‘see this is a MiG-23ML’ Was that a typo?

The aircraft in the video has a fin fillet. The fin fillet is hard to make out, but extends down the spine.

There you go yet again Flogger, jumping to conclusions. Re-read my post. Why does every image have to be released? Why, please explain? Dozens of images exist in the archives taken from platforms such as RC-135s and Nimrod R.1s in the Gulf of Sidra. it has nothing do with secrets. At most they will be classified restricted. You are letting your imagination run away with you.

Explain to me why every single Libyan intercept image by type has to be released? They aren’t taken for the purpose of aviation enthusiasts on an internet forum. Have the Russians released every single intercept image of every NATO aircraft by type and variant?

TJ

ah more excuses, what about the film and pictures when the MiG-23 were killed they are not restricted or are they? see these details, number one there are some Youtube videos with the original audio and some have edited videos mixing russian archive videos of MiG-23s and some supposedly video from that day se this one

Check this video
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-X20OubGUc

look at the picture of this supposedly MiG-23 kill by an F-14 on that day

i attached the supposedly head up display gun sight of that day and also is difficult to see if this was a MiG-23ML.

Conclusion: there is no proper evidence, that these MiG-23s were MiG-23MLs, since the picture and video lack any AA-8s launchers and further more is difficult to see the AA-7 Apex.

So if the MiG-23ML were as you say, carrying R-24T whcih is basicly the one the MiG-23 carries or the R-24R why then they need top get to close, only reason because they did not carry it.

However the MiG-23ML carries it, so they must have been MiG-23MS

On the engine power that wasn’t true until the -21bis.

The first MiG-21 built in 1967 had two different types of engines available capable to compete with two AM-9s of a combine thrust of 6500kg of thrust, so by 1966 the single engined MiG-21 had enough power to compte with the MiG-19, one it was the R-11F2-300 with a thrust of 6175kg thrust, the other fitted to the MiG-21SM was the R-11-300 of 6490kg of thrust in 1966 It was not until 1971 the first R-25 were able to power the MiG-21 with more than 7100kg of thrust.

Now the MiG-21 and MiG-19 had almost the same weight and same wing area, so by 1966 the first MiG-21 capable to compete with a MiG-19 in thrust were ready.

However the MiG-21 in early versions was a fighter that had superior speed and better missiles.

Even despite later MiG-19s were capable of firing AA-2s , the basic design was still too limited

^^^

Thats only to be expected. Fanboy #1 supporting Fanboy # 2, with irrelevant rambling.

TJs points are very valid & apply. All this “unsurpassed”, with “impunity” and what not, has no business in a serious discussion especially when refuted again and again. Taking statements out of context and publicising them (such as that newspaper article & no missile can catch it) is also ridiculous.

But no matter lets fan-away with our fanboy uber/super MiG-23s and untouchable MiG-25s.

If Firebar had started a “MiG-25 appreciation thread” and only stuck to what was good about it, and not got into its the “bestest eva” business, it would have been much better, for it is & was a remarkable aircraft.

Nicky76 i have the MiG-25 manual and i am reading it, in Russian and probably you are Chuck Yeager:rolleyes: i forgot you are the Eugeny Frolov`s little brother :diablo:

In fact i can prove you with accurate data the MiG-29 at high mach numbers is not much different in agility to a MiG-25.

the only thing you will do is cry if you superuber LCA does not defeat the J-10 since it is the last wonder in aerodynamics

Firebar,
You posted the page from the book ‘and flies with impunity over areas of Europe ….. ‘

As a fanboy you simply loved the word ‘impunity’. You were also posting links that stated that no missile could shoot it down. It is pure fanboy posting. Ever since Germany was divided both sides have encroached in and around the border. If an SR-71 fanboy came on spouting what you are spouting in relation to the MiG-25 then it would get the same response.

Quotes like the above are pure fanboy postings. You are believing your own hype. Libya had the MiG-23ML in service from the 1980s. Lots of people were surprised when the first images appeared of them last year, but they were known about in the mid-1980s and imaged flying intercept in the Gulf of Sidra.

