MiG-23

Your statement…

First some facts. F-16 v F-18…. “and even in dogfight”.

Even a Navy pilot that has flown both would not agree with you on that. They would prefer the F-18 because of many things including familiarity of having flown it so much however the F-16 will out accelerate it in almost every situation and out climb the F-18. Everything being equal there, a Navy pilot would state he probably would not want to fight either aircraft but would prefer to be in a Hornet….

A good read of the F-16 vs F-18 here-
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3897/is_200306/ai_n9262073/pg_1

MiG-29 in 1983…. you are joking right? What BVR? You mean the then crap R-27? The same one which not too far in the future from that point sucked when Eritrea and Ethiopia went at it? The R-27 in that war sucked bad and that was with Ukraine and Russian advisers on the different sides. So much for the early R-27 being worth anything. The man machine interface of the early MiG-29 for BVR was a joke. Nice big clock to watch count down on BVR shots. Almost as silly as Flava flav with the clock around the neck. Please don’t take early MiG-29 BVR too seriously.

Of course in WVR the R-73 is in fact deadly. However facing the merge the opposite is true that the MiG-29 would have to survive a face shot by an AIM-9L which in fact worked fairly good with real kills to show for it. Much has been written about MiG-29 v F-16 in WVR practice. They both have their performance advantages. Something to consider: Sit in an F-16, now turn your head to the back. You can see the burner can. Sit in an early MiG-29 and turn your head to the back, rear visibility isn’t so hot. Certainly in 1983, the F-16A goes into the fight with some disadvantages. However an excellent man-machine interface and outstanding visibility and being small nose-on aren’t bad.

Finally…. “MiG-23 enjoyed better BVR combat capability than the F-16”

Again here questionable BVR quality. One thing that wasn’t amusing about the MiG-23 was it’s speed and acceleration, that had some respect. However when U.S. pilots got to look at the man machine interface of captured MiG-23s and the poor cockpit visibility looking outside, it became the butt of many jokes. Poor situational awareness in this aircraft could be THE END real quick. A good PVO interceptor when in later years they started putting IRST on the nose. This wouldn’t be something to take to war for fighter v fighter.

ELP,
please don’t take the stuff MiG23 writes too serious. He is basically repeating his claims once a month on various, often completely unrelated topics. He is through the Syrian Air Force claims on Israel aircraft by now, and now we are getting into performance of MiG-23ML versus F-16A, another favorite of him.

The claims are in their majority simplified, unconditioned and sometimes just plain wrong –> Linear Thinking.
Let’s take the F-18 versus F-16 as example. Some people might know that the F-18 is the better slow speed fighter and has better high AOA characteristics. The trade is more drag at transonic and supersonic speeds, where the F-16 rules even over seemingly faster aircraft like the F-15 or Su-27. Telling one aircraft the “better” aircraft is flawed linear thinking.

MiG-29 versus F-16 is similar, as you outlined. The MiG-29 is quoted with slightly higher turn rates in speeds lower than M0.8-0.9 (and hence the better maximum turn rate), while the F-16 is considered to be superior above those speeds. With at least a dozen versions MiG-29 and F-16 comparisons become a tiring non-sense activity, one non-linear thinkers would refrain to do.

Best is always the MiG-23. Right is, the MiG-23 has BVR-capability, the F-16 not. But, what is always missing is that ML and MLD variants did not really posses the ability to find and engage an target when without ground support. They were mostly restricted to use in GCI mode. An F-16A has equivalent radar range and the single pilot will find his radar much easier to use. The MiG-23ML, though a very fast machine with quite remarkable performance figures, does not possess any dogfight characteristics. Low maximum lift, high energy bleed and bad ergonomics are just examples. Again, linear thinking.

From the armed forces of the soviet Union a book about the F-14, by the Ministry of defence and air forces of the Soviet Union

source http://www.strizhi.ru/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1188479278/0#0

Exactly what I mean. From the quality of the data I suggest that these are estimated data. Do you have link to the document?

