LevshaI think a Russian general even has gone on record bragging that they had an AIM-54 and they were studying it.
I have heard that claim too, however I have heard a Russian general state something to the effect “not only have we physically gotten our hands on the AIM-54 Phoenix, we have thoroughly analyzed it through reverse engineering” (I don’t remember his exact words but it was something to that effect).
A lot of these programs are compartmentalized, the designer of the R-33 may have very well not seen a Phoenix in person, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the R-33 was not designed on technology derived from the Phoenix.
It is also possible the scientist and or the general are not telling the truth.
I think one should actually compare both AIM-54 and R-33 designs and see if you can find any commonality between the two missiles. Quite frankly, I don’t see much commonality at all.
Both missiles have almost completely different guidance systems.
The Phoenix uses fully-active radar homing – it’s got its own little baby radar inside.
The R-33 on the other hand, uses semi-active radar homing, which would make it a quite different guidance set up from the Phoenix’s.
If the “SARH” R-33 wasn’t unique enough – it also uses the MiG-31’s ‘Zaslon’ phased array “PESA” radar (in contrast to the mechanical scanning of the AWG-9 radar in the F-14) for guidance, which would make it the first and only SARH missile to be guided by “PESA” radar that I know of.
The R-33 and Zaslon “PESA” radar combination are as unique as you can get and I don’t understand why people must say it’s a copy of any western missile. What’s the R-73 a copy of… or the S-300 series? :confused: :rolleyes:
LevshaLooks almost factory fresh…………….:diablo:
That’s what I was thinking:cool:
With the obvious exception of the F-22 nearly all the aircraft in Kevin Jackson’s photos (F-15s, F-16s, B-1B, Tornados, etc) must be at least 20 years old, with several thousand hours clocked up on every airframe:cool:
What’s the secret… Botox?:confused:
LevshaUh, Buran was tested once. And Skylab simply served its purpose, it wasn’t meant to be a long-term station. Mir doesn’t seem to have been permanent, either.
That’s beside the point. There’s no denying that the Soviets poured far more material and human resources into their space program than the rest of the world put together!
The Buran only flew once because the Soviet Union fell apart not long after… one contributing factor of the Soviet Union’s demise, being it is often alleged, the excessive burden of its military-industrial complex – including the Soviet Space program.
LevshaIrony wouldn’t be the word for it!:rolleyes:
I’m sure the F404/414 would be a good alternative, although as the article says, it would take a while for it to be adapted and fitted to the JF-17 airframe (2 years?).
But there shouldn’t be any political objections from the Americans, should there, (although there maybe some industrial objections on behave of American industry?) providing that Pakistan is going to be the only end user?
The question remains though; surely the Chinese and Pakistanis might have predicted such a problem arising, what with the MiG-29/RD-33 been used by India and the influence this gives the Indians on their sale?:confused:
LevshaQuote from Star49
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16840360/site/newsweek/
This legendary stinginess is the bane of Krikalev, and Russia’s ace in the hole. Although it lost the moon race in the 1960s, since then Russia’s space program has made a habit of performing heroic deeds on a shoestring—in many respects besting its well-heeled U.S. rival.
The Soviet government was never stingy when it came to financing its space program. I recently saw statistics where it was explained that the Soviets had carried out almost 4 times as many space launches as the Americans had, during the period of the Cold war.
An example of “American stinginess” could be seen in the Americans decision not to continue sending crews to the ‘Skylab’ space station – it was either a choice between either the Skylab or the Space Shuttle – but funding could never be found for both!
The Soviets never had this problem, and were able to fund both a permanent space station ‘MIR’ while also developing the Soviet space shuttle ‘BURAN’.
Who is operating on a shoestring?:confused:
LevshaYou’d have to refresh my memory, as the west sent over so many balloons that were harmless…
I think Sens is referring to the The American civilian hot air balloon, shot down by the Belarus air force in the early 1990s.
I doubt it was luck. It was the fact that they had gotten into so much trouble for shooting down KAL007 that they were a bit hesitant in shooting down something that was so obviously civilian.
Even the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, a.k.a, the Russian Police force are not allowed to operate aircraft over Moscow’s airspace. That is to say, you will never see small police helicopters, Jet Rangers, Twin Squirrels, etc, flying over Moscow’s airspace, as you would typically see in every other European capitals.
Moscow’s airspace is now, as it was in 1987, one of the world’s most restricted air zones.
