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MiG-21 - still unpleasant surprise at Cope India exercise

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  • #61
    Originally posted by gunnut View Post
    How much fighting did Iranian Tomcats do? They had only a handful of working jets and the missile inventory was down to the single digits early in the war. Of course the Iraqis didn't know that. All the Iranians did was scramble their available F-14(s) and the Iraqis turned back. The saber rattling went on for years. And that's all it was. No one wanted to call the other's bluff.
    The Tom cats did the bulk of the A2A stuff for the Iranians with the Phantoms doing bomb truck duty. Yes the Iranians ran low on AIM-54's but they had large stocks of sparrows, sidewinders, Chinese made PL 5 and 10 missiles (Sidewinder and sparrow clones), modified HAWK MIM missiles, plus American and Israeli transfers and black market sales. Iran's network of blackmarket contacts was great enough that the Pentagon crushed all of our retired Tomcats out of fear they or parts of them would be smuggled out of the US to Iran. Also remember they bought 79 Tomcats and 188 Phantoms. That is a lot of air frames and a lot of missiles. I think it was 07 or so 14 were seen flying over Tehran (not sure how many had working radars). Though they are rumored to have spent the 90's adapting off the shelf Russian avionics to the Tomcat to cobble together a hybrid system.

    In overall terms the Iranian pilots had more to fear from their own government at least initially but of the Iraqi fighters they worried about it was the Mig-25 and Mirage F-1. Had the war not ended the Mig-29 Il-76 Mainstay AWACS could have proven a problem as well since Iran was out of AIM-54's.

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    • #62
      My doubts about the ability of the IAF MiG-25 to execute a successful LDSD attack against a very maneuverable adversary, in what was probably a coalition-friendly ECM environment, deals more with the maintenance and reliability of that particular aircraft, and the pilot skills, rather than simple aircraft specs.

      The F-15 was one of the first, if not THE first, fighters to have a programmable digital signal processor, and the APG-63 was as good as it gets in the early 1980's; yet, it wasn't uncommon for the system to die in the middle of a sortie. The number of factors that must come together for success is rather large.

      I've got to get to work... I'll try to address some of the other issues later.

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      • #63
        In the 80's we would see Iranian F-4's and F-14's as well as the P-3's that would always ask us our hull number and home port. As I recall, they would send these aircraft on sorties, but were very quick to withdraw when opposing fighters came into the area and I believe the same was true on the Iraqi side.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by Deltacamelately View Post
          It is rumored that in May 1997 an IAF MiG-25RB overflew Pakistan. The aircraft entered Pakinstani airspace sub-sonically at around 65,000ft and was undetected. Then having overflown and photographed strategic installations near the capital, Islamabad, the aircraft turned back towards India. Perhaps to rub Pakistani’s noses in it, the MiG pilot decided to accelerate up to Mach 2 and dropped a large sonic boom as he exited Pakistani airspace. A number of Pakistani F-16As were scrambled, but had insufficient time and speed to make an intercept.
          DCL, I believe the sound barrier was accidentally broken. Prior to this, the Pakistanis were not even aware of the IAF's spy sorties over them. The PAF's F-16s had a bleak chance at intercepting the 25 since not only could it outfly and outrun them; the PAF did not even have a single aircraft capable of BVR combat at the time.
          Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
          -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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          • #65
            As for the Indian Mig-21s; they were still capable birds throughout the 1990s against the PAF, but not due to their WVR combat abilities, but due to the Bison upgrade which equipped them with a more powerful radar and BVR missiles such as the R-27 and R-77. The IAF Mig-21s relied on catching the PAF's F-16s in a BVR engagement, firing their load, and than jetting it out of there. The PAF F-16s, which were not BVR capable, had to get into WVR combat to engage the IAF's -21s.

            The ageing frames made them prone to crashing, and than the PAF's upgrade of their F-16s, made the IAF's Mig-21s obsolete.
            Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
            -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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            • #66
              This discussion reminds me of something I read from the famous Lockheed aircraft designer, Kelly Johnson. When the F-15 was the latest, greatest thing, he said the F-104 could fly circles around it. It seems to me, that with upgrading, you could make the argument that almost any past aircraft is still potent. The problem is that they're old airplanes. They wear out, they are difficult to refurbish, and they weren't designed to accomodate modern equipment. What you get for your investment is an inferior aircraft that's less reliable.
              I want what I do not have.

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              • #67
                Originally posted by scorefour View Post
                ... Kelly Johnson. When the F-15 was the latest, greatest thing, he said the F-104 could fly circles around it.
                Kelly Johnson was/is a design icon, but he must have been smoking some early variant of crack to make such a statement.

                The F-104 with an upgraded radar would have been a nice counter to the MiG-25. Similar characteristics. But flying circles around an F-15? No.

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                • #68
                  Originally posted by Chogy View Post
                  Kelly Johnson was/is a design icon, but he must have been smoking some early variant of crack to make such a statement.

                  The F-104 with an upgraded radar would have been a nice counter to the MiG-25. Similar characteristics. But flying circles around an F-15? No.
                  He never said how wide the circle was

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
                    The F-104 with an upgraded radar would have been a nice counter to the MiG-25. Similar characteristics. But flying circles around an F-15? No.
                    Italy did something like that back in the '90's with their 104's; they were called the F-104ASA, and had a FIAR R21G/M1 Setter (Italian, I assume) radar with "look-down" capability, while also upgrading it's short-range missle to the AIM-9L (but retaining the SARH AIM-7). M3 was still out of the question, but it had a decent shot at bagging a MiG-25 in a head-on engagement.
                    "There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge

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                    • #70
                      I remember watching West German F-104's beating up the pattern at Luke AFB in the early 1980's. Truly an awesome airplane, with awesome landing speeds, near 180 knots, and as unforgiving a manned platform as has ever been made. The brakes were poor, the gear weak, and the tail chute not the best, and a lot of F-104's ended up in the departure-end barrier.

                      The original F-104's ejected the pilot downwards, which was problematic at low altitude. Below a certain altitude, one had to roll the airplane 180 degrees before pulling the handle.

                      If anyone gets a chance to see one up close, look at the wing leading edge. It is like a razor. The wing is thin, very thin, just thick enough to route some cables and fuel lines to the wing tips.

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                      • #71
                        I hear it was a real hot rod.
                        I want what I do not have.

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                        • #72
                          Originally posted by zraver View Post
                          Iran's network of blackmarket contacts was great enough that the Pentagon crushed all of our retired Tomcats out of fear they or parts of them would be smuggled out of the US to Iran.
                          A GD travesty if you ask me. But I guess that's one way of making sure they won't fly for the USN again either.

                          Depending on how old the most recent imagery on Google Maps is, there are still a tiny handful (9 to be exact) of Tomcats at AMARG. Who knows if they're still there and for how much longer.
                          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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                          • #73
                            I only see 3, and they all seem to be arranged as displays.

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                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Jimmy View Post
                              I only see 3, and they all seem to be arranged as displays.
                              I'll grab some screen caps when I've got some more time. There's a cluster of 8 plus 1 all by it's lonesome elsewhere. I doubt they're still there in the present time though.
                              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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                              • #75
                                A little off topic, but man, what a video! Can't believe Chogy used to do this for a living, and actually even got paid for it!



                                PS, if you are a vimeo member you can download the 1080P original.
                                Last edited by citanon; 23 Jan 13,, 23:35.

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