weren't useful, you've got to ask yourself if every air force in the world is desperately hurrying to get them into service. It pains me to say it, but that's another area where the Russians led the way".
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    9. BVR COMBAT
    "The MiG-29's BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile, the 'Alamo' is probably less of a threat than the 'Archer', though it is an effective enough weapon. The ranges of the 'Alamo' missile are impressive and we respect it. Like any missile if you don't do anything about it, you've got a chance of getting whacked, so, naturally we train against it. Quite honestly if the MiG-29 pilot can find you and lock you up on radar and you're in his parameters, you are in serious danger. Therefore we work hard at not being seen and if we are seen, we try to defeat the radar and make him not see us anymore. The last part is, if he can still see us and launches against us, then obviously we'll try to defeat the missile. But we respect it, it's a good missile.

    I can't talk too much about the systems that we have to counter 'Alamo', but in general it
    would be fair to say that we respect the 'Archer' more than the 'Alamo'. And so do the pilots who fly it. Overall, their BVR capability represents a Sparrow level of threat. That's not necessarily the fault of the missile though. There are other problems that they have to contend with. One such problem is that the display of the MiG-29 radar contacts is not anything like what we in the west put in our cockpits for pilots. Thus they don't get anywhere as much situational awareness, even though they've got a fairly good detection capability. The radar is powerful and flexible, but they don't have the on-board processing to give the pilot a decent, clear picture with the threats analysed and prioritised, stuff that we take for granted.

    The pilot has a very hard time knowing who he's locked on to and what the situation is, so not
    only do we enjoy a significant advantage with our long range Amram missile, but crucially we also enjoy a significant situational awareness advantage. This means that we could qujte often get somebody into the fight unseen, just because their system would not permit them to see the whole engagement. That's the key reason why they are so reliant on GC1 or AWACS control. The Germans can overcome the radar deficiencies by operating mixed formations of F-4 Phantoms and MiG-29s, while other MiG-29 operators may also have fighters which could operate mixed fighter force tactics with their 'Fulcrums'.

    A nightmare scenario could be Iranian MiG-29s operating alongside Iranian F-14 Tomcats, for
    instance, or Malaysian MiG-29s with F/A-18Ds or British Hawk 200s. Even the firing procedure is much more 'labour-intensive' in the MiG-29 than it is in the F-16.

    If we shoot a BVR missile we get everything we need in the HUD. We can have a line showing our radar scan limits, telling us how far we can turn away and still provide the missile with guidance. The computer works out the time the missile will be in flight, and a countdown clock
    automatically winds down in the HUD so that we know when we can break away completely. We don't have to think about it. He doesn't have that.

    Well, one of the things that dominates the MiG-29 panel is a clock. It's a huge instrument, but it's just a clock. When he fires a BVR missile he has to work out the missile's flight time himself - 'if the missile flies ten miles in one minute, and I'm launching at twelve miles, then I'll need to
    illuminate the target for one minute twelve seconds' and he has to hack the stopwatch button on the clock as he fires. He then has to watch until the hand in the small dial gets right round and back to the twelve, ignoring the big second hand. This is hardly high-tech stuff. That same basic clock came out of the MiG-23, that same basic clock is in the MiG-21. It's an old fashioned mechanical wind-up clock (you'd better make sure that the ground crew remembered to wind it this morning!).

    Of course when they get an active-homing missile, a genuinely fire-and-forget weapon, all of that will be history. But at the moment, when a MiG-29 pilot enters a BVR engagement he relies on the 'Alamo'. All he knows is range and he gets a little tick on his radar scope showing that his target is within missile range parameters. He can then lock up the target and push the consent
    button. He then waits, and as soon as the radar says OK, the missile's in consent range, it will launch. Then off the missiles goes and he's got to support that missile until impact. If he breaks lock at any time before impact, that missile goes stupid and misses the target".
    US FIGHTER PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE
    10. USING THE RADAR
    "I should point out that there is such a big difference in philosophy that the F-16 pilot will be bound to hate certain things about the MiG-29 for their unfamiliarity, even though they might be just as effective, it's just that he's not conditioned (and certainly not trained) to deal with them. They can put the radar display up their in the HUD, and for guys used to dealing with that, or for guys new to the game, that could be useful. You don't have to look down into the cockpit to look at the radar.

