Engine separation is of course not always a good thing. When you lose an engine, you can fall victim to asymmetrical thrust, which is often fatal in low altitudes, especially for planes which don’t have much in the way of excess power.

Come on Iran. Hire Michael Bay next time.

Any chance that US might airdrop Michael Bay into Iran? Pretty please…?

Yeah. Thats possibly the reason why RuAF didn’t ordered single R-77s despite they have around 80 or so MiG-29S and SMTs.

…just like with many other weapons systems, which were sold for export but saw little or no service in Russian Armed Forces.

What is bought by different customers has nothing to do with it. Again I can name 3 different bids where F-16 Rafele and Eurofighter entered, each ending up with a different winner.

Yes. And no surprise, in each case active radar BVR missile was major part of the deal.

On pure logic, IF IRST disappeared from western aircraft only because its obsolete, and not from any 3rd/4th/5th gen of Russian aircraft, then it indicates they weren’t obsolete like western ones. Seriously, such way of thinking is pure nonsense in either way.

It was obsolete for the fighter tactics developed in the West. Which were the tactics they flew those German MiG’s with, as he noted in the article.

You may argue whether 25km is WVR or BVR (IMHO its both), but rest are all clearly WVR ranges despite shot by a BVR missile.

Don’t get hung on the range. In many cases, technically ‘WVR’ (ie. enemy visible by unaided eye) warshots might have been impossible without energy provided by more powerful BVR missile.

Combat Aircraft Monthly August 2011 had Viper vs Fulcrum article. Here’s comment from Major ‘Vinnie’ Russell, F-15-pilot who like ‘Spanky’, flew three-year exchange program in Luftwaffe:
“…due to it’s limitations, [IRST] was not really useful. Eyeballs were more effective than the IRST pre-merge. And the helmet-mounted sight was better than the IRST because you could just point and shoot [R-73]”.

In same article, ‘Hunter’, Bulgarian MiG-29 squadron commander says: “While the MiG has relatively good radar with fewer modes than the F-16 radar, it can scan the space two times faster than the F-16 radar. But…the information the ‘Fulcrum’ pilot receives is sometimes not enough to build realistic situational awareness when flying tactical intercepts.”

Just so demonstrate how pilots can sometimes state seemingly conflicting things:
‘Vinnie’: “Because of [AOA limiter], below 250kt the MiG-29 is at a disadvantage, as you will be flying through the ‘kicker’ [AOA limiter]. This creates big horizontal stab movements, which deplete energy quickly.”
‘Hunter’: “Regardless of the AOA limiter, the jet retains ‘very good nose authority’ and the fighter is under full control even at speeds less than 100kt. After decreasing the AOA, we can easily and quickly accelerate – much faster than the F-16 can.”

Your assumption of TWS being a game-changer that makes a fighter “order of magnitude” effective is merely laughable. You simply play too much computer games.

Me, and the ACTUAL AIR FORCES who ACTUALLY evaluate and operate the fighters. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that active radar missile was one of the first things added to MiG-29.

So your “logic” is as wester aircraft used IRST in the past and not now indicates IRST is obsolete? Well, its polar opposite on Russians. As radar improves so does IRST sensitivity. Su-27/Mig-29 had IRST. All upgrades even latest Su-35/MiG-35 has IRST, their replacement PAK-FA has IRST. Each time they spend $$$$ to design a new IRST. So its not “dead weight” as your superb logic thinks it is.

I am not saying that. I am saying that ’70s level technology IRST were/are obsolete which is why IRST disappeared from Western aircraft, although they have made bit of a comeback since.

Look at the Graphs MiG-31BM provided. You shot your first BVR missile at 40 km, it travels that range in 58 seconds assuming 2500km/h average speed. If two aircraft travels VERY SLOWLY at 700 km/h, in 58 seconds, range is down to 17 km. Welcome to WVR! On more realistic scenarios that aircraft go twice faster to give more boost to their missile, so you do the math.

Most stupid thing about WVR, is to think its in any way avoidable.

Yet the actual air combats over the last 25 years have been overwhelmingly BVR dominated, probably because the magnitude of improvement which has taken place in radar and missile capabilities during that time.

