For 2005 there is a modernized Tu-160 in the budget…

No idea if is a new builded or just an old modernized.

Dare I have to say one thing about russian laser guided munition (at least the KAB ones).

Min-launch height is just 500m, max launch height is 5000m, but at least in Afghanistan along its use with Kaira-24 (from Su-24M) were not useful due thin air)….

Now as it was said Kh-29L and 25ML were very useful with Su-25’s Klen-PS and with the help of the BOMAN’s BTRs…

Now there are better Russian laser-guided-seekerheads that allows drops as low as 250m and are a lot better…

And supposedly there are IIR versions of both The Kh-25 and 29..sadly I havent see it… 🙁

Err…just for note:

CW guidance is a very different type of homing that those of the R-23R/24R/33/27R and so…

Those use MONOPULSE guidance…very different to the Con Scan with LORO that uses a (separate) CW illuminator (p.e AIM-7E and F)

While is very possible to receive a LAUNCH WARNING due the special waveform of the CW transmission, with a monpulse seeker you only heard “Lock-on”..

About the N-019 and its family.

While the radar could have better “range”, or even better LD/SD performance, is a pure and singleton GCI-needed radar of the 70s times backed up by late 70s digital technology of the USSR…in fact is not a much better thing than the Sapfir-23MLA-2 which in fact it borrows most of its components (antenna design just for example)…

I would not argue that the radar has good LD/SD performance (and this comes from pilot’s oppinion and not from any book), but just pretty symple the way as the info is showed doesn’t allows a good building of SA…think of an APQ-120 radar-style (with the amount of SA it give you) in the jacket of an early pulse-doppler “TWT” series radar…(not from a teen…but from some european guise (RDM, Foxhunter…)…

Again, given a good GCI net, the N-019 could be really kick-ass…if not you’re leaving the results to the pilot’s abbilities to understand and coordinate with his wingman…

When you have a max scan-pattern of +-25° is just difficult to work alone…that’s something the soviets fully understand when they developed the Zhuk and Bars series.

And there is no real change with N-019M.

Airsande:

Which were the reasons why the MiG-23MLD were retired from service in BulVVS?

When did they receive the R-24R?, there is any pilots opinion about this missile?

Airsande thanks for very intersting posts.

Now BTW, talking about the MiG-25P this is a quote of a Vladimir Babich Article in Aviatsiya i Vremya, what do you think?:

“On February 13, at 13:16 a pair of Israeli RF-4C reconnaissance planes
crossed the Lebanese boarder at altitude of 13 000 meters and proceeded
northwards along the line of intercepting with the speed of 1000 km/h. By
the CCP command a single MiG-25 was directed to intercept the invaders. At
13:25 it accelerated being at flight level of 8 000 meters, and then
climbed to level its altitude with that of the target. At the distance of
110km the target turned back leaving a dense cloud of deflectors, which
jammed the acquisition radar. MiG-25 continued pursuing recon planes which
retreated southwards. In a minute another target appeared out of the cloud
of deflectors. It was an Israeli F-15, which was hiding in an ambush
behind the high mountain ridge before that.

At 13:27 the distance between F-15 and MiG-25 reduced to 50km. The Syrian
pilot couldn’t spot the enemy approaching him frontally from below because
of the limited capability of the radar to detect targets against the earth
background. Operator’s command to turn wasn’t heard either because of
sudden noise jamming. At 13:28 F-15 launched a missile from the distance
of 25km while ascending and destroyed Mig-25. The plane had fallen down in
Lebanon. When its debris was found its left wing had a large hole in it,
and close to it the missile fragments were found , bearing a readable
sign: “AIM-7F”. That was the very first case of a missile encounter combat
in the history of war in the air.”

I will writte more later…

Pit

Hello!

This is a very intersting discussion!, and for me is pretty nice that Airsande appears here!

I have some questions to him:

1) In your article about the Aide-Memoire for the […] manual, I’m intersting about what institute of the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) writte it…it was some of the Lipetsk units?, or one of the Academies (Gagarin Military Academy?) or what?…the fact that only mentions Israeli owned a/c (The Kfir C2 specially) IMHO means that the document was primarly settled for the SyAAF…but what do you think?.

2) Did you have any detailed pic of the Flogger cockpit where the Lazur gear is installed?, no matter if MF/ML/MLA/MLD…I’m doing a research about the Lazur/Vozdukh-1 sets, since some 2 years ago, a lot of info has appear specially about the Fishbed and Fulcrum, but the Flogger is a mistery to me…Did you know if the BulAF has the Vozdukh-1M?, if so, when they received it?, and what about the Vozdukh-1PV?…any feedback?