    When the Israelis got their hands on a very late MiG-23 they were very impressed by the ability to do that - and you have to respect what the Israelis think about fighter airplanes! But personally, as an indoctrinated F-16 pilot I think that is a waste. They're not giving me anything in the HUD that's any sort of situational awareness news. They put the radar projection into the HUD and if the pilot's got a lock on the radar, he looks in the HUD and he sees the same thing, but he can't really tell the position of what he's locked onto in space. It's not like the radar display is presented in a three dimensional way, with contacts appearing in the bit of sky where
    they would actually appear. It's like sticking a transparent map up in front of the HUD.

    But in the F-16 all the HUD gives us is updated information of airspeed, altitude, heading and weapons status. If we get a radar lock, we have a bore site cross on the top of the HUD, and that will give us a locator line. If I've got a guy radar locked 50° left, I look in the HUD and the locator line will tell me that my radar lock is 50° left and that I need to go up to get to it. He doesn't really get that, all he gets is a radar image saying you've got a lock here and he's got to look to the scale on the left side to say where it is. So in the F-16, we can't see a radar picture in the HUD, but we can have the position of a locked-up target displayed to us in space, and that's much more useful.

    In addition, the MiG-29 radar can look with the scan centred straight ahead at 12 o'clock or at 30° left or 30° right. Yet if he looks in the HUD he can't tell if the radar's looking straight ahead, or 30° left or 30° right unless he remembers (or checks) where he set the switch. So he might be flying along straight ahead, and the radar picture shows a contact straight ahead at 12 o'clock, but the radar's looking 30° to the right, so the target isn't straight ahead, it's out to the right.

    That's just too much maths to do in the cockpit. Even flying along straight and level, at 1g, it's hard enough to understand, but maneuvering, pulling g... But I'm sure that if you went out and
    trained and trained and trained with it, you would get good at it - you know, it's a video game and you would get good at playing it.

    But at the end of the day, all the radar and BVR stuff is a bit of a distraction anyway - that's not really what the MiG-29's about.

    Chances are, if we are worrying about the MiG-29 in a BVR scenario it will be operating with GCI or AWACS, or other fighters, and its weaknesses will be compensated for by those other platforms, and by jamming, etc.

    The MiG-29 will just bring more missiles to the fight. Where the MiG-29's own independent
    capabilities are relevant to us is in the closein dogfight arena, and any BVR engagement is likely to become a close-in furball within seconds anyway.

    To paraphrase, the threat posed by the 'Fulcrum' is very much a close-in BFM kind of threat and we're not that worried about it in the BVR environment. But you can't entirely discount that aspect of the threat - you know it only takes one BVR missile to ruin your day so, I wouldn't disregard it. And at the end of the day, like me, the MiG-29 pilot will want to whack his opponent in the teeth before he can be detected.

    11. Conclusion
    The ideal situation we hope for is that you never see the target before you destroy it, that's why
    we've got these long sticks. I want to kill my enemy while he's still got his head down in the cockpit, looking at his radar display, preferably before he even suspects I'm there. He does also have some advantages – it would be over-simplistic to regard him as being crude and basic in all respects. Every MiG-29 has RHAWS, every MiG-29 has a data link, most Soviet MiG-29s had an internal built-in active jammer, all MiG-29s have a generous load of chaff/flare expendables – and after Afghanistan, there's at least a possibility that their's might be better than ours.

    I think its important to point out that the MiG-29 and the F-16 are very evenly matched. Each has advantages and disadvantages. In the end it comes down to the pilot. What we say in America is that it doesn't matter what wrapper you wrap your hamburger in, no matter how nicely you package it up, the bottom line is that it's still a hamburger.

    So if you put a good pilot in a great aero-plane he is going to do well, but a great pilot in a great aero-plane is going to do extremely well. The better pilot will come out on top. I have to say that the edge I think we have is dependant mainly on personal training skills. The MiG-29 pilots would probably admit that they are still progressing.

    The former East German pilots have still got a long way to go from coming out of the previous Eastern Bloc training in which things were more scripted and more programmed, and they're still not fully used to the free flowing western BFM type of arena.

    The western pilots, the former West German pilots, are very different. They maximise that
    aero-plane in kind of an eye watering way. Straight away you tended to know who you were fighting. That was very evident, although it's just a matter of differences in training background. The eastern pilots, prior to the reunification, got very very few hours actually flying the jet and so their whole training mindset was different. The outcome is that they're not nearly as capable as their western counterparts. The western pilots are more aggressive and are used to having a whole lot more progressive thinking. For example, in the debrief, the former eastern pilots tended to accept whatever they were told was the outcome of the mission and leave it at that.

