Making the best of MiG-21
- Thread starter adriann
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I think the big picture people are missing is that we are at the age of BVR (Very Unfortunate because weapons are becoming incredibly boring
The MiG-21 although a really cool plane the only way to make it affective is to seriously modernize the radar and more importantly the weapons platform, the MiG-21-93 is a good example of that but it cannot compete with aircraft like the F-15 and MiG-29
The MiG-21 although a really cool plane the only way to make it affective is to seriously modernize the radar and more importantly the weapons platform, the MiG-21-93 is a good example of that but it cannot compete with aircraft like the F-15 and MiG-29weasel1962
New Member
Re:
Just looking at the stats.
The Mig-21-93 carries ~767 gal internal fuel with the RD-33 which burns .77 lb/lbf/hr at dry and 1.85 wet. Taking 11,230 lbs dry thrust and 18,285 lbs wet thrust, that translates into 150km combat radius on dry (with fuel reserve) and 50km combat radius wet.
One can extend range with tanks (slightly cos small wing loading) but that takes up wing pylon which means flying with 2 missiles only (R-77 or R-73) and severely handicaps it due to weight.
The aircraft won't be flying CAP missions for long periods of time (minutes rather than hours) and it remains precisely as ozzy had indicated, a point defence fighter.
Unlike the suks or F-series fighters, it'd still rely on GCI or AWACs for directional control, even with a kopyo or elta radar, cos it can't stay in the air that long. Having a R-77/R-73 + Kopyo/Elta radar makes it more effective in the air once it has been given target co-ordinates. Eliminate the AWACs/GCI, the aircraft is severely limited.
Due to its short range, the opposing aircraft can, in theory, enter into an afterburner maneuvering fight to escape the mig's kill zone, force the mig to burn precious fuel and re-enter with slash tactics when the mig goes into a fuel low situation.
In layman's terms, it would require a bit of luck, skill and external air control for a mig to get into a firing position before fuel runs out. What makes it worse is the lack of fly by wire. That means more manual control to get into a firing position that isn't eliminated by a bvr radar.
Its more effective with bvr/hobs capability but still suffers from inherent limitations of the design.
Just looking at the stats.
The Mig-21-93 carries ~767 gal internal fuel with the RD-33 which burns .77 lb/lbf/hr at dry and 1.85 wet. Taking 11,230 lbs dry thrust and 18,285 lbs wet thrust, that translates into 150km combat radius on dry (with fuel reserve) and 50km combat radius wet.
One can extend range with tanks (slightly cos small wing loading) but that takes up wing pylon which means flying with 2 missiles only (R-77 or R-73) and severely handicaps it due to weight.
The aircraft won't be flying CAP missions for long periods of time (minutes rather than hours) and it remains precisely as ozzy had indicated, a point defence fighter.
Unlike the suks or F-series fighters, it'd still rely on GCI or AWACs for directional control, even with a kopyo or elta radar, cos it can't stay in the air that long. Having a R-77/R-73 + Kopyo/Elta radar makes it more effective in the air once it has been given target co-ordinates. Eliminate the AWACs/GCI, the aircraft is severely limited.
Due to its short range, the opposing aircraft can, in theory, enter into an afterburner maneuvering fight to escape the mig's kill zone, force the mig to burn precious fuel and re-enter with slash tactics when the mig goes into a fuel low situation.
In layman's terms, it would require a bit of luck, skill and external air control for a mig to get into a firing position before fuel runs out. What makes it worse is the lack of fly by wire. That means more manual control to get into a firing position that isn't eliminated by a bvr radar.
Its more effective with bvr/hobs capability but still suffers from inherent limitations of the design.
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- #24
[I didn't see statistics about missile engagement range for shoot-down planes. I wouldn't be surprised if even today majority was shoot from below 10 NM. It is not impossible that bunch of cheap fighters with HMS/IC AAMs embush hi-tech a/c in the furball. Probably Sweds knew how to do that with all that hihghway airstrips.
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- #25
You got the point..
But let us see how F-15 can intercept MiG-25. Combat radius of F-15 in full AB is 50 miles (US source). Try to calculate AB flight time of both a/c and odds for intercepting..
Most important range factor is "fuel fraction", weight of fuel / basic weight of a/c. For bis it is about 0.4 (2400/5850 kg if rho=0.8). What about Gripen, F-16, MiG-29, F-15E....?
But let us see how F-15 can intercept MiG-25. Combat radius of F-15 in full AB is 50 miles (US source). Try to calculate AB flight time of both a/c and odds for intercepting..
Most important range factor is "fuel fraction", weight of fuel / basic weight of a/c. For bis it is about 0.4 (2400/5850 kg if rho=0.8). What about Gripen, F-16, MiG-29, F-15E....?