TJ

I do not think his statements are of a fan boy if you do not give a credible document for the arrival of the MiG-23ML to Libya, in fact there are several aspects you need to explain.

I can prove you without doubt that Syria recieved MiG-23ML in 1983, from russian sources very easily, a year after the Bekka Valley air combats and got in combat in 1985.

Now there is an aspect you will need also to prove, the MiG-23ML has R-24s of more than 50km of range, why then the combat was at short range?

See this detail.

An Iraqi MiG-23 is attacked with AIM-54, the AIM-54 misses, the MiG-23`s safe.

Libyan MiG-23: it gets to close even having R-24s, do you have a reliable document proving the Libyan AIr froce recieved MiG-23MLs before January first 1989?

YES…. they continue to deny it even though Tom Cooper has obtained through the “Freedom of Information Act” (FOIA) documentation from “air intelligence” warning Saudi and USAF pilots to avoid the northern region of the Gulf, for the previous day an F-14A used a Phoenix Missile to kill a Tu-22B Blinder. The Blinder was trying to get out of Iranian airspace at Mach 1.0+ at 44,000 feet. The F-14A was approaching Mach 2 at 40,000 feet as it fired at the bomber seventy miles ahead at the time of launch.

If you check during that same period (after the PGW#1), the F-15C’s had several encounters with Iraqi Mig-25’s, firing many Sparrow Missiles and failing to shoot down any of the MiG-25’s. A lot of discussion about the Iraqi’s having French made jamming pods helping defeat the American attempts.

Why would the Russians admit to loss of a fighter to American designed aircraft, if it did not happen????

While there are many who would like to think Tom is making up stories, he gets up off his butt, interviews people involved and spends his own money to get documentation from the US Government to validate his positions. (To get documentation from the FOIA, you must know the all the identification numbers, etc. and then spend $45+/hr for a government employee to locate it!) Tom’s positions are not popular in some quarters of the US Military, that by itself does not make them inaccurate!

One thing that angers me is the people who felt Iranian Air Force and pilots were competent when they flew for a dictator. Now they operate, flying for a theocracy and now lack competence?? I don’t think many Americans would like their technical competence called into question because of what the current US Government is doing at home and around the world. I sure would not want anybody to judge me by what the President of the US is doing.

Adrian

I have seen plenty of MiG-25s wreckages some destroyed in their bunkers and one in the air, most of them in their bunkers and one only in the air, the one in the air was azeri, the rest Iraqi, however all are post 1990. So the ones he is aducing happened only i have read reports, i mean the Iranian F-14 kills .

The MiG-21 is reasonable not the best dogfighter. It only has low wing loading in the earliest variants, but by the time it came with the 3rd and 4th generation, the wing loading cannot be considered anything but high. The thrust to weight ratio was only regarded as acceptable in the earliest—the MiG-19s still had superior thrust to weight ratio. The 3rd and 4th ones had better thrust to weight ratios however. Another problem is that by the time the MiG-21 gained a spinal back, visibility to the rear has been reduced.

The handling qualities of the MiG-21 is pretty good except when it comes to the edge of controllability, where it can snap into a vicious flat spin.

The F-104 is simply worst. The moment it starts tacking on things, the wing loading goes from not so good to worst. Like any aircraft that has too long a length relative to wingspan, it has a problem of losing stability at the yaw axis, like what happened to the Super Sabre. That problem was only resolved in most other designs by enlarging the tail surfaces or adding lower ventral fins.

The MiG-19 is a better dogfighter than the first two with a very good thrust to weight ratio and those twin cannons packs serious death up close. But it exacts a penalty. The plane is borderline unstable, making it a bitch to fly. The MiG-21 was a lot more pleasing to fly, and not to mention a lot more eAsier to maintain. The MiG-19 is a twin jet that is actually heavier and more complicated than the MiG-21. Yet its ability to dogfight against more modern jets has proven to be surprising.