    The western pilots liked to really get at why they got hammered, and were genuinely upset if it didn't go exactly right. They wanted to win the debrief, as well as the fight. The eastern-trained guys were more phlegmatic.

    Flying against the German MiG-29s (and perhaps even more so flying against their Soviet-trained pilots) taught us quite a bit about an old adversary. The MiG-29 is still a very valid adversary. Some guys started off thinking that had NATO ever found itself at war with the Warsaw pact, air-to-air we would have just kicked their asses, and some guys still think that, but all of us learned new respect for the MiG-29, and many realize that while we might have won the air war, it would have been close."
    TR1
    TR1


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    Post  TR1 Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:28 am

    Would be interesting to read the perspective of VVS pilots on say F-16...
    though I don't think they would have been amused by total lack of BVR weaponry, and the rudimentary WVR equipment Wink

    It took the F-16 a long time before it was anywhere near even with the MiG-29.
    GarryB
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    Is Russia safe from F-22 and Β-2? - Page 13 Empty Re: Is Russia safe from F-22 and Β-2?

    Post  GarryB Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:27 pm

    I rather doubt that Migs designers care very much what F-16 pilots think about cockpit layout, the Mig-29s cockpit layout was designed to flow from the designs of previous aircraft so a Mig-21 pilot would feel right at home in a Mig-29 without too much extra training.

    Also keep in mind that pilots are like everyone else and what they were brought up on or taught is right and best and everything else is backward or wrong.

    As TR1 points out I am sure the Mig pilot would not trade their IRST or long range missiles for automation of tasks and procedures.

    Again we are comparing a 1984 Mig downgraded for Warsaw Pact countries with modernised F-16s...

    Their opinions would be relevant in the mid 1980s against Warsaw Pact forces, and at a time when the only AAM the F-16 was cleared to carry was the old model Sidewinders.

    If a real war had started those American pilots would have taken to the air thinking they were going to cream the enemy, but in actual fact very few would have survived their first encounter let alone developed tactics to counter the very clear superiority held by Soviet fighters of the time...
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    Post  ahmedfire Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:32 pm

    If you want to use an IIR seeking missile like AIM-9X then it would help if you could see what the missile sees.

    One of its party tricks is to display an image of the target in the cockpit display to allow the pilot to pick a part of the target aircraft to lock and home in on. To display that live image of the target you would need an onboard computer network that can handle video feed at a decent frame rate.


    I remember using an Amiga 500 in the mid 1980s waiting several seconds for a HAM (hold and modify) picture image to load which it did a few lines at a time... in combat that would not be acceptable.

    they don't need or use a graphic TADLs are pure code faster and compact for a reason.

    There is the civilian and commercial computing and electronics operating environments, and then there are the military/naval electronics and avionics operating environments.
    The two environments, while related in some respects, are also completely different.

    except in rare medical/first responder instances, a computer crash is not a fatal event, just shut down and reboot. Shutting down and rebooting a jet fighter's computer during combat is not a option.

    I think its a comparing apples and oranges

    software used to track and intercept cruise missiles operates at a byte level,

    the moon landing was basically conducted on an 8kb computer

    bigger and fatter bandwidth is not automatically better especially for fighters.

    I remember using an Amiga 500 in the mid 1980s waiting several seconds for a HAM (hold and modify) picture image to load which it did a few lines at a time... in combat that would not be acceptable

    because in combat you don't need it - you only want and need to track the object of interest that does not require huge bandwidth


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    Post  ahmedfire Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:34 pm

    the Mig29 HMS doesn't give a cue as to what the missile is locked to - certainly it was true of the former East German airframes - there's a very comprehensive description of operations with the Mig29 by a US pilot floating around, and it's quite illuminating as to how crude the whole thing is compared to western aircraft.

    I'd suggest training (western jet operators spend a lot of time and money in putting their stuff into the sky in large, well scriped DACT exercises), and situational awareness (both inside the cockpit and out!) are both more relevant than how many gigaflops are on tap.