Even the ’80s MiG-29’s would have primarily used their BVR missiles in combat, because something like 4/5 of their opponents had no or only very weak BVR ability. Of course they would have exploited their advantage.

In WW3 MiG-29 was supposed to engage F-15 escorted F-111s trying to dig deep into Soviet airspace, and A-10s trying to provide CAS above FLOT. Su-27s were tasked to escort Su-24s and try to achieve air superiority.

Sounds to me like a classic tactical interceptor role!

Similar scenarios applied to F-16s, where F-15s would try to achieve air-superiority and conduct escorts, F-16’s would meet Su-27s at much closer range and didn’t need any BVR capability at all.

…so why did the US develope BVR capability to F-16?

TWS? No, you can very well scan the area without tracking targets. When enganging, STT allows for better range and more reliable tracking of maneuvering targets. In 4vs4 scenario between F-15/16 and MiGs pilots on both sides will assign their targets use STT. TWS is if you desperately lack SA or engaging multiple targets at the same time. Debatable, but hardly a realistic scenario.

You can never have too much SA. TWS is very important because you want to know what other bad guys are doing too, not just the one you are engaging. A fighter (not just an interceptor) needs certain degree of autonomy.

Two missiles? More than enough. By the time they are expanded aircraft will already be in visual range.

Two BVR missiles was adequate for tactical fighter in 1985. No longer in 1995.
Enemy will always try to protect his strike packages. This will become immensely harder, if every opposing fighter carries a weapons system capable of crippling the entire package. You have to neutralize every enemy interceptor to make sure.

ARH missiles? All other things equal yes. Again debatable, but a R-27RE equipped MiG would be just as capable as AIM-120B equipped adversary; R-27RE has 234% range of AIM-120B;

No it does not (more like 34%, in some intercept profiles Alamo is probably at disadvantage). It is irrevelant as German MiGs didn’t carry RE’s.

Such theoratical play is broken with R-27R equipped MiG-29 9.12. Missile has less range than AIM-120B and F-16 has the initiative; it can launch its missile first; and its irrelevant if MiG launches his missile later, because it will be too busy evading that it wont be able to guide its missile. In these conditions ARH is a decisive advantage. Despite what out good pilot said, good combination of IRST and R-27T in conjuction with his radar is his best bet, at least it has a chance to disturb F-16 so MiG could survive for CAC.

AFAIK, that generation IRST range is about same as human eye. If you see the target on IRST, you’ll likely see it by unaided eye as well. This is probably why he didn’t think IRST was useful. It might have been more useful in Soviet style GCI controlled tactics, but as he said, they didn’t fly the a/c that way.

For helicopters, it’s often the same thing.

75% of F-16s in EU didn’t have AIM-120 capability 90s, too. His quote is merely annoying; Is having bigger BVR missile the only thing that makes an airplane fighter? Then according to his logic; by the time he flew MiG-29, then current Skyflash equipped Tornado ADV or Super 530D equipped Mirage 2000 were pretty inferior to then current 9.13Ss in virtually any BVR criteria. So what? Were they not much of a fighter before MiG-29? Or as F-22 introduced should we call F-15/16/18 “not much of a fighter” now? Thats very disrespectful thing to say when people still design/build/use/fly/buy them.

Its not about MiG-29 vs F-16. If a MiG-29 pilot flew a Dutch F-16A at the same day and said “F-16 is not much of a fighter because all it carries is AIM-9”, I would oppose such tone too.

He can state the obvious that MiG he flew didn’t have much capabilities in BVR arena againist AIM-120 capable opponents and thats it.

But this guy didn’t fly European F-16’s. In fact it seems he never even flew F-16A. Obviously he’s comparing it to something he operated. Job of the fighter is to shoot down other aircraft, and TWS radar and active radar missiles are enormous advantage in this. (Also weapons load – he didn’t mention it but MiG-29 could carry just two AA-10’s, another big limitation). Again, I stress that when FAF made tenders in 1990, they outright rejected fighters without active radar missiles. This was over a year before even USAF got AMRAAMs. The missile-radar combination was just a such big deal.

And, he did say that Mirage 2000 pretty much sucked, did he not…?