All that matters is as long as the MiG-21 is in out of range for a dogfight and to use ACM than the MiG-21-93 cannot kill aircraft like F-15, F-18 or F-22 and neither can it shoot down.
The MiG-21 must get into visual range combat in order to even become a threat to an F class fighter.
On top of that it must burn that precious fuel (As pointed out) to out-maneuver a F-class fighter. If it does get to visual range, an F-class fighter is more than likely to realize that they will be outmaneuvered, in which case they can use chaff and more importantly the speed of the fighter to out run the MiG-21 out of its kill range so sad
The MiG-21 must get into visual range combat in order to even become a threat to an F class fighter.
On top of that it must burn that precious fuel (As pointed out) to out-maneuver a F-class fighter. If it does get to visual range, an F-class fighter is more than likely to realize that they will be outmaneuvered, in which case they can use chaff and more importantly the speed of the fighter to out run the MiG-21 out of its kill range
so sadweasel1962
New Member
Due to high wing loading, the mentioned a/c can carry far heavier wing drop tanks at less performance penalties. The F- series a/c have the advantage of CFTs as well.
That includes 2x750-850 gal CFTs for the F-15 and 2x 450 gal CFT for the F-16 which increases fuel load by 75-85%.
Even the non-fbw F-5 can carry 3 drops tanks x 275 gal each. Max is 3x 175 gal drop for the Mig-21.
As for fuel fraction, its about 6 tons internal in the 14 ton empty weight F-15 and 3 tons for the 8.5 ton F-16. Take off weight will be dependent on fuel carried and includes drop tanks if required so fuel fraction is not a fixed number.
I prefer looking at fuel consumption which is 0.91 lb/lbf/hr for the R-25 engine and 2.25 lb/lbf/hr wet. The RD-33 numbers are indicated.
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AMERICANMAN
Banned Member
This is the transcript of the video's posted.
Discussion on the Su-30MKI. I stands for 'Indian', 'Su-30M' is the Russian designation for theie newest fighter and 'K' means that its an export version. These were version five airplanes, they had vectored thrust, canards, all the advanced weapons the Russians build, including the AMRAAMSKI – their active radar missile, and the R-73 which is there IR missile, which has a 30 mile range on it. Nothing classified, everything I say can be found in Janes website.
We had them here at Mountain Home for two weeks where we told them how to fly for Red Flag. And a couple of things happened.
Firstly, the Tumansky engines are very suseptible to FOD (Foreign Object Damage). Now the reason thats a big deal is because they asked for a 1 minute spacing between take offs. At Red Flag with nearly 50-60 aircraft supposed to take off, if you have one person who will wait one minute between each take off to launch these six aircraft... yeah.... right, they can go find some other place to fly. So we trained with them, worked with them, and got them to shorten that down to 45 seconds, still not acceptable. But what we did was send these guys out first and ask them to wait for everyone else, since they had enough gas fuel, they would go up and wait for everyone else. They were very concerned about FOD and how Russian engines are not nearly as reliable as Americans. One of the things the Indians were very disapointed in, if an engine breaks down because of FOD, the Russians make them send the engine back to Russia, then you'll send you back a new one. So its not the ideal situation for them here in the United States because they have no spare engines here.
How did they Fly? There is a lot of stuff on the subject in the newspapers and magazines about this airplane. There's a great video on youtube, where somebody shows the F-22 flying its demo, and the Su-30MK, side by side, and he does the exact same demonstration, as the F-22. And an airshow, then can do the same demonstration. The reality is, that's about as close as the airplanes ever get. When you compare it with US airplanes; where does it stand up against the F-16 and F-15, it's a tad bit better than we are. And that's pretty impressive, it has better radar, more thrust, vectored thrust, longer ranged weapons, so it's pretty impressive. The Sukhoi is a tad bit better (holds arm at chest level, and the other arm signifying the Sukhoi a wee bit higher). But now compare with the F-22 Raptor, the raptor is here. (holds palm way above his head - signifying that the aircraft is much better). OK, next.
Now coming to the maneuvering. We did a lot of 1 to 1 fighting with it.... and we were very concerned, because in Cope Indias when we went over to India and fought them, they always had their best pilots. We always fought them at the 'Indian Nellis' and they always had their best pilots flying. We always had our operational unit based out of Kadena where the experience ratio is 80% inexperienced guys with less than 500hrs flying time and 20% experienced. The 20% were fairly experienced but they came back from a staff jobs so they really hadn't had a lot of time flying. Anyway at Cope India, we held our own, but the Indians pounded their chests - they said we beat them more than they beat us – and that was true there.
