Engine technology? ANY F-15 or F-16? Go research that one. And those numbers you’re fond of quoting mean little to nothing when you look at the actual combat performance of the aircraft in question. That’s what matters.

So? How many F-16s have MiG-29s shot down? That’d be zero.

Supremacy in technology? I thought you were just touting the FULCRUM’s superiority over Western aircraft?

Oh, what losses are those now? B-2 shootdowns over Serbia? :rolleyes:

That’s because no USAF F-15 or F-16 has been shot down by a MiG.

SOC

Any serious analisys will show you that the F-15 or F-16 never were better in Serbia or Iraq to the MiG-29 in terms of technology, first the F-15 and F-16 never have shot in air to air more than ten MiG-29s, they have not shot down any Su-27.

What gave them superiority was sheer numbers and the overall tactical situation.

The MiG-29 has claimed several kills among them several aircraft among them Panavia Tornadoes, MiG-21s and a F-117

Not compared to the United States, the Pacific Rim (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea) and Western Europe.

There are free societies like the above where every social and economic indicators prove that they are free.

Then there are “free” societies like the “world’s largest democracy” where it is “free” in name only.

Good, at least you understand.

Anyone with an understanding of politics and history would know that there are unfree systems that are worse than communism. Those are the feudal and caste systems which led to communism in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. in the first place.

The world’s “largest democracy” is famous for having one of the worst of these caste systems.

So for someone like Ramachandran to talk about free and commie pilots while his own country trails even communist nations in all the basic categories of human life is stupid beyond words.

If infants in the world’s “largest democracy” are dying at twice the rate of North Korea which is synonymous with commie inefficiency and misplaced priorities, then it is most certainly not a free society in any shape or form.

“Free” doesn’t mean extreme poverty and premature death.

I agree up to a degree a communist nation can have good standards of living.

The largest Comunist nation and most populated nation in the world has a standard of living higher than the second most populated nation and largest democracy.

India has twice of people malnurished if compared with China.

But that does not mean China is a Paradise, China has a standard of living in the same level as the Philipinnes or Peru, while India have a standard of living even worst than south Africa but better than Pakistan.

the fact that India has a standard of living worst tha many African nations, it does not mean it can not beat the USAF in cope India, or it does not have a powerful fighter in the Su-30MKI, is a nuclear power and has space technology

Comunism is not a synonim of wealth niether capitalism, comunism is not a synonim of development niether capitalism is.

The Soviet Union in the 1960 and 1970s was a developed nation as powerful as any European nation, in fact Japan took over in the 1980s as an economy larger than the Soviet Union.

What determines how advanced is a nation is science and technology and how spread is that development in it`s population

China is not a comunist nation in real economic terms, it is a semi-capitalist country.

China more than comunist is an autocratic capitalist nation disguised as Comunist republic

Some cool MiG-21s and F-14s from http://photo.starnet.ru

In all honesty, he does raise a point. Free societies are by nature successful and efficient. The greatest expression of a free society is the wealth and well beings of its citizens. Freedom creates wealthy populations which in turn produce better pilots (among a host of other professions.)

Unfree societies are uniformily poor. Countries with caste systems that restrict the upward mobility of large portions of the population are the poorest among them. Caste systems are unfree societies that are not commie states. They are worse.

For example, the world’s “largest democracy” has the world’s largest reservoir people living in abject poverty. Immense and biblical poverty that had always attracted the world’s charity organizations. Children there actually die at birth twice as much as the largest commie state and its people live 8 years less.

Any nation that can trail a communist state in infant mortality and longevity is a very unfree state indeed.

So if it can’t raise the life expectancy of its people to even communist levels how can it pilots be any better?

Any nation has good or bad aspects, the economic system might influence to a degree in the terms of training and equipment.

You can not expect a nation like Colombia to have a better air force than England because the Colombian military budget is quit small.

China despite being a communist nation has a larger military budget therefore even despite China has a lower standard of living can have more sophisticated military technology.

Both China and India have Air forces that are among the best equipped in the world and very likely are amongst the best trained in the world.
Cope India showed all of us how well the Indian pilots are trained

Both have different economic systems and both are poor, but both nations spend lots of money in military development and equipment.

Nations like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico spend much much less even despite all are democracies and have higher standards of living than India Pakistan or China.

China very likely has standards of equipment as high as Russia and India is the same.

The Western capitalist nations did have a propaganda war saying that Comunism has less advanced technology, their citizen were either willing to run from communism or were evil comunist zombies.