So, if there was any hesitancy or confusion about the identity or intentions of Rust’s Cessna, you would have thought that the decision to halt the progress of the light plane (shoot it down) would have been made as the aircraft began to approach the suburbs of Moscow.
LevshaHere is an interesting report on the rescue of the four airmen from the Indian Ocean and the problems that the aircraft had.
So, did anyone find out what exactly happened on the B1-B?
Why did the loss of a single engine (on a 4-engined plane) lead to the loss of the whole aircraft?
If that were to happen on a 4-engined passenger airliner (and passenger planes often loose an engine), it would be regarded as something of a scandal (not to mention 300 or more dead people!)
What does it say about the survivability of the ‘Bone’?
What would the pilot have done if they had been hit by enemy fire?:confused: :confused:
LevshaSource http://www.duel.ru/200012/?12_6_1
However this source claims a F-117 was shot down in Desert StormThe strong point for this account are basicly indeed several F-16s and Tornado were shot down they only differ in the way they were shot down, the F-117 however is a little bit harder fact to prove because this involves a cover up by the USAF
One F -117 was shot down by fire from the earth, one more, according to unofficial reports, it was anihilated in combat with a MiG-25.
Do you have the name of the pilot of the MiG, of the F-117?
What happened to the F-117 pilot?
What happened to the remains of the Nighthawk?
When that F-117 got shot down over Serbia in 1999, it was all over Serb TV the next day.
In the case of the Iraqi Nighthawk, it would seem that it has truly gained the status of ‘invisible aircraft’…
About prices consider is not only the exchange rate but also design philosophy the Soviets built simple aircraft that had cheaper and easier manufacture than what the West usually had, you can not have both world either is cheap and simple or complex and expensive
Neither the MiG-23, nor any of the following generations of Soviet combat aircraft were never ever cheap to design, produce, or to maintain in military service. The Flogger in particular, has a bad reputation for maintaining in service, and it may explain why it has been removed from service in nearly every Eastern European and former Soviet republics. The previous generation MiG-21 has outlived the MiG-23 in military service, in many air forces of the former Warsaw Pact.
Soviet aircraft were never cheap for the Soviets themselves to produce.
I doubt if a single MiG-23 needed less ‘man hours’ to produce, compared to say, a single Mirage F1, SAAB JA37 Viggen or even a single F-16. Especially when you consider how inefficient and inflexible Soviet industry was at that time.
LevshaThe punch-line of the story was that Gen. Deptula was flying the same F-15 he had flown 20 years earlier as a young captain. But most of the people who tell the story don’t know it has a new punch-line: Gen. Deptula’s son, a first lieutenant, is now flying the same plane in the Pacific — nearly 30 years after it was built.
…and so? There are B-52s that have been crewed by 3 generations of the same family! And those planes are still supposed to have another 20 or 30 years left in them yet – time for a fourth or a fifth?
LevshaThe F-15 goes Mach 2.5 because that was a requirement, namely to counter the MiG-25. Without that, the Eagle would most likely be a ~M2.3 fighter too.
Is Mach 2.5 fast enough to intercept a MiG-25 flying at Mach 2.8?:confused:
What’s the point of designing the F-15 to fly at Mach 2.5, if it’s still possibly not fast enough to catch a MiG-25R on a recce mission (which I presume was the target they had in mind when they designed the F-15 to fly so fast in the first place?)?:confused:
Levshahere is some data for teh acceleration for the F-106 and the MiG-23
In addition, the F-106A’s acceleration was significantly below Convair’s estimates, and it took almost 4 1/2 minutes to accelerate from Mach 1 to Mach 1.7 and another 2 1/2 minutes to accelerate to Mach 1.8. With such poor acceleration, it was felt that Mach numbers above 1.7 would not be tactically usable.
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f106_1.html
I had a look at the Joe Baugher web page that you misquoted, he was in fact referring to pre-production aircraft used for testing. If you had read further you might have seen what else Joe had to say…
The poor speed and acceleration was cured by altering the aircraft’s air intake cowling and charging ejectors. The capture area of the intake ducts was enlarged and the duct lips were thinned down.
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f106_1.html
Having said that, I do agree that the MiG-23 was probably the faster airplane (as you would expect from a variable geometry wing design). The question is though, whether this discrepancy in speed would have made any substantial difference in the outcome of any air intercept or air combat mission.
The F-106 was after all, still one of the fastest fighters in its day.
Already done that. The question is not how many F-105s have been lost, but how many would have been lost if the aircraft was designed more effectively. Stories from my Thud! book directly from the pilots complaining about some design deficiences resulting in poor hit survivalability and poor capability to evade incoming SAM are much more valuable to me than hysteric outscreams from a neocon creature called sferrin prone to attack anything that does not share exactly the same opinion than his one.
