However, how much advantage they might gain from those slow-speed maneuvers is unknown, but the Mig-21 never liked slow speeds in general.
21 is better at high speeds and surprisingly at very low speeds – in stall turns and trimmed alpha.
21′ & low speeds – interesting reading on pages 287-295 >
Steve Davies – RED EAGLES
http://www.google.com/books?id=6yJ8gfVAm2YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=red+eagles&lr=&hl=hu&rview=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
page 289. >
” The MiG’s slow speed capability was incredible, but not as good as that of the F/A-18….”
” Phelan explained what “treeing” someone meant:
You treed someone by getting them to run out of airspeed so that they could no longer pull a loop. If they tried to, you knew they would fall off to either side, or they would bob their noses up and down. The Soviets had a terrific airplane in the MiG-21. Hands down, I could kill anyone other than an F-16 or an F/A-18 in that airplane. The F-16 could fly over the top of me and get in behind and the F/A-18 had even better low-speed handling. As for the others, I would do the tree. Taking the F-14 as an example, I would try and get them to go vertical a couple of times and then park right behind them. “
page 295.:
” I had just treed this F-15 and am pulling up right behind this guy with less than 100 knots of airspeed. All of a sudden, this huge F-15 just starts falling back down towards me, out of control. He had completely run out of airspeed. “
” back on the ground the Eagle pilot told to Phelan: I got lost in myself. For a minute I thought I was fighting a real MiG.”
page 288.:
” As part of PEACE PHARAOH(1979), Egyptian pilots had been trained to fly the Phantom in the United States, and Larsen was one of the IPs:”
” One day we went out and as part of some F-4 advanced handling sorties, I showed him slow loops, entered from only 350 knots when the usual minimal entry speed was 500 knots. The F-4 would flop about at the top, and the maneuver was kind of prohibited. I asked him what he thought. He told me he could do the same maneuver in the MiG-21 with only 275 knots of entry speed. “
And the best which was known for the Egyptian pilot was the MiG-21MF, he had no experience with -21bis.
If you have proper questions, even the older ex-YuAF pilots have answers for you with exercises and tactics in the 230-250km/h range with the ‘-21’.
Despite the fact that Yugoslavia had not received the low-speed tactical instructions from the Soviets, like the WP countries(Bulgaria, GDR, Hungary, Poland in the period 1972-75).
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