MIG-21, MIG-25, MIG-29SMT. Your views

Nice.

The MiG-25 has two 11 ton thrust engines, while the MiG-31 has two 15 ton thrust engines... there were plans to put more powerful engines in the MiG-25 but they decided to just use them in the MiG-31 instead.

Would be interesting to see what difference more powerful engines would make to the performance of the MiG-25... especially engines designed to operate at very high speeds... some sort of bypass turbojet where the bypass air could be used as a ramjet at very high flight speeds...

Of course that new high temperature aluminium they are developing would do amazing things for the MiG-25 by making it much more heat resistant while making it much much lighter too.

Replacing old 1950s equipment with modern new stuff would also lighten it and make it more effective... I rather suspect more sophisticated and modern engines would make it much cheaper to operate too... lighter weight means it would climb and accelerate much faster and use less fuel doing so, and a modern ramjet mode turbojet means fuel burn sustaining high speed wont be too bad either... it would be an interesting aircraft for New Zealand to move around the huge airspace we have down here to patrol our large area of water that we manage. Aussie would probably find it useful too for mapping and locating things over its enormous territory.

The Foxbats had pretty impressive data collecting equipment, and with modern equivalents it would be able to collect enormous amounts of data per flight... including up to rather high altitudes too.

Would be an interesting science plane but being Soviet and Russian neither countries would even consider it of course.

Am I correct in saying that the mig-21 is the oldest service fighter aircraft in service?

I know DPRK still have su-7, (although some sources say it came into production at the same time as mig-21) and still have Shenyang j-5 / j-6 and mig-15 as a trainer (which isn't used as fighter aircraft) we also have the issue of are they really still in flying condition. When they have their various parades u never see any of these flying only l-39, su-25, mig-29. So in theory we could ignore DPRK stats as very unclear and very likely out of service.

The F-5 is a similar age as is the Mirage III and the F-4, but from the figures I have seen, the MiG-21 entered service before they did, and most of the previous generation aircraft have been retired already... so you might be right.

Western experts wont mention that because it is not in their favour to do so.

GarryB wrote:The F-5 is a similar age as is the Mirage III and the F-4, but from the figures I have seen, the MiG-21 entered service before they did, and most of the previous generation aircraft have been retired already... so you might be right.

Western experts wont mention that because it is not in their favour to do so.

yeah and they dont like to give any praise to the Mig-21. I know it had some teething problems at the start but doesnt all aircraft. that fact remains this aircraft is still pretty decent and even some western pilots have said it a worthy adversary. Check out the Indian and USA Cope exercise of how good the Mig-21 are makes a good read.

can i ask your opinion was the design of the aircraft good? in terms of the engine etc, you dont see that type of single engine aircraft any more (nose cone)

If Russia was determined to bring back a single engined aircraft do you think to save on costs they could redesign the Mig-21 and bring it back? a redesign as in make slightly bigger to fit better radar, upgrade avionics (which it has done over the years Bison, Bis, 93 etc) but still keeping it fairly small aircraft. I believe the engine is still pretty decent even in todays standards and there is always scope to improve it. I sometimes thing its better to take something thats older but still good and improve on it especially if the desired outcome isnt something too high tec or the needs arent as great. but as i mentioned on other threads this would most likely steal sales from yak-130 and Mig-29M2. But i would imagine a new upgraded and redesigned Mig-21 wouldnt cost that much to redesign in relation to building a new aircraft from scratch and it would cost less than a Mig-29M2. And it would appeal to current and previous countries who operate/operated Mig-21. and maintenance would be cheaper than Mig-29M2 and it would be better than the Yak-130. to me its not a bad idea. and if it can steal sales from F-16, Gripen, T-50

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurra_Air_Battle

Back in 1991 two iraqi mig-25 engaged 2 unsupported f-15.

Mig-25 managed to hit one f-15 which then crashed according to iraqi but denied by US who say the plane survived.

The most funny is it happened in close combat, f-15 missiles miserably failed against this non manoeuvrable mig-25.

This combat shows the real value of f-15 when fighting fair fights with no support or overwhelming numbers. It's a shitty plane that can't fight a rocket plane like the mig-25 in dogfight.

Would be funny to see it fight a Rafale or su-35.

Most of the time you don't realise you are being engaged till your self defence system tells you that you are being targeted... against a third world country with old model fighters that is usually when the HATO missile explodes very close to them so they get very little chance to test the HATO fighters.