Found this interesting reading talking about the differences between the classic and Super wing…

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0099.shtml

Thanks, good reading.

But doesn’t this …

In terms of the twist, however, the most significant difference between the two planes is that the wing on the Super Hornet is designed to be much stiffer than that on the Hornet. The original wing is very flexible and exhibits quite a bit of deformation under high g-loads or even when ejection charges fire to release an underwing store. The wingtips were given a fairly large amount of downward twist so that the outer wing would still remain at a lower angle of attack than the inner wing even under these high-deflection conditions. Since the wing on the Super Hornet is more rigid and does not experience these high deformations, it does not require nearly as much wing twist as on the earlier models.

… contradict earlier statements made in this thread that the F-18E/F has a more flexible wing?

Since the SH top speed is said to be M 1.6, it looks like its drag limited.

So I think, too. While the intake takes a larger toll than on other aircraft.

ith all the “noise” made about the F-14’s Phoenix missiles and fire control system, you’d think the Russians would enjoy having some of that to play with. I suppose it may have been a different story if they had been f-14D’s with GE F110’s. The old TF30’s, even the US Navy didn’t want to look at.

The weapon system is always the most interesting, less because the Soviets didn’t possess similar technology, but because it allows to tailormade ECM. Imagine they could get a live AIM-54, get the radar frequencies and make a specialised ECM for their bombers.
Similar things were done for SA-2’s in Vietnam. Doesn’t help when AIM-54 is updated, what happens from time to time.

The idea of test flying a Tomcat to check out the right tactics … I don’t think so. I can remember this Have Doughnut where USAF and USN did that against MiG-21. The conclusion were rather simple, nothing too exciting.
Without according support (manuals, tools, spares) it also rather nasty to operate an aircraft. If you want to generate at least a dozen sorties but just have a bare Tomcat (defected from Iran or so), you would have a grounded aircraft pretty soon.
For the Soviets an F-4 would have been more interesting, as 6 NATO air forces operated the Phantom in numbers, all until the 1990s. Still never ever was an F-4 reported in Soviet hands.

Speed will not change, because the fixed inlets are the limiting factor.
See MiG-27 about that.

I would be careful with that claim. There is no doubt that fixed inlets will seriously hamper pressure recovery from M1.5 on. But the related thrust loss at normal operating speeds of M1.3 to M1.6 is still low. The legacy Hornet achieves a bit more than M1.6 with 2 Sparrows and 2 Sidewinders. Still close to M1.6 when a centerline tank is added.
These speeds are 0.01 to 0.02 Mach slower than the F-4 Phantom. The intake would really have bigger influence from M1.6, where pressure loss is more than 10%.
If the Super Hornet has problems achieving speeds in excess of Mach 1.5 in actual tactical configuration, it indicates a problem with drag. Excess thrust is quite OK for both Hornet versions.

The problem is really that this is the classic ‘answer to the question nobody asked’. There is no real need for this sort of aircraft, since existing transports and helos can do all the missions that need doing at the moment. For stealthy insertion, it would be better to deliver a small STOL type, with no emphasis on vertical capability, since all this adds is cost! The ability to operate off a normal short length of road is much more useful – possibly even just a stealthy Pilatus PC-12 size aircraft?

Or small Fieseler Storch. Light, can take-off and land on a football field, very inexpensive and expendable. Give 1 out of 3 special forces soldiers basic flight school, a GPS and night vision, there you have your stealthy aircraft.

It was not so dead. But the concept died when VAK191 and VJ101 were killed.
And nuclear war made the whole idea of survivability questionable anyway.

Btw, the control system of all three planes were amazing feats of engineering in the pre-digital and pre-semiconductor age.

I know, I heard a good lecture on it a while ago by a guy who designed control systems of the VAK191. It is always worth to note that the JSF is not the invention of the VTOL aircraft, but that even in mid 60ies very satisfying solutions have been achieved, by surprisingly small design teams.