Which performance aspects of a fighter were most crucial?

Greyman said:

Neat article on the MiG thing: How To Win In A Dogfight: Stories From A Pilot Who Flew F-16s And MiGs

Click to expand...

Great article!!!

"From BVR (beyond visual range), the MiG-29 is totally outclassed by western fighters. Lack of situation awareness and the short range of the AA-10A missile compared to the AMRAAM means the NATO fighter is going to have to be having a really bad day for the Fulcrum pilot to be successful."

End of story...

Greyman said:

Neat article on the MiG thing: How To Win In A Dogfight: Stories From A Pilot Who Flew F-16s And MiGs

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting. Some of the most informative reading yet.

He's definitely not a F-35 fan.

soulezoo said:

Thanks for posting. Some of the most informative reading yet.

He's definitely not a F-35 fan.

Click to expand...

I saw that - I think he's still grasping to the 2011 Rand Report. He may feel differenly if he flew one...

My first Mig BFM was with Spanky. Excellent article! More to follow tomorrow.

Cheers,
Biff

tomo pauk said:

C'mon, Biff, don't let us hanging - please share what ever you are allowed to

Click to expand...

Tomo,

We deployed 12 F-15A/B's to Laage AB to fight the Mig-29A/B's that were inherited when the wall came down. The agreed upon plan was for us to fight them in our post merge drag index (half the ordinance and no external stores) with them in the single centerline configuration with less missiles (close to post merger drag index and makes the fuel loads a bit closer / sortie length).

After day one the Mig's dropped their centerline bags. We were the first Guard unit they had fought, which also meant the first F-15A's. As stated by Spanky their are a few differences between the A and the C, the biggest of which is the handling. The C flies great, and the A just a little better (more on that later). They were used to winning and things didn't go as planned. The A model, with 220's + aft CG driven by a guy with 2000+ hours is an eye opener. Especially when you are used to fighting active duty kids with less than 1k in the jet, half of whose time is earned capping somewhere.

The average Mig driver was "only" getting about 180 flight hours per year versus the standard F15A/C guy who gets about 225-250 unless doing no fly enforcement. The difference is down one layer, and that is how many sorties a guy gets. The Mig flew .5 hour sorties (most of which was BFM / dogfighting), with the majority of that time being the fight (the airspace started at 8k right over the field and that's where they fought). By far the average sortie the Mig guys flew was BFM. The US guy does BFM phase (usually one month long) about once every 6-9 months. End result is the Laage Mig Drivers did a TON of BFM and were very current when we showed up. They were basically NATO's dedicated Red Air.

The Mig-29A/B as made by Mikoyan does not have a jettisonable centerline tank, nor can you shoot the gun with it (shells are ejected versus recycled like US stuff). The Germans eventually modified the centerline so they could fire the gun with it on.

The guys in the squadron were a mix of Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Luftwaffe. The latter being the majority by far. Of the FSU guys I fought only one stood out as being like a western trained guy (he thought several steps ahead and planned his fight accordingly). The rest had a game plan but then just reacted more than anything to what you did. The Luftwaffe guys (and Spanky) were pretty good and really liked the jet for the most part.

The Mig-29 came with a limited radio set up, basically just a few presets that MX could change (I guess it helped prevent defection?). The avionics were crude by Western standards. I did a half our Mig sim and I was full up by the end (can't do that in a Western product). The biggest detriment to me was the fuel "monitoring" system. They basically had a fuel burned counter and that was it. NOT GOOD. They would take off, fight, and go home and land. No flying up initial, just straight to the perch, drop the gear and get it on the deck since no one was ever really sure how much gas they had left. The pro's by far had to be reliability. The engines had mechanical fuel controls and could run into the 60's (FL600) with no problems, and they had only one hydraulic failure that year. I'm sure there is a bit of great MX as well (their guys had been working F-4's and Tornado's so it was probably modern comparatively) in the mix.

My first sortie against Mig's had actually taken place about 4-6 months prior while deployed to Iceland. We flew three Eagles cross country (or across the second half of the pond) to Denmark. From there we were planning on launching to fight them in their airspace, land at Laage for a gas and go, fight them again on the way out and recover at Lakenheath (in the UK). The flight lead fell out prior to take off and it ended up being myself and another guy. We did a two v two initially and all systems worked as planned. We fought over an undercast, and they were easy to see due to their smokey engines. We then shifted to separate BFMs and I drew Spanky. My jet was a two bag F-15A and his was a single bagged Mig-29A. We did two set ups and he got offensive on both but it took him to the floor to do so. The two bag set up for the Eagle is a great long range configuration, and doesn't do too bad in the BFM arena but not how you would really fight.

During our deployment I fought the Mig's mostly in BFM, but also did ACM (Air Combat Maneuvering or 2 versus 1), and a little bit of DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training or 4 v 4 or greater).

The thing that stands out in my memory about the ACM is the fact that I got 32 miles away from the field during the set up (I was the flight lead). The Mig guy debriefed me that we were WAY to far from base. That was an eye opener. The Mig-29 was basically made as a replacement for the Mig-21 which was a short legged beast as well. The Mig-21 had three position flaps, up, half, down and the panel was a push button type affair (like Chrysler made for some of their cars). The 29 had the same panel, only the middle button wasn't used. Made it easy for the 21 guy to convert over, or Mikoyan was just cheap.