When the playing field is level (which the US spends trillions and takes great care to ensure never happens) then results can be surprising... for instance the experience of Indian fighter pilots against US pilots where the conditions are more equal.

The US doesn't fight fair and will use tactics to maximise their advantages including fighting at night and in dust storms against Iraqi tanks that don't have the thermal imagers the US tanks and IFVs have... it is sensible but not taken in to account when describing the conflict so the US appears to be rather more superior than they actually are.

If Russia was determined to bring back a single engined aircraft do you think to save on costs they could redesign the Mig-21 and bring it back?

I think the few dollars they save on servicing one engine instead of two would disappear in the clouds of smoke of single engine fighters with an engine problem that crashes because it only has one.

That is not to say twin engined fighters don't crash... of course they do... ironically their worst aircraft for crashing was the Yak38/M and it had three engines, but any of them failing during landing would lead to a crash...

The MiG-29M/2 is about as cheap as you would want... anything cheaper would not be effective enough to be useful... and at probably about 30 million a plane could be quite cost effective because their operational costs would be lower than larger aircraft too...

GarryB wrote:Most of the time you don't realise you are being engaged till your self defence system tells you that you are being targeted... against a third world country with old model fighters that is usually when the HATO missile explodes very close to them so they get very little chance to test the HATO fighters.

These third world countries would do well to try the Soviet approach - ground-launched missiles as enablers of air power.

The MiG-29M/2 is about as cheap as you would want... anything cheaper would not be effective enough to be useful... and at probably about 30 million a plane could be quite cost effective because their operational costs would be lower than larger aircraft too...

Well that's quite true in terms of purchasing price. Jf-17, tejas, gripen or f-35 are equally or more expensive than a mig-29M/35.

But then we need to compare the opperational cost and maintenance over its service life.

These third world countries would do well to try the Soviet approach - ground-launched missiles as enablers of air power.

Actually the opposite, you are thinking of air defence and air power... third world countries normally have neither in any strength... certainly not enough to withstand an attack from a greater power.

HATO doesn't have a land based IADS, their air defence is managed by their air forces in general and is ambulance at the bottom of the hill type defence.

The best a small weak country could hope for is single missile launch tubes for something like Pantsir dispersed around the place and hidden with passive optical search and detection/ID and tracking and command guidance tracking of the missiles, the enemy would get very little warning and the missiles would streak up and hit their targets... chaff and flares and DIRCMS would be ineffective, and no vehicle exposed by the launch to attack.

The current missiles reach 15km altitude which means only a few fighters could operate safely, but 15km is not a hard limit, and the new 40km range missiles with the bigger more powerful solid rocket booster might be able to reach much higher with a vertical launch.

Otherwise you are looking at enormous costs for communications and command systems and of course lots of ground based air defence equipment that HATO prides itself in being able to pick off over time and degrade...

There is no easy quick cheap solution to make a third world country safe... and if there was they would already be doing it.

Well that's quite true in terms of purchasing price. Jf-17, tejas, gripen or f-35 are equally or more expensive than a mig-29M/35.

But then we need to compare the opperational cost and maintenance over its service life.

Most companies that sell fighters make most of their money on the support and maintenance contracts... for the Russian military and Russian companies there are laws limiting the profit margin allowed... something like 4.5%... for export it is generally 20-30%... for export to a customer that bought your planes cheap from a third party then of course charges will be higher, but better terms can be agreed by buying more aircraft from the maker for instance.

There clearly cannot possibly be profit margin limits for western companies... and the costs they have to cover are much higher...

Another aspect of course is performance... you could buy brand new F-5s only to find they are not much use... nice and cheap, but not very effective... which seemed to be the criticism of the Gripen from Finland officials. Having to use more than one plane to do a job is normal, you don't normally operate aircraft individually anyway, but when you need to send 8 instead of four to get the job done or find no number of smaller fighters can do the job then money savings don't come in to it.

Isos wrote:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurra_Air_Battle

Back in 1991 two iraqi mig-25 engaged 2 unsupported f-15.

Mig-25 managed to hit one f-15 which then crashed according to iraqi but denied by US who say the plane survived.

The most funny is it happened in close combat, f-15 missiles miserably failed against this non manoeuvrable mig-25.

This combat shows the real value of f-15 when fighting fair fights with no support or overwhelming numbers. It's a shitty plane that can't fight a rocket plane like the mig-25 in dogfight.

Would be funny to see it fight a Rafale or su-35.