3) Your quote about the Sapfir-23MLAE-2 being better “in some aspects” to the N-019(EA I suppose)…this is related exactly to what?, clutter discrimination (high altitude clutter from clouds?)…I don’t beleive that the CORDS Sapfir-23MLAE-2 is any better than the fully coherent N-019 in LD/SD scenarios, nor even in rear hemisphery (and sure not in front hemisphery)…what do you mean?…aniway, Soviet radars till N-001 and Zaslon are no more than Fire Control Sets, whose usage is partly limited by its use philosofy…after hard research of the N-019, I just cannot beleive that “independent searchs” are the norm…while they were exceptions, that’s true, even with the Sapfir-23MLA-2 in use with Soviet MLD in A-tan, that since 1985 were sometimes used in “independent searchs” by the best pilots of IA regiments there acting as a sort of AWACS (Victor Markhovsky,Afghanistan: War in the Air)…not a nice thing without GCI support!!…

3) About the aerodinamic performance of ML series…have you read the aerodinamic manual of the MiG-23ML from airwar.ru?…its a 133Mb document, +350 pages long…maybe you that read russian can get some things 😉

4) Due the Pulse nature of the Sapfir-23MLAE-2 how resistent to “Doppler Notch Maneuvers” is?…I would expect not to be affected at least in Look-Up scenarios…

3) Is the Sapfir-23MLAE-2 gyro-stabilized in roll and pitch in SEARCH mode like the Rubin N-019?…did you know the values?…

4) Is the Sapfir-23MLAE-2 a Monopulse Amplitude Azimuth-Plane design like the N-019?, it had a Guard Channel for suppression of side-lobes?

5) Which are the scan patterns in az/elv? people seems to beleive that in the manuals such values are showed…not true, not even in the different MiG-29 manuals (the russians ones and the Alan R. Wise) are showed…as everybody knows N-019 it has +-65° of az in TRACKING, BUT +-70° in SEARCH mode…any info about pulse-width, Automatic Control Gain and power peak and average values could be useful :-)…I have all this info for the N-019…the Sapfir-23 is a mistery to me 😉

6) You mentioned Mari Combat Training Center in the Kara-Kum desert…Uhmmm…this is one of my so-far favourite themes, but one that’s so elusive and difficult to research…your info sounds highly intersting…Can I ask you sources?, books?, articles?, individuals in the internet forums (Russians?)…I have been researching this topic so far, while I have found nice pilot memories (short but useful)…no really hard-core info about it…your info sounds highly intersting, and intriguing :)…did Bulgarian or any other WARPACT air force ever went to Mari?…

6) About the R-24R and R-23R ranges in your article, are those Target Speed= 900km/h/Altitude 10.000m ; Own A/C Speed = 1100km/h/Altitude 10.000m without reserves for maneuver??? (that’s the basic for range equation in MiG-29 FCS Manuals…)

7) While maybe the concept behind the Flogger in its final variant (MLD) can turn it in a “better” option to “BASIC” MiG-29, thanks to good radar/range/speed/accelaration, I think that the Fulcrum compared to all Fighter variants of the Flogger is the ultimate ground attack aircraft, thanks to OEPrNK-29 (KOLS) it has a very very good precision in ground attack and was widely used in this role in different regiments in the 16VA and even today (for example UKrAF Elite unit in 1997 was a MiG-29 unit 114 IAP in Ivano-Frankovsk that trained both A2A and A2G)…thanks to Gardeniya-1FU, the 9.13 is without doubt a fairly better option than the MLD…R-27ER also helps a lot 😉

8) MiG-23P datalink is intersting…while the idea to turn it in a “Flogger-Flagon-Robot-Flied MiG-23” sounds logical from Voyska PVO mind…it’s true it retains the Kh-23 capability till the end of the Cold war?…why would it have it?…also what “special PVO guidance set” did it was connected?…sure as hell Vozdukh-1P/PV/M sets not (those are “regular sets” not fancy)…maybe Senezh?…Lurch?…were those boys upgraded along the MLD lines? (PD?)

9) They were differences in tactics between the Soviet Air Force Regiments and their WARPACT parents?, this is something I have been researching for-long-time…some of the things I have finnally founder are:

9.a) Soviets never teach their trully tactics to their export-parents, because “truly tactics” are teached in Front-Line regiments, not in training ones.
9.b) Soviets (VVS FA IA) enjoyed a fairly better standard of training than WARPACT units, Combat Training Center visit for 1 and a half month every 2 years for VVS FA IA units + multiple life-missile-shots + more flight hours in general (for example the 159 Gv IAP based in Klujevo, 4 VA at Poland and accord to many russians the best IAP of the VVS FA IA logged in average 200 hours…every smart boy knows what did this means :-)…[They received the Su-27S in 1989]…off course there is tipical burocratic problems due political BS, usual in the Soviet Armed Forces…plus that even the 2/5 year courses in Air Academies were different for Soviet than for WARPACT guest pilots…what is your opinion?…

Well, that’s basically all ;), hope you can help me…I would like to talk with you some topics in private…my E-mail is [email]m_viniegra@cantv.net…if[/email] you’re intersted 😉

And your articles are very very nice ;), Maybe the best english-speak-source about the Flogger ;)!!!

Would love one day to read MiG-23MLD manuals 🙂