Now they come to Mountain Home, and the Su-30 unit that they bring was a regular operational unit – with an experience mix of about 50-50 (experienced vs inexperienced). Their experienced guys had all come off the MiG-21 Bison.. The MiG-21 bison is a pretty neat airplane. It is based on the MiG-21 as many of you guys know from the Vietnam (War) era, but upgraded with an F-16 radar built by the Israelis in the nose, active radar missile, and they carry an Israeli jammer on it would practically make them invisible to our legacy radar in the F-15 and F-16.
Remember days in 4477th (4477 Test and Evaluation Squadron)... MiG-21 had the capability to get into the scissors with you, 110 knots, 60 degrees nose high, go from 10,000 feet to 20,000 feet, very manoeuvrable airplane, but it didn't have any good weapons. Now it has high off bore sight Archer missile, helmet mounted sight, active missile, and a jammer that gets it into the merge, good radar, so that's the plane the SU-30 experienced pilots came out of and they were pretty good in the engaged fight.
Well we get them to Mountain Home and we let the operational guys fight... and then a couple of things happened. Amazingly, we dominated - not with a clean F-15 i.e. Without any wingtanks and other stores, but we dominated with an F-15 in wartime configuration i.e. 4 missiles onboard, wingtanks, and they're sitting there in clean Su-30s except for pylons which did not have anything on it except a ACMI pod. They were amazed, matter of fact they were floored to the point after the first 3 days, they didn't want any more 1 vs 1 stuff. Lets move on the something else (laughs). Funny 'cause in India, they wanted only 1 to 1 - cause they were winning at that.
A quick word on the airplane. Vectored thrust. The Raptor has vectored thrust, but its two dimensional and works only in the pitch mode. When the airplane pulls, and it gets past a certain AoA (Angle of Attack), the vectored thrust kicks in and drives the airplane around. In the Su-30, instead of having it in the pitch, it has TVC in a V. It doesnt have to be in a post stall manoevering.... the TVC would kick in and push the aircraft the direction when the pilot engages the switch on the stick. All this is formidable on paper but what you would know is that with the TVC kicking in, its a huge aircraft, and thrusting such a huge aircraft in that direction creates a lot of drag. It's a biiig airplane. A huge airplane. So what happens is when it moves its nose around, its sinking. We had enough experience with the F-22. which has up/down TVC nozzles.
What would happen is that the in a merge with the F-22... From our experience, that's the only way you would get the F-22. and the only way - this happens only if there is an inexperienced pilot because the experienced ones never make the mistake. You would be pulling in scissor fight hoping you would get the F-22 in your sights (laughs ). The F22 can sustain a turn rate of 28 deg per second at 20,000 feet while the F-15 can get an instantaneous rate of 21 and a sustained rate of 15-16 degrees. So you are pulling and hoping. Post stall, maneuver, the ass end drops and instead of going up, it just drops in mid air and the airplane will rotate with its nose up. This is where the Eagle or Viper pilot would pull up vertical, switch to guns, then come down and take a shot at the F-22. Of course you have to first get in close to do this, most probably the F-22 will kill you before that.
The Su-30? No problem. Big airplane. Big cross section. Jamming to get to the merge, so you have to fight close... he has 22 - 23 degrees per second sustained turn rate. We've been fighting the Raptor, so we've been going oh dude, this is easy. So as we're fighting him, all of a sudden you'd see the ass end kick down, going post stall - but now he starts falling from the sky. The F-15 wouldn't even have to pull up. slight pull up on the stick, engage guns, come down and drill his brains out.
While on paper, he has vectored thrust, all these great weapons and everything, he looks the same as a Raptor, he's nowhere near the same. So that was a really good thing for us to find out, that we really didn't know until this last excercise. Now, what I'm scared of, is congress is going to hear that and go 'great we don't need to buy any more airplanes... no no no, we used to be way ahead of them, now they're right up close to us and just a little bit higher. I say that they're just a little bit better than us, is because when there pilots learn how to fly, they'll be able to beat the F-16 and F-15, on a regular basis. Right now, they use TVC and just go into post stall.... so it's only a matter of time before they learn.
As far as the Red Flag went, we also had the French out here. The French were going to get the Mirage 2000 dash 5, one of their older airplanes, but the moment they knew the Indians were getting the Sukhois they decided to send the Rafales - their latest, advanced jet. 90% of the time, they followed the Indians in, but they never really came into the merge. Like anyone of you who has flown in Desert Storm (Iraq) and Afghanistan, they would do local flights over Bagram, Bahrain and Alseraj and say we participated, but what they were really doing is just sniffing electronically and finding out how our radars work. And that's really all they did out here.... came out here with all the electronic receiving equipments and sucked out all the trons in the air.