One of Israels F-15's was hit in Syria by something. And the Houthis downed one in Yemen too

Does anyone know if Algeria is still using their MIG 25? I have a guess that the ones in Syria are out of service. If Algeria do still use them then I believe they are the only country left using them but how long for? And what will they replace them with? Su-30, su-34, su-35? Or second hand MIG 31? Or wait for Russia's new MIG 41, but will the MIG 25 last that long?

The upgrade potential of the MiG-25...

The original had two 11 ton thrust engines... fitting the engines the MiG-31 uses... 15 ton thrust engines means an extra 8 tons thrust for the aircraft...

Remaking the aircraft in Titanium would be too expensive, but the new high temperature aluminiums and other metals as well as ceramic materials in certain places could dramatically reduce the aircraft weight.... I don't think you could get it to fly much faster but you should be able to massively increase endurance and range and make acceleration much better too and the potential for conformal weapon positions on the belly would be interesting too... and a nose that size can carry a big radar antenna.

The main problem with the MiG-25 is that it is expensive... lots of fuel and short lifespan engines... a MiG-29SMT like upgrade with modern digital avionics and indeed surface mounted radar antenna, it would have interesting growth potential... but then having said that I would think a MiG-35 would make more sense moving forward with a better aerodynamic shape and able to dogfight with anything...

The enormous internal volume and capacity of a MIG-25 offers the potential to make a high flying command type aircraft that carries communications and jamming equipment along with missiles to damage air defence networks like the AS-11 family...

Indeed the MiG-25RB was the original high altitude bomber though the Gefest & T system seems rather more precise and accurate... that is what it might have evolved from.

The MiG-31RB was supposed to be able to carry 9 tons in the form of 6 x 1,500kg bombs specially designed for high speed use with special heat resistant fuses... putting the more powerful engines in the MiG-25 and improved lighter heat resistant materials might allow perhaps a 12 ton payload of weapons be carried and with more modern avionics delivered accurately from enormous altitudes and speeds... in fact with loft bombing options where 1,500kg bombs are released at mach 2.6 at 20km altitude and lofted into the air even without a glide kit that bomb could travel quite a distance to hit its target... add a glide kit and it could be rather impressive.

Of course with the bigger engines launching payloads into space might become an interesting option with heavier and higher drag loads possible for take off.

So many what ifs...

GarryB wrote:The upgrade potential of the MiG-25...

The original had two 11 ton thrust engines... fitting the engines the MiG-31 uses... 15 ton thrust engines means an extra 8 tons thrust for the aircraft...

Remaking the aircraft in Titanium would be too expensive, but the new high temperature aluminiums and other metals as well as ceramic materials in certain places could dramatically reduce the aircraft weight.... I don't think you could get it to fly much faster but you should be able to massively increase endurance and range and make acceleration much better too and the potential for conformal weapon positions on the belly would be interesting too... and a nose that size can carry a big radar antenna.

The main problem with the MiG-25 is that it is expensive... lots of fuel and short lifespan engines... a MiG-29SMT like upgrade with modern digital avionics and indeed surface mounted radar antenna, it would have interesting growth potential... but then having said that I would think a MiG-35 would make more sense moving forward with a better aerodynamic shape and able to dogfight with anything...

The enormous internal volume and capacity of a MIG-25 offers the potential to make a high flying command type aircraft that carries communications and jamming equipment along with missiles to damage air defence networks like the AS-11 family...

Indeed the MiG-25RB was the original high altitude bomber though the Gefest & T system seems rather more precise and accurate... that is what it might have evolved from.

The MiG-31RB was supposed to be able to carry 9 tons in the form of 6 x 1,500kg bombs specially designed for high speed use with special heat resistant fuses... putting the more powerful engines in the MiG-25 and improved lighter heat resistant materials might allow perhaps a 12 ton payload of weapons be carried and with more modern avionics delivered accurately from enormous altitudes and speeds... in fact with loft bombing options where 1,500kg bombs are released at mach 2.6 at 20km altitude and lofted into the air even without a glide kit that bomb could travel quite a distance to hit its target... add a glide kit and it could be rather impressive.

Of course with the bigger engines launching payloads into space might become an interesting option with heavier and higher drag loads possible for take off.

So many what ifs...    

Oh ok, not sure that's what I asked lol. But ok u covered upgrade potential, but I didn't ask such. But thanks for providing it. I would imagine pretty much whatever the mig-31 upgrades have had could be applied to mig25

The MiG-25 is obviously older and used more stainless steel in its design, so there is more potential to reduce weight and increase engine power.