I always thought Thud was very highly thought of by its pilots! The chief problem for the F-105 and for the F-106 was the fact that both aircraft was never developed any further to cure any deficiencies that were found in early versions of each type. The F-105 was only in production for only 6 years, the F-106 for only 3. Both the MiG-23 and F-4 on the other hand, remained in production for over 16 years and were developed into many different improved versions, and you would judge both aircraft by examining the capabilities of early versions of these planes (MiG-23S/M, F-4B,) which left a lot to be desired.
As Flex297 just said (beating me to it), any later versions of the Thud could have introduced a redesigned and duplicated hydraulic system and maybe even some armour plating if desired, to improve survivability. Later versions of the F-106 could have been retrofitted with the AIM-7.
Sure, it may have increased weights somewhat, but this is fairly typical for most follow-on developments of aircraft.
Both century series fighters could have been fitted with uprated versions of the J75 engine, (up to 29,000lb) which were available, which would have rectified the weight matter somewhat, as well as improving performance.
Levsha“Air Warfare in the Missile Age” (1985) by Lon Nordeen
The Israelis highly rated the MiG-21 as a medium-altitude dogfight aircraft. With its slightly higher thrust-to-weight ratio and lower wing-loading, it was able to out-accelerate and out-turn the Mirage IIIC. Nevertheless, the Mirage’s pilots managed to shoot down MiG-21s as Arab pilots generally did not fly the plane to its limits of performance.
However, the MiG-21 was found to be highly susceptible to battle damage, having a tendency to burn or explode after being struck only a few times with 30-mm cannon fire. On the opposite, a Mirage was hit by the Soviet-built Atoll infrared-guided air-to-air missile fired from an Iraqi MiG-21 over an Iraqi airbase where the Mirage was patrolling. The Mirage’s tailpipe suffered extensive damage, but the pilot was able to return to the base.]
The MiG-21 was found in US evaluations found to be easy to kill. Surely improvements were made, but in the 1950s combat survivability was no design consideration.
Sure the USAF lost over 300 F-105s though out the 8 years or so of its deployment in the Vietnam war but then again how many MiG-21s did the Arab airforces lose during the various Arab-Israeli wars – 300 as well?
Should we deduct that the MiG-21 is a completely inappropriate aircraft for the Arab air forces and completely vulnerable to any enemies weapons?
I wouldn’t, but some people might, to judge by the standards their using.
And if you think that the F-105 was unsuccessful in its role in SE Asia during the 1960s, could you please suggest an alternative aircraft to the ‘Thud’ other than maybe the F-4, from any other country’s air force, that would have been more successful?
Mirage IV? Sud Vautour? Su-7? Yak-28 BREWER?
I’d love to see how they would have managed against The North Vietnamese air defences in the F-105’s place.
LevshaF-106 was an interceptor only. Good for what it was designed for but only that mission. At least the MiG-23 family saw a wide variety of use in A2A and A2G.
A better seeker would need to be developed, or the AIM-9 Sidewinder certified for the Delta Dart to be a decent Fighter, as opposed to a Bomber Interceptor.
As a bomber interceptor for the CONUS area the USAF never saw the point of fitting short range AAMs onto the F-106 or F-102, but who really thinks that it would be a big issue to do so, if the USAF felt the ‘Six’ needed them (AIM-9Bs typically), and I can’t see any structural or aerodynamic problems arising, it would take a few weeks design, testing and certification if it came to it! Add on the Sidewinders I’m sure the F-106 has what it takes to be a frontal fighter, when you compare it to the likes of the MirageIII/F1, MiG-21/23, F-4, etc.
Are you really serious you’d have wanted to go into a turning fight in F-106?
In numerous dissimilar air combat training within the US military, the F-106 has often proven itself to be more than the equal to the F-4 Phantom in WVR ‘dogfighting’. The F-4 for that matter, has spent a lot of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in WVR combat against MiG-17/19/21/23 and has never been found too wanting!
If the Phantom (and F-105) can win a dogfight with a MiG-17, it should have no problems defeating the FLOGGER, and if the Phantom can defeat the FLOGGER I can’t see the ’Six’ having too many problems either (the F-105 should be in there with a shout too).
Only one version of the AIM-4, the AIM-4D, was rated for use against fighter-sized aircraft, and it was poor as a dogfight missile, because the IR seeker needed 5 seconds to cool down, could only stay cooled down for a short time, and had only a limited number of cool-down cycles available.