The Warsaw pact had it`s own version blaming the Capitalists were depravated beasts

The economic system has nothing to do with the amount of money a nation spends in weapons either to build them or buy them.

Imperialistic ambitions are behind any military build up, Russia/Fomer Soviet Union, the US, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Europe/NATO, China and India have or had indeed empirial ambitions.

Does not matter if it is Comunist Imperialism or capitalist imperialism.

In the world either you are Empire or you are colony.

Let’s see, Ramachandran. Your thread is about pilots from “free societes” versus those of “commie dictatorships.”

So obviously, you’ve defined the two sides in the debate. These two sides are well defined and have been since the Cold War.

1) Commies = unfree, poor, MiGs as represented by the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, therefore the pilots are poor.

2) Free= free, rich, Boeing or General Dynamics as represented by the US and NATO, therefore the pilots are superior.

The key is defining who belongs to what camp.

Now, take the world’s largest so-called “democracy.”

It is immensely poor, like the commies (actually even POORER than commies.)

It was on the side of the USSR during the Cold War. Friends of commies?

It flies MiGs. Obviously users of inferior commie products.

The world’s largest “democracy” therefore fits the “commie” bill to the T (except that it is even poorer) so the evidence is pretty overwhelming that its pilots are just as bad, right?

Thanks for bringing this discussion up.

I think the question is basicly, During the cold war, there was a propaganda war which claimed a economic and political system was superior and this allowed a superio results in war.

holliwood has made the image of villians upon political US held views, FireFox, Rambo and Top Gun are two examples where you can see what is the view of the Soviets and Comunism, Russia also had it`s version of the same holiwood style propaganda

War accounts differ and in all the US has favourable kill rates, The MiG-29 and Su-27 were regarded as inferior to the F-15 and F-16 until the cold war was over.

Democracy does not mean empire, niether comunism equality.

There were and are Democratic empires and democratic colonies, there were and are Comunist empires and comunist colonies.

Cuba for example has been rate as a having higher standards of living than North Korea, China or Vietnam, the Soviet Union living standards were not as low, infact were quit high during the 1960s and 1970s.

Comunism has never worked and at the end is less practical in economic terms, not any democracy is an empire, many are economic colonies in fact.

What makes a country powerful is and continues being is imperialism.

ACTUALLY YOU ARE 1000000% WRONG THE SOVIET UNION’S cars are great when it comes to working, but when it comes to the looks, it laked what was being sold in the west.

i agree but up to a degree, Soviet cars as many goods in the Soviet Union lacked quality due to the less extrict competion.

Today Russian cars are much much better, but Russia needed some degree of improvement in quality and merchandise.

No Yugoslav MiG-29 pilot makes any claim for an air-to-air kill during Allied Force. No Yugoslav pilot even made any claim for launching any air-to-air missiles or firing their cannon at an airborne target.

TEEJ

Give the official Serb Air force account of the Civil war in Yugoslavia in what respects the air war operations and kills.

Same will be with Iraq, get what the Government of Saddam Hussein claimed.

you will see the accounts differ a lot.

While you continue giving me Western sources no point to continue the discussion because you will say the Serb Government agrees with the USAF official account and that is a waste of time for me.

I would point out that in my view you are mistaken. In world war II, it was always said by the allies “get the nazi leader, and the pack disintegrates.” This was because the nazis were indoctrinated in ideas of hate and absolute obedience which are the fundamentals of dictatorships.

Can you tell me what happened in the battle of Britain, why the nazis could not overwhelm a force inferior in numbers to them.

Why did such a numerically and supposedly superbly trained air force and ultimately the nazi war machine collapse. The answer is very simple, dictatorships produce citizens who wear blinkers and refuse to move beyond what they are trained for. In other words they could not innovate and adapt to situations as the allies could.

A notable exception was Rommel but what happened to him? he was straitjacketed by people around him who could not tolerate his innovative and unique ideas.

Though the soviets cannot be compared in evil doing with the nazis, their downfall was also due to straitjacketed thinking.

Regards

That is true because Hitler who knew all and was good in everything was the only voice and last word 😀 :rolleyes: that is in part one of the reasons Germany lost WWII.

The Soviet Union biggest flaw was it`s lack of consumer goods development that retarded the quality of common day life technology such goods as cars and electrodomestics and that proved fatal in computer technology.

That lack turned soviet avionics less capable for a while.