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    Post  Mindstorm Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:47 pm

    It seem that our Victor7 has finally found one of the publications, that i had pointed out, from where "fulcrumflyer" (the mental disturbed poster at F-16.net that had written the comical piece cited by Victor7 in an old post) had taken a part of its points....naturally picking attentively some and warping horribly others Laughing

    About the opinions expressed by the USAF pilot in "How to fly and fight in the Mykoian MiG-29" ,a part the normal dose of "patriotism" usually present in any military pilot, is very important to stress out some very important elements

    1) In this and other '90 years DACT exercises (mostly against German ,Czech and Bulgarian pilots and in peer conditions for the aircraft involved), the MiG-29A (older model) gained systematically the upper hand ,and by a very long margin, on practically all main NATO aircraft, F-16, F-15 and F-18.
    The reassuring element provided to the western pilots involved in those exercises (and likely the main reason by part of NATO's Command to even allow those exercises to continue and be repeated without the risk to create a true MiG-29 syndrome in the NATO pilot's mind) was that thiers aircraft could have avoid the defeat against MiG-29s pointing on the, supposedly, more advanced medium range missiles available to them and radar with greater engagement range and number of trackable targets ; at play ,as subliminal reinforcing element, was also the operative results obtained in pasted conflicts.....against the 20 Iraqi and 10 Serbian Fulcrum ,both vastly downgraded export models of the older MiG-29 version, attacked by the whole NATO Air Forces Rolling Eyes
    But this lead to the point two.

    2) The MiG-29 version taken into examination in "How to fly and fight in the Mykoian MiG-29" is the first version of Mig-29 while the F-16 employed by the opposing squdron was the F-16 Block 50.
    Great majority of the supposed "advantages" enjoyed by F-16 over MiG-29 and cited in "How to fly and fight in the Mykoian MiG-29" as counterbalancing factors of the Fulcrum's superior aerodynamic layout and crushing superiority in the 10 nautical mile arena ,are in reality merely the difference between the most outdated model of MiG-29 of '80 years and ,to the exact contrary, the most advanced version of F-16 available to USAF in those years Very Happy Very Happy

    Let take the radar : even the basis N019 radar was capable to track 10 targets against the 8 of AN/APG-68 radar ; the dirty "trick" played in those publications or by western pilots is not only to confront the most advanced suit available to NATO at the time with the most outdated for MiG-29 but also to add in the mix capabilities offered by the most advanced missiles available to them against the most outdated usable by the Fulcrum .
    In this instance we have, at example, that those advanced F-16C Block-50 are capable to track 8 and engage 4 targets only when equipped with AIM-120 missile,employing a semi-active missile such as AIM-7 (moreover inferior to the basis t-27) F-16 would show the same, identical limits cited for this outdated version of MiG-29.

    3) The Fulcrum's BVR weapons taken into examination in " How to fly and fight in the Mykoian MiG-29" is the basis R-27 (NATO designation Alamo-A) and only in its semi-active radar version .
    In the same year RuAF MiG-29s was already fully equipped with long burn versions of both semi-active radar homing R-27-R and IR homing R-27-T (named R-27-ER and ET) with not only vastly increased maximum engagement range (130 and 120 km respectively), but also better target designation range and ECCM; moreover RuAF MiG-29s operative in those years was capable to engage with salvo of two of those missiles ,usually one radar and one IR homing, to two different target and at maximum range.
    Would have been very interesting to know on which would have clung themselves USAF pilots ,in the attempt to find a sector of air combat arena of advantage of F-16 over MiG-29 examining VERSIONS OF VIPER AND FULCRUM OF THE SAME PERIOD. Laughing






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    Post  Mindstorm Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:01 pm

    Testing with F-16s and Mig-29s in the early 1990s clearly showed that while the F-16 has some advantages against the export model Mig-29 with certain extra downgrades (like engine and the use of the ferry tank) and in 62% of cases the F-16 successfully got onto the Migs tail


    GarryB i don't understand to what instance you refer.
    The only instance that come to my mind with a similar figure is a DACT exercise of USAF with Luftwaffe in 1994 cited in an article of P. Butowski and by E. Gordon in its book where Col. Jochen Both say that F-16 was capable to obtain better manoeuvrability parameters in 60% of the instances (no mention of gaining six o'clock position in BFM) , the problem is in a.......little detail Smile

    From pag 425 of Yefim Gordon's "Famous Russian Aircraft Mikoyan MiG-29"

    "When Luftwaffe MiG-29s participated in mock combat sessions in with USAF F-16Cs in 1994, the German pilots usually got theirs adversary in their sights first , which meant victory (first shot ,fist kill). The MiGs were armed with R-73 dogfight AAMs missiles and the pilots used Schchel'-3UM helmet-mounted sight.
    Col. Jochen Both,detached to the Luftwaffe for the duration of the exercise,stated that the Fighting Falcons showed better maoeuvrability in 60% of the time; on the other hand consider that the F-16s flew in "clean" condition while the MiGs had six pylons and carried a centreline drop tank and two fixed R-73 acquisition rounds "

    A....little detail Very Happy .