My list of cheap, easy to maintain, easy to fly, yet supremely agile, dogfighter with real guns amounts to two aircraft.

The first is the MiG-17, a plane which collectos has called the “Porsche” of fighters and “God’s Gift to aviation.” The second is the F-5E a plane that I may call the best plane that is built around Jack Northrop’s concepts in aerodynamics.

The MiG-19 and MiG-21 have almost the same swept angle around 60 deg for both aircraft, almost the same thrust to weight ratio, in fact the MiG-21 has an engine with twice the thrust of the two engines fitted to the MiG-19.

The Initial MiG-21s prototypes were straight sweptback wing aircraft, why then the Mikoyan bureau chose the delta wing? the early Ye-2 prototypes were basicly single engined MiG-19s, well the reason is the MiG-21 was optimised for higher speeds with an inlet cone/radome.
The MiG-21 was not inferior to the MiG-19, it was a superior aircraft, that is the reason the Mikoyan bureau chose the delta wing, the MiG-19 has a straight sweptback wing which is less capable of handling supersonic center of lift shifts than the delta wing the MiG-21 has, and the MiG-21 delta wing also allows a higher fuel tankage and handles better the vortices created by the wing; further more the delta wing increased relatively the wing area by increasing the trailing area and wing chord.

Another new feature seen in the MiG-21, was it has a tailplane at a lower level above the wing, early MiG-15s and MiG-17s, even the MiG-19 had higher level tailplanes above the wing level, but the down wash of the wing might affect the effectiveness of such arrangement at high AoA, this was seen as a drawback of such MiG-19 arrangement.

The MiG-21 was the most advanced fighters and the best fighter Vietnam had.

The MiG-19 was useful at low speed but definitively was not the better fighter .

If the MiG-19 had its wing with lower sweep, well it might had better aerodynamics for lower speeds but basicly it has the same sweep angle the MiG-21 has, as the Ye-2 and Ye-4 had

Do I need a passport to visit this Russian Internet ? If so Ill have to renew mine.

Oh, is this Russian Internet the Chinese Internets neighbor? Where a 10 year old becomes 16 in 2.5 years and then 20 or whatever? Fascinating math other people practice.

Man, the internet if full of crap in any language, however there are also good articles everywhere.
Some russian webpages and sites are excellent, some are not but definitively, the Russian internet has pictures that you won`t get very easily in the west, Why? because soviet age pictures or official russian versions of events are usually found in Russian language sites.

For my the value of the pictures found in the russian internet is very high.

For example Firebar called the MiG-25 almost a spaceship, this is true if you check the following webpage and see the pictures of the MiG-25 flying at 26km of altitude and where you can see the sky as is seen from outer space
http://www.airforce.ru/articles/ride90000/ride90000.htm

So if you check the Russian internet you will find good articles that you won`t find any where else

Believe me, the USN and Iranian AF F-14s have seen a lot more combat and a lot more flying in service than the MiG-31 has. The AIM-54 has seen a lot more combat than the R-36 (AA-9) has ever seen. What is the combat record of the FOXHOUND? In fact, what was the service history of the MiG-31 in PVO service?:confused::rolleyes:
Seems like an expensive and useless toy to me…

The question is the AIM-54 was never able to shot down an aircraft with the US Navy.

No aircraft was ever shot down by the US navy using the AIM-54.

It was fired at the MiG-25, i mean they used F-14Ds and AIM-54Cs, they had total and absolute superiority and never achieved a real victory.

The Iranians claim to have shot down so many aircraft with the AIM-54 however they forget the US and Saudia arabia had AWACs monitoring the area, they would had noticed it victory after victory.

Grumman claims they sabotaged the AIM-54, they left the AIM-54 useless.

In the other hand, the Iran-contras deal could had benefited the Iranians and kept the F-14 serviceable.

By confirmed kills many people use claims or one or two pictures to support 100 kills.