One thing about the IAF - they learnt their lessons very well at Mountain Home, they were extremely professional - they never flew out of the airspace which we were very concerned about. They had zero training rule violations. And that in itself was incredible. We were very impressed and thanked them so much because they were very very professional.
Where they had problems was they killed a lot of friends. Red Flag has changed now, the first week of Red Flag is basically large force deployment and the second week is about a campaign.... where the surface to air missiles come up. What was happening was that they did not have combat I.D capability.
The Koreans bought in their brand spankin' new F-15Ks. beautiful aircraft, with AESA radar and all like on the F-22. Had Israeli targeting and jamming pods on them. Incredible airplanes. Very professional also. But they had less than 50 hours total on the F-15 it and none on the airplane, they were still learning the aircraft. So it did not have any significant impact.
You know what was happening is that they didn't have the datalink with the Awacs. Big internet data links. The Koreans, the French and us could see the complete picture on the HUD, but the IAF had to ask the AWACS. they would ask about a target ahead, "Contact on my nose 22 miles, friendly or hostile?" Awacs would say "No hostile within 40 miles of you" then "Fox2." (laughs) The first two days they got hit bad, they were getting shot down while waiting for answers so they decided to kill the other guy fast without knowing.. better you die than me. So they had a fairly high number of fratricides. But they took the fratricides very seriously.
So while Nellis is about training with people who we will go to war with, Red Flag Alaska: This is different from Red Flag Nellis. In Alaska we exercise for friendship building. Most countries that fly there are in a conflict with each other. The Indians really wanted to participate in Red Flag Nellis, so they could mix right in and be a part of the coalition, and they learned, in a big way, that, that, wouldn't happen.
Was the AESA radar in the Indian aircraft...? Well the Indian is PESA which is not active but passive, as opposed to AESA. Huge difference, because and actively scanned AESA pings more, and sees more, and is more accurate, than just a passively scanned radar. PESA is good but ends up having more technical problems in discriminating, and finding the right guy.
Some guy said F-15 was last dog fighting airplane, he discounted the fact the F-22 was really terrific in the fight...? I think the Raptor is the next great dogfighter we have. Reason is, electronic jamming, and not only electronic jamming, but we don't carry enough missiles. We're going to have to go in with guns. Gonna happen and thank god the Raptor still has a gun on it. It's fast, its manoeuvrable, .... and the Block 50 (and 52 EHRM P&W FTW), is pretty good dogfighter also, so these aircraft, the F-15, Block 50 F-16, and the Raptor, are still very capable aircraft, because when the Bison MiG-21 that gets in unseen with the small RCS and a big jamming pod.... going to need manoeuvrability.
What about the F-35? Let's save that for another discussion. We do too much work on it at this moment, but we'll save that for another time
IfElseReturn
New Member
amazing video. where can I find the complete documentary of the video?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #31
I didn't say MiG-21 is wonder, it is just useful and it has some surprising abilities that are not exploited..
As far as I know neighbor county's 1999. one big search (retractable) radar was never destroyed despite of harms, alarms...it passed 117 position data…21 had data link decades ago.
There is one aphorism: It does not matter how big dog is in the fight, but how big 'fight' is in the dog.
I do not trust too much to war spokesman about kill ratios on war exercises, actual combat, these are all orchestrated, as is thereafter stories...those cited turn rates (F-22/F-15/Su-27) are somewhat optimistic: it means F-22 turns at 13g at 20Kft or about 17g sustained SL ?? I can imagine F-15E figures at 20 Kft, probably almost 3 times less than cited F-22's.
I wonder is there any true recent fighter's performance comparison like "Fighter Performance in Practice"..
As far as I know neighbor county's 1999. one big search (retractable) radar was never destroyed despite of harms, alarms...it passed 117 position data…21 had data link decades ago.
There is one aphorism: It does not matter how big dog is in the fight, but how big 'fight' is in the dog.
I do not trust too much to war spokesman about kill ratios on war exercises, actual combat, these are all orchestrated, as is thereafter stories...those cited turn rates (F-22/F-15/Su-27) are somewhat optimistic: it means F-22 turns at 13g at 20Kft or about 17g sustained SL ?? I can imagine F-15E figures at 20 Kft, probably almost 3 times less than cited F-22's.
I wonder is there any true recent fighter's performance comparison like "Fighter Performance in Practice"..
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #32
It seems that nobody agrees on these a/c abilities, agencies, air forces...not even Israelis
Has anyone else had a look on it at eBay and would offer a comment ?
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Has anyone else had a look on it at eBay and would offer a comment ?
Admin. Link deleted. No advertising links to commercial sites please.
Thanks !!!