Was the MiG-23’s R-23 ‘medium range’ missile any better against ‘fighter sized’ targets? How many R-23s did the MiG carry in comparison to the F-106 anyway? Have we any reason to believe that the R-23 was any more effective a missile, compared to theAIM-4D?
Limited look-down/shoot-down capability, BVR, R-60, Cassegrain radar, etc. I am not a friend of the Flogger series but for a fighter vs fighter encounter the difference was rather huge, if you ask me.
That wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve heard that the MiG-23’s Sapfir-23 radar had some sort of ‘Look-down, Shoot-down’ capability – this is a matter of some debate though. Certainly if armed with R-23R/T I doubt if the MiG-23 could have intercepted any of the low flying targets expected. Perhaps the MiG-23ML or the MiG-23MLD with the radar upgraded, along with the R-24 series of missile, might have had some chance against lower flying aircraft, but for the greater part of the 1970s, no MiG-23 could have detected and destroyed any aircraft attempting to fly ‘under the radar’
I also doubt if the Sapfir-23 had a better detection range or processing power than the MA-1 system either.
Combat: About 283 shot down and another 52 operational losses of the D model… of the F/G two seaters about 37 shot down and 10 lost operationally. 45 of those were Wild Wessels. Because they were running low on operational airframes from combat losses as time went on, the F-4 took over more and more of the strike duties traditionally done by the F-105 in Route Pack 6 toward the last few years of the war. About 833 total airframes made.
Well, combat record of the F-105, ehm, let us rather avoid this topic… Or do you really want to go this road?
I don’t mind going down this road at all…
It’s often forgotten that the F-4 suffered a greater number of losses during the Vietnam war than the F-105.
Also, it should be remembered, that the Communist Vietnamese possessed more anti-aircraft artillery than the Germans did during WWII , and that the North Vietnamese also received up to 6,000 S-75 ‘Dvina’ SAM missiles during the war (and used most of them, by the way).
330 combat losses over a period of 8 years might seem like an impressive figure, but the ‘Thud did fly over 20,000 combat missions so we’re looking at a loss rate of around, hmm, 1.65%…
So the question is… should we regard such a casualty loss figure as either a damning indictment of the ‘Thud’s’ survivability – or as a glowing testament to it??
I’m inclined towards the latter…
LevshaWasn’t there a version of the A-4 Skyhawk used by the USN Aggressors Squadron, which was not only stripped down of superflous gear, but also had some uprated version of the J52 engine, which improved the power to weight ratio, while giving the plane blistering ‘vertical’ performance?
LevshaOperational R-40TD carriage means you have to give up an R-33 for a datalink pod.
I would have thought that‘s only for the SARH version, why would an infra-red homing missile need a ‘datalink pod’. What other heat-seeker needs a ‘datalink pod’ Sidewinder, Magic?
R-23T/24T aren’t cleared for FOXHOUND’s flight envelope.
???. Let me guess, the MiG-31 (and R-33) is cleared to fly at Mach 2.83, while the MiG-23 (with R-24) ‘only’ to Mach 2.3 – in which case how did another MiG-23 ‘associated’ missile, the R-60, get cleared for carriage on FOXHOUND.
Other than in any attempt to intercept an SR-71, I shouldn’t think a MiG-31 will ever be expected to attempt any speed approaching Mach 2.83 operationally. I should think that in the more traditional PVO anti-bomber role Mach 2.3 would have been the normal top speed, allowing a greater range of missiles to be carried.
At any rate the additional targets for your R-60s don’t have to be SAC bombers either.
You said it yourself earlier in this thread, the FOXHOUND will ever be expected to operate outside its original PVO territory of the Soviet Union in any circumstances, so the only aircraft it will ever be expected to intercept are – B-1B, B-52, F-111, cruise missiles, the odd P-3, the very odd Norwegian F-16.
Think about an actual intercept scenario against an F-111 or B-1B penetrating Soviet airspace at 500 knots + and 200 feet!!
It implies a tail chase intercept by the MiG at low altitude, which implies that the R-60 will have a firing range from behind the target of no more than a mile.
The MiG-31 is the fastest at higher altitudes, but is it as fast as an F-111 below 2,000ft?
Better to give the MiG a heat-seeker missile that can be launched at a certain stand off range, allowing greater operational flexibility, and so that the aircraft doesn’t have to get into too low an altitude to which it isn’t suited for.
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