That might be a reflection on the people/organisations operating the aircraft and not on the qualities of the aircraft itself?
Perhaps Norwegian pilots were simply forbidden from flying in bad weather while the contractors were not?

Allied Force was not a long time ago. That is the main source of my discontent – the “Vietnam was a long time ago” line was trotted out in the early 90s. Didn’t stop AMRAAM failing abysmally in the late 90s though.

I wouldn’t say “failed” – how many of NATO’s aircraft were shot down or had their missions aborted due to the actions of the Yugoslav air force? How many combat kills were accredited to the MiG-29?

They’ve got another name for the F-35 now in some of its “bashing” threads – Sitting-duck…

I call Pk under 10% worrying! (especially given the extremely favourable engagement circumstances)

Were the AIM-120s fired in pairs? That would automatically reduce the PK to 50% immediately, would it not?

If LM’s advertisements supported by the USAF can be trusted then yes. But in the real world the pk of BVR missiles hasn’t proven to be overwhelming, even against insophisticated foes. How well are such missiles working against a well trained and equipped foe?

The majority of aerial kills in the last 25 years or so have been with BVR missiles, have they not. Indeed, the Iraqi AF’s only kill in Desert Storm in 1991 was most certainly a BVR kill, was it not?

But to be fair he did also say:

“But when all that is said and done, the MiG-29 is a superb fighter for close-in combat, even compared with aircraft like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. This is due to the aircraft’s superb aerodynamics and helmet mounted sight. Inside ten nautical miles I’m hard to defeat, and with the IRST, helmet sight and ‘Archer’ I can’t be beaten. Period. Even against the latest Block 50 F-16s the MiG-29 is virtually invulnerable in the close-in scenario. On one occasion I remember the F-16s did score some kills eventually, but only after taking 18 ‘Archers’. We didn’t operate kill removal (forcing ‘killed’ aircraft to leave the fight) since they’d have got no training value, we killed them too quickly. (Just as we might seldom have got close-in if they used their AMRAAMs BVR!) They couldn’t believe it at the debrief, they got up and left the room!

http://www.16va.be/mig-29_experience.htm

But I think we are rehashing a lot of old territory on this tired old topic…;)

The Polish air force operates both F-16 and MiG-29, I wonder what’s their opinion on the matter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DfkrYJdgAo

Back in the days before the Tejas, Golden Eagle, and JF-17 representing Asia’s unterflugzeug,there was the Ching Kuo… an aircraft about the size of the Tejas Mk2 but with two engines, designed by American GD.

But as Vortex said, there’s alot we didn’t know about the aircraft and most numbers are guestimates. Its radar is based on the APG-67 but we don’t know what kind of modifications were done to it. It had a small s-duct as its fanblades can’t be seen directly from looking at the intakes. It had a short range but not sure how short. It did have a very high serviceability rate in the RoCAF, higher than the M2K and F-16.

It got updated to the Hsiang Sheng which includes a new radar and ability to carry CFTs and carry more missiles.
other than that not much more is known but it seems to be more on par with the Gripen than the other Asian fighters

They are also working an E/F version called the Shang Tsung which could copy the abilities of other aircraft’s characteristics.

Isn’t that the plane taller pilots (i.e. non-Chinese) have a problem squeezing into?