MrRodgers
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
"In 1979, the US came into temporary possession of the top line Soviet MiG fighter. For all its looks and performance, the Air Force discovered one very serious flaw in the air craft.
The electronics were vacuum tube based. Hell a near miss from a air to air missile would have knocked out the avionics and made the plane about as dangerous as a bb gun to an elephant, and as easy to fly as a freaking brick with no wings. "
One has to be forgiven for not knowing technology here.
First of all, there are some very rugged vacuum tubes. Second of all, the MIG avionics ran almost completely on hydraulics. That means it will still fly and shoot after an EMP. It does not depend on a computer.
There is a brand spanking new RADAR installation going up in Russia with vacuum tubes in it in the front end for just that reason.
T^T
So what ? Do I need to do this once again when it comes to any of the MIG's ? Ready to read ?
Suffice it to say that the west in general and the US in particular, had had more than enough experience to know all about the MIG's upto and including the MIG 21.
However the west was not all that familiar with the MIG 29 Fulcrum purported to be THE MIG to win the air war where it was deployed. The west shall we say...was not impressed.
The AA-11 heat seeker missile and its targeting was impressive, and yes, the Fulcrum was a highly capable dogfighter, and its ability to fire a shot regardless of where the nose was pointed was impressive. (The Russians lost the aiming advantage by 2002, according to Fred Clifton, when the U.S. military fielded the AIM-9X missile and the Joint Helmet-mounted Cueing System.)
But it had low fuel capacity, a head-down, knob- and switch-congested cockpit, a so-so radar, and not much versatility: It wasn't designed to do much besides intercept and shoot down adversaries who were flying not far from its airfield. Eastern bloc pilots were trained to slavishly follow ground controllers, so the Fulcrum’s systems, including its head-up display, were not highly developed, and the situational awareness the pilots got was very limited.
NATO
Doug Russell, an airline pilot who flew exchange with JG 73 and today occasionally flies a civilian-registered MiG-29 obtained from Kyrgyzstan and owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (Clifton sometimes flies the other U.S.-registered Fulcrum, which is owned by Air USA in Illinois), loved his time in the jet, but says it was like a weekend in Vegas—heavy on hedonism, with little redeeming value. “We stood alert with live ordnance, but we weren’t going anywhere,” he says of his time with the Luftwaffe.
“It was hard as a Western guy to fly it because you didn't have the level of awareness. We would never be invited to the dance.” Russell believes that NATO analysts were very interested in the MiG and pressured the German government to keep flying it.
As good as the Fulcrum was in a knife fight, most Western pilots soon discovered its flaws. Fluent in German, he won a spot in a small group of exchange pilots posted to Laage in 1998 with a combined MiG squadron. Jaensch loved the MiG’s power and maneuverability, but felt hampered by its radar and associated systems. “The Soviet philosophy was that basically pilots were stick actuators,” he says. “It was obviously very different from what we were used to.
The avionics were marginal. That same philosophy meant [the Soviets] didn’t see the need to pass information on to the pilot.” Since the MiG’s systems couldn't convey a complex battle-space to the pilot, combat deployments were vetoed. In 1998, NATO forces had considered dispatching the Laage MiGs to Kosovo but scrapped the idea. The Airborne Warning and Control System operators would have had to offer the MiGs special handling. “With AWACS calling out [information] to three to six combat air patrols, they’d have to give us extra information,” Jaensch says. “We decided we’d get more in the way than help.” In addition, the Serbs also flew Fulcrums, making identification in the air difficult.
In 1996, Fred “Spanky” Clifton became the first American MiG-29 exchange pilot with JG 73. A Weapons School graudate in the F-16, with thousands of hours in F-15s, F-5s, and MiG-29s as well, he turns an analyst’s cold eye on the Fulcrum. “It’s a great [basic fighter maneuvers] machine,” he says.“But of the four fighters, it’s easily the worst-handling of any I flew.”
Peter Steiniger runs a website that enthusiastically chronicles the German MiG experience, and is replete with stunning photos and heartfelt tributes to the Fulcrum. And yet Steiniger says: “Would I want to go to war with it? No. Except for the [AA-11 Archer system], the cockpit was terribly labor-intensive. Our overall [situational awareness in beyond visual range] setups was in the map case.” In other words, the pilot had to put his head down, break out the paper, and figure out where he was.
“The MiG-29 really got exposed with the fall of the Iron Curtain,” Clifton says. “You don’t see further foreign sales. Who’s bought it? Nobody.” As to the wisdom of upgrading the Fulcrum into a modern, data-linked, multi-role fighter, Clifton says, “Go buy an F-16. It would be more economical, and it’s a better airplane.”
As a further note on Russian fighter aircraft:
Today the Russians are offering for export a better MiG, the -35. “Over the years, the Russians modified the MiG-29. They tweaked it, improved it,” says Ben Lambeth. “The MiG-35 looks like a MiG-29, but it has much more capability.” So far it has attracted only one potential customer: India. The new jet will reportedly join the Russian air force in 2016. But the attention of Western analysts and almost certainly the syllabus of the Air Force Weapons School, is now focused on the products of a different aviation design bureau.
In 2010, the Russians flew a counterpart to the F-22 Raptor. Designed by Sukhoi and descended from the Su-27, the Sukhoi T-50 is a multi-role fighter that may have electronics to rival the F-22’s. According to Lambeth, it will still lag 10 years behind the Raptor. “One widespread suspicion is that it will not be as stealthy,” he says. “There are too many features on it that appear radar-significant.” But it’s difficult from this distance to judge how the T-50 will perform, or even whether Russia will continue its development. It’s the new mystery, and no Westerner will be invited any time soon to take it for a spin.
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Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
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