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    Post  victor7 Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:30 pm

    Once more sure shot ways are developed to jamm or kill the approaching missiles, the air force war will again revert back to close in dogfights with loads of 20-30mm bullets being fired from cannons.

    For now the only way I can guess see to cancel out F22 is to own its A2A missiles. Employing everything from jammers to high density CIWS firing off HEs in an accurate fervor. Smile

    There was comment in the article about crudeness of Mig29. Two reasons a) simplicity of operations, repair and replacement of parts. The more complex a function is the more it is vulnerable to 'minor glitch' causing a 'major breakdown'. b) Those were Soviet times when human factor was given much higher value than the technological variables. In last 20 years, Russian industry has come to a good balance between automation and human excellence. Su-30s and above are no more 'monkey jumping around in a cage' scenario for pilots.

    No wonder items like AK-47s, Mig-21s still pack a lethal punch despite being crude and simple in design. Cool
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    Post  TR1 Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:28 am

    ahmedfire wrote:the Mig29 HMS doesn't give a cue as to what the missile is locked to - certainly it was true of the former East German airframes - there's a very comprehensive description of operations with the Mig29 by a US pilot floating around, and it's quite illuminating as to how crude the whole thing is compared to western aircraft.





    You mean a biased description by an officer from an essentially opposing force? I could get some RUssian reviews of Western aircraft, they are not flattering.
    Come on, these reports are flawed from the start, even though they have interesting points at times.

    Crude or not, the F-16 flat out did not have anything like HMS+R-73 for years after the MiG-29 did. Or any BVR. That is what I call crude and simple!
    If we are gonna talk about Western aircraft as a whole, as people love to do, then the Mirage 2000 had an incredibly crude radar for years.

    It is a typical assessment by US officers to declare Soviet equipment as "crude" when it serves different functions and was built for a different service and exploitation strategy.
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    Post  victor7 Tue Apr 03, 2012 3:33 am

    It is a typical assessment by US officers to declare Soviet equipment as "crude" when it serves different functions and was built for a different service and exploitation strategy.

    That's true, western sources inflate their wrong opinions when it suits them. One cup of water on an airplane wing does not make it soaked and draining in rain........but they sure seem to project it like that.

    There can be two points on articles like above a) chances of client states buying western weapons will still be low to nothing as many a cases west would not sell them the weapon complex, so not much harm done to marketing b) such negative opinions help race the mind horses for improvement and creativity for next model or block of the weapon. Simple but equally effective weapon costs much less over the service lifetime cost. Indians are buying Su-30s w/AESA and total cost for 40 birds comes to $4B odd at $104M per unit. However these include the lifetime service costs. People tend to go with initial flyaway price which should be $30-40M for Su-30s and spread stories that Russians are trying to defraud Indian Air Force.

    I would rather buy an upgraded T-72 for $2M than a gas guzzler M1A1 for $6M. It is a matter of doctrine and other variables.
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    Post  GarryB Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:33 am

    the moon landing was basically conducted on an 8kb computer

    And the Memdelev Table was also developed without computers... what is your point?

    My point is that even a bog standard Mig-29 uses 486 level computer hardware, so what is all this crap about the F-22 being a super computer with wings?

    bigger and fatter bandwidth is not automatically better especially for fighters.

    Most word processing and email that people do now on 8 core 3.5 GHz computers is not hugely different from the sort of thing they could have done in the 1980s on an Amiga 500 at something like 7.4 MHz clock speed.
    As you point out there is a difference between military and commercial, but a faster higher performance processor operating in a larger bandwidth has very important flow on effects in terms of capabilities.

    If you want sensor fusion then you need a system that can in real time combine raw data coming in from multiple sources (RHAW, IR sensors, Radar, and off platform sources and combine it all into a real time picture of everything around the aircraft.