The MiG-25s were not cheap to operate and their high speed requires large volumes of fuel... their value was their speed, but in terms of recon a dozen smaller lighter much slower drones could probably achieve a much better result for rather less cost in terms of purchase and operational costs.

10 drones are not faster than the MiG but can monitor multiple areas at one time with two or three drones while the others are available if needed.

In terms of interception performance, the Su-30 or Su-35 would be very effective with long range and endurance with reasonable speed and ability to deal with most threats and targets and being fully multirole could carry some really hard hitting air to ground weapons at the same time.

The Flankers and the drones could work together and provide good air defence, though a MiG-29M would make sense as a numbers fighter.... a cheaper to fly and operate platform that can fill gaps and operate relatively cheaply, and yet deal with a range of modern threats quite effectively too.

It can operate away from airfields and is quite rugged.

Not sure about the situation in Algeria but I would think buying new aircraft makes more sense... and I think they should consider encouraging the Russians to set up a support base for Russian aircraft and weapons there for the north african region to encourage other countries to buy their products. Algeria could make some extra money while making Russian weapons cheaper to own for countries in the region...

Isos wrote:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurra_Air_BattleIt's a shitty plane that can't fight a rocket plane like the mig-25 in dogfight.

That's a new, and wrong take. We can go on about advantages of numbers but for now, best look at the kill ratio the F-15 has.

GarryB wrote:
The US doesn't fight fair and will use tactics to maximise their advantages including fighting at night and in dust storms against Iraqi tanks that don't have the thermal imagers the US tanks and IFVs have... it is sensible but not taken in to account when describing the conflict so the US appears to be rather more superior than they actually are.

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What do you expect? War isn't fair, it's about killing people so why tf would anyone try to make it fair and throw away an advantage? I don't follow your reasoning at all.

[quote="Finty"]

GarryB wrote:
The US doesn't fight fair and will use tactics to maximise their advantages including fighting at night and in dust storms against Iraqi tanks that don't have the thermal imagers the US tanks and IFVs have... it is sensible but not taken in to account when describing the conflict so the US appears to be rather more superior than they actually are.

What do you expect? War isn't fair, it's about killing people so why tf would anyone try to make it fair and throw away an advantage? I don't follow your reasoning at all.

Going off topic I recall a chap from the British army saying how the Taliban were cowardly for using IEDs but by that logic, so is using an Apache gunship.

What do you expect? War isn't fair, it's about killing people so why tf would anyone try to make it fair and throw away an advantage? I don't follow your reasoning at all.

Trying to evaluate the performance of a fighter is made difficult when the enemy is heavily jammed and whose aircraft have not been properly maintained to the point that they are getting airborne with radars that don't function, where the F-15 in question is directed to an optimum location to launch an attack from behind against an unaware opponent... a cessna with sidewinders would be just as effective in many of these cases... in fact just after desert storm some F-15s were sent to intercept potential targets suspected of being Hinds... the F-15s said they were hinds and the AWACS controlling the interception ordered them to shoot both helicopters down... they were American Blackhawks sending the wrong IFF code.

Their own fault... their mistake... but what is the point of sending F-15s to ID a target when they are too afraid to get close enough to positively ID the target...

Going off topic I recall a chap from the British army saying how the Taliban were cowardly for using IEDs but by that logic, so is using an Apache gunship.

Or a B-52.

The point is that using B-52s in uncontested airspace gives you an indication of capacity and performance, but tells you nothing about its chances in situations it was designed for... ie WWIII... which is not to say it is useless, but it is untested.

That's a new, and wrong take. We can go on about advantages of numbers but for now, best look at the kill ratio the F-15 has.

The kill ratio is like saying I am a better fighter than Bruce Lee... because I would use a shotgun. The kill ratio of the F-15 against third world countries is very impressive... but then it should be shouldn't it?

They don't get shot down... they have malfunctions.

In training they don't do very well against MiG-29s or MiG-21s... in a conflict where an enemy is able to neutralise the F-15s primary advantage... ie AWACS support, its kill ratio would change dramatically... leading to its potential performance being vastly over rated.... much like most US gear... on paper they should be creaming the Taleban... they trained and funded them in the 1980s when they called themselves the Mujahadeen.

Some good info on mig-25 including the peleng automatic bombing system

https://www.google.com/amp/s/weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/06/06/the-incredible-mig-25/amp/

Supermaneuverable MiG-25 with a controlled thrust vector of the Swifts aerobatic group