i have seen interviews to former Russian MiG-15 pilots who claim the good qualities of the MiG-15 and at the same time proved the good qualities of the MiG, even many western reports show how good was the MiG-15 over the F-86 in some flight regimes.

I think from a technical standpoint,the MiG-15 did have some key advantages over the F-86,namely it’s engine,derived from the Rolls Royce power plant (we the Brits oh so stupidly gave to the USSR as a goodwill gesture :confused: ) that gave it an edge in acceleration and high altitude performance. Apparently some MiG pilots learned that if they found themsleves in a turning fight with an F-86 they could simply climb up,and when the F-86 pilot can no longer follow or keep up,dive in and make a high speed slashing counter-attack.

However,I think the F-86 came out with the upper hand because of the pilots that flew it,rather than the quality of the aircraft itself. Alot of them were WWII aces with vast amounts of experience and long kill lists to their names ,and found themselves facing for the large part,poorly trained Korean and Chinese pilots,although they did come up against some very good Russian “Advisors” sent there in secrecy by Stalin to aid their fellow communists.

Something I feel I have to add here, but in regards to the avionics fit of the MiG-29M2,the Russian state arms export co. have in the past gone to great lengths to give the customer a western sourced avionics package if that’s what they want over the standard Russian kit.

The Indians have done this before with the SU-30MKI’s,which uses a combination of Russian,French,Israeli and British sourced parts to make up it’s avionics fit. Though I do believe this did delay the service entry a bit :confused:

It’s so refreshing to see someone treat the memorials dedicated to our war dead with such respect for once, for that I thank you 😉

All too often these days “people” seem to find it so easy to vandalize and desecrate the memorials to the men who have shed their blood and made the ultimate sacrifice in our country’s hour of need so that we could be free 😡 The injustice of it all genuinely brings a tear to my eye and chips away at my faith in humanity little by little 🙁

I’m not sure if I remember this correctly,but as I recall the primary goal the Argentine Junta had in mind when they decided to annex the Falklands was to keep their grip on power by diverting their own population’s attention away from economic,political and social issues in their own country, and then unite the people against a common enemy under their leadership, just as Bismarck had done when he created the a united German “Reich” after the war against France from 1870 until 1871

Hello Hammer,

That’s a good question you’ve asked there,and something I’ve wondered about, and personally I think the Iranians haven’t gone for the Flanker as of yet as they’re focusing their efforts on gaining self sufficency,rather than being at the mercy of a supply of externally sourced parts, but in addition to that I’d imagine there’s some political pressure being applied to Russia from the US and EU to try and prevent a deal to sell the Iranian’s Flanker’s.

And besides,to make any difference to any US led onslaught,I’d imagine the Iranians would need to buy a rather large force of Flankers to deter them.

Cheers.

The german chancellor Schroeder is this week in Saudi Arabia. He might adverties for the Eurofighter.
I presume, if the Saudis get the EF2000, they will buy them in the UK, just like the Tornado and Lighting

As I recall,export sales are broken down between the partner nations by geographic area,with BAE’s target market being the Middle East,so if the Saudi’s do decide to opt for the Typhoon they’d probably have to go through BAE.

They can’t grumble at the price, however, I would have thought it would have been better for the US to source some second hand Mi-8/Mi-17’s for the Iraqi Airforce since that’s a type they have direct experience of working with,unless they’re replacing the Saddam era personnel with a fresh manpower base,then it becomes a much different problem, but I still think that they should try to keep their fleet to the lowest number of types possible at the ‘mo in order to simplify training and logistics etc….

Cheers. 😀

Edit: By the way,would anyone know if anything of the Saddam era Iraqi Air Force has survived to re-enter service in the force’s latest incarnation ?