    An 8 bit or 16 bit architecture will limit the number of memory addresses... even in a 32 bit environment Windows cannot recognise more than about 3 GB of RAM, which might not sound like a big deal but the amount of data a modern AESA radar can generate means you need as much grunt as you can get.

    Just as an example the original ZASLON radar of the Mig-31 was a very powerful set and its volume of scanning was enormous, but its range was not very impressive because of a lack of processing power.

    The current upgrades AFAIK use the same radar with the same antenna with almost double the range because of a much more powerful radar.

    A dedicated processor that is hard wired to a task doesn't need to be fast... do a search on my chats with Flanky about UAVs taking over the role of JSTARS in the Russian Air Force and even my chats with Vlad about making computer chips.

    A calculator can have a very slow processor but still do the job of calculations very very quickly, the problem is that in the 1980s as processors got faster the computers in military equipment moved from pretty much custom designed chips used for specific roles in specific aircraft where an upgrade means a whole new chip and hardware needs to be developed to a generic off the shelf chip where upgrades are just a question of a software patch or upgrade.


    because in combat you don't need it - you only want and need to track the object of interest that does not require huge bandwidth

    Again, this us supposed to be the best of the best... some even claim it should be called a 6th gen fighter because it is so much better than 4th gen fighters...

    the Mig29 HMS doesn't give a cue as to what the missile is locked to - certainly it was true of the former East German airframes - there's a very comprehensive description of operations with the Mig29 by a US pilot floating around, and it's quite illuminating as to how crude the whole thing is compared to western aircraft.

    What a load of rubbish. Looking through the glass monocle the pilot sees a reticle or aiming sight pattern and to use it he turns his head to put the target aircraft in the centre of the reticle and presses a button on his control stick which slaves the selected missiles seeker to his line of sight, so it turns to where he is looking and gets a lock on that target. When lock is acquired the pilot is free to pull the trigger and launch the missile.

    When this system entered service his NATO equivalent looked around in the sky for the enemy and when he located them he had to turn his entire aircraft to point his nose at the target and then activate his missile seeker to scan for the target. If there is a group of targets EVEN IF HE GETS A RADAR LOCK that means nothing because there is no link between his radar and his IR guided missiles so his radar might lock on one target and his IR guided missile might lock on a different target altogether...

    It is amusing the west calls the Soviet system crude because the US equivalent didn't enter service till at least 20 years later, has no clear advantages over the Soviet system though it is heavier, more complex and orders of magnitude more expensive so only a small percentage of US fighters actually have it... and that does not include their F-22s. On the other hand every model from the oldest to the newest Mig-29 and Su-27 have it fitted as standard.
    Also what is not widely recognised is that the R-27T and R-27ET are also high off boresight IR guided AAMs which benefit from the helmet mounted sight...

    I'd suggest training (western jet operators spend a lot of time and money in putting their stuff into the sky in large, well scriped DACT exercises), and situational awareness (both inside the cockpit and out!) are both more relevant than how many gigaflops are on tap.

    I'd suggest that it is par for the course... the Super aerial Cray computer is actually a white elephant that will likely be a hangar queen for some time to come...

    consider that the F-16s flew in "clean" condition while the MiGs had six pylons and carried a centreline drop tank and two fixed R-73 acquisition rounds "



    A....little detail Very Happy .

    To be clear the use of the centreline drop tank on an early model Mig-29 is for ferrying ONLY and limits the aircraft to something like 4g flight performance.

    Simple but equally effective weapon costs much less over the service lifetime cost. Indians are buying Su-30s w/AESA and total cost for 40 birds comes to $4B odd at $104M per unit. However these include the lifetime service costs. People tend to go with initial flyaway price which should be $30-40M for Su-30s and spread stories that Russians are trying to defraud Indian Air Force.

    The contents of that contract have not been revealed AFAIK, for all we know the $4B dollars could cover the price of the 40 new Su-30s with AESA plus an upgrade of existing aircraft to that standard. They equally could have ordered new simulators, or they might simply have included a large order of spare parts and weapons for their whole fleet with those 40 new aircraft.
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    Post  Corrosion Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:55 pm

    Crude or not, IAF Mig29 pilots love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwmMzgaW1RM

    More so it is also stationed at important places in India. Shows the confidence that IAF has in this plane.
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    Post  victor7 Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:25 am

    Why do not the Indians go for more Mig-29s rather than trying to develop the LCAs which they have been........like forever!

    Mig21-Bis and Mig-21-98s have been known to give real hard time to even advanced block F16s. Only few upgrades needed like better engines, more range, better missiles and for $2M-3M you have a very decent fighter available for next 15-20 years. For $2B one can add whole new additional airforce of 600 planes of F16 quality. I think Turkey has an air force which is loaded with F16s only and same as Egypt but they also have few Mirage also.
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    Post  GarryB Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:28 am

    Of course the Mig-29 pilots in India have the benefit that they are getting upgrades and are flying aircraft far superior than the aircraft these western pilots are complaining about.

    It is a bit like the M16 and the AK-47... comparing the latest model M16 with the original AK-47 and complaining that the AK-47 doesn't have the features of the M16.

    The amusing thing I find is people suggesting the AK-47 is not ergonomic.

    If you shoot left handed it is very ergonomic.

    Left handed people are trained to shoot right handed, so it should be no problem at all to train all soldiers to shoot left handed.

    Much cheaper than buying all new rifles...

    The thing is that people trained on M16s with peep iron sights and adjustable length stocks become used to such features, and when trying a different rifle that don't have those features will criticise their absence.

    The problem from a third party view is that the fact that they are used to a different system does not make the system they are trying bad or not good... I know for a fact that someone like me used to the AKM I don't like the western style peep iron sights, and the M16 is a very long rifle that could do with a folding stock instead of one you can move a few cms to make it slightly shorter or longer.

    Anyway... what I am trying to say is that these western pilots are basically criticising the first model Mig-29 for not being an F-16.


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    Post  victor7 Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:20 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaoYz90giTk&feature=related

    F22 vid from 2009..........why it was cancelled!

    power video on raptor
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPnVinSOGCk&feature=related
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    Post  GarryB Wed Apr 04, 2012 1:59 pm

    Lets apply western rules to dealing with Soviet propaganda....

    If it is bad then it must be true. If it is not bad then it is a lie and should be ignored.

    Which basically means the first video condemning the F-22 was all truth and the second video was advertising rubbish that should be ignored.

    ...hey, I didn't make up the rules...
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    Post  Corrosion Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:54 pm

    victor7 wrote:Why do not the Indians go for more Mig-29s rather than trying to develop the LCAs which they have been........like forever!
    It is the operational requirements. IAF is going to operate as three tier force....light, medium and heavy instead of hi/low combination. LCA/Mig21 is light, MMRCA/Mig29/Mirage etc. is medium and Su-30 Heavy. There are roles of point defense and escort fighters which should be multi-role as well. This is where LCA comes in. Not to mention it is an ingenious platform. It will not be allowed to fail IMO...similarly like F-35 wont be allowed to fail Wink

    Mig21-Bis and Mig-21-98s have been known to give real hard time to even advanced block F16s.
    Its only Bison that can give hard time to advanced F-16 if used intelligently. I don't think Mig21Bis is that capable platform.
    Only few upgrades needed like better engines, more range, better missiles and for $2M-3M you have a very decent fighter available for next 15-20 years.
    You can only go so far as there is limitation of space in Mig-21 airframe. All you suggest has been already done with Mig21. IAF is goint to operate last of Bisons upto 2017. You can read more here: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Aircraft/Current/605-Bison.html and pictures here: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Images/Eqpmt/Walkarounds/MiG21Bison/
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    Post  Mr.Kalishnikov47 Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:00 pm

    The F-22 is a money sink with no future. End of story. I'm an American tax payer, so excuse me if I'm not fond of a dead end project that has costed billions upon billions of dollars and accomplished nothing.

    Not to mention the cost of upkeep and maintenance. How did the airforce ever think they could afford to maintain over 700 of these things anyways? Rolling Eyes

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    Post  Firebird Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:23 pm

    I read some stuff on the |F-22. And it looks like a horror story for the US taxpayer. You have to wonder how much of it is Republican cronies just fleecing the taxpayer for all they can.

    There's also a second implication of all this. And that is, who "won" the Cold War. Sure America will say " we won". Russia will say "nope we chose to adopt a new path".
    So who won? Well I think CHina and India etc haven't done badly out of the whole affair.

    Sure, in defence its important to handle your direct opponent. But you also have to think of 3rd parties taking advantage of your situation..Maybe America will come to seriously regret its activities in the M East. Lessons for everyone perhaps.

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