From the fights themselves I treated the Mig pretty much like hybrid of the Viper and the Hornet. It's thrust to weight was better than ours (like a Viper), and turned about like a Hornet (not as great at high speed, but pretty good at slow) while size wise it seemed closer to a Hornet (I have never looked up the numbers). What Spanky didn't say was the AoA limits in the Mig were programmable, and if you hit them the stick would kick (which results in the plane porposing while you are fighting them) and MX would download that info. Then the squadron commander would call you in to explain your actions (call him the Morale Suppression Officer).

I did quite a few fights, and in the initial couple I learned to respect the AA-11 / Helmet Mounted Sight (HMS). They called shots (but not kills as they had no tape system to review and validate). There are other systems to deal with the Archer, but we didn't use those. It's not the end all be all of WVR fighting, but if you aren't on your game you are going to get schwacked. Like anything weapons related, you learn what you have to do, and executing is the key to survival. It's not impossible to survive, it just takes work.

As with all things flying the pilots also make a difference. I fought both FSU and Luftwaffe guys, and the differences were pretty huge. You could get away with a lot of stuff with the FSU guys that you would never try with an experienced guy.

The one sortie that stands out from Laage was a BFM I flew with a Luftwaffe guy. We started and met at the End of Runway (EOR). I started and taxied in just a few minutes (much faster than normal) to save his gas (I had much more than he). I was in a clean A model as was he (11,700lbs for me and I think about 7,500 for him IIRC). He was the flight lead and our airspace was SW of the field. We took off to the West, he used Mil power and I did a full Afterburner (AB) take off. As soon as I got on board he turned left and pushed me out to tactical. I left my jet in min burner and outclimbed him a bit and as soon as we were in the airspace he cleared me to do a G warm up maneuver (2 x 180 degree turns in full A/B). He followed without doing the warm up or using AB. We took off at 1155am. He then did the radio drill and started the fight. We were doing high aspect (fight starts nose to nose at the merge), and we were off to the races. He did well and survived, but I got offensive and employed the gun but didn't have enough to call and kill. He then called knock it off (stop the fight) and Bingo (fuel state requires RTB). I did a quick battle damage check as he headed home and he was gone. He put the gear down as he exited the airspace and landed from there.

I checked my gas and I still had almost 5k. Time check 1207. From take off to knock it off was 12 minutes. That point hammered home the point defense fighter that the Mig-29A/B was / is. Just like the Me-109, Spit, and Mig-21, they were not meant to go far from home, and as such carried much less weight which in turn creates much better performance. I then flew around to find another Eagle guy to fight whose Mig left due to fuel as well.

We were there for two weeks and it was some of the best flying I ever did in the Eagle. We fought them again when they came to the states down at Key West. My liver almost didn't survive that TDY.

End result was a complete familiarization of my enemies primary aircraft. I would not have hesitated to fight them, or go to a merge anytime or any place. I bet Mikoyan was cringing for years since their goods were being used to hone our skills.

We did get several briefs from the FSU guys. The biggest one was what they did on the holidays (entire squadron sat alert). They had been told by their leadership that the most likely time NATO would attack was over the holidays. What the Luftwaffe guys told them, and time showed them, was NATO was a ghost ship during the holidays as the US folks all went back to the states and the rest of free Europe was on holidays. They also really liked the Western health dental care.

Cheers,
Biff

One very cool thing about their squadron was the mess / o'club ceiling. It was hand carved wood depicting the constellations. Absolutely gorgeous example of beauty from hours of labor. It had been in a pilot training base during WW2 and was lost when the Russians rolled in. They knew where it was when the wall came down, and went and got it. A VERY cool piece of history!

AFAIK there were not ex soviet pilot in 1/JG73 in Laage, they were all germans (or NATO exchange) pilots, some were ex DDR pilots

Vincenzo,

I meant FSU trained guys, but you are correct!

Cheers,
Biff

Reading the memories of Biff15 and Spanky i can only think what full ,happy pilot lifes, the pilots of the American armed Forces Live!

Was there any truth in the rumour that Soviet planes were short legged to prevent pilots doing a runner?

Pbehn,

I doubt it. Too much work goes into designing and building a fighter to limit it that way. All you would need to do is short the fuel load to keep them close.

Cheers,
Biff

pbehn said:

Was there any truth in the rumour that Soviet planes were short legged to prevent pilots doing a runner?

Click to expand...

They still ended up with numerous defections despite their safeguards against such instances.

"They" being various communist countries.

Some Soviet planes were short legged, some were not. Like the Su-24, Tu-28, MiG-31 and Su-27 family, plus the bombers. Short legged aircraft were mostly intended for the Frontal Aviation (MiG-21, Su-7/17, Su-25, MiG-23/27); the V-PVO favored the longer ranges. There were several aircraft that we might call 'medium range', like Su-15 or MiG-25. MiG-29 was intended to replace the MiG-21 and MiG-23, so we know why the short range. The subsequent modifications introduced more fuel, but those were produced in penny packets.

However - the short range of the MiG-21 did not hamper the 'runner', defection was made from Iraq to Israel.

The Soviets were also behind the curve when it's about turbo-fan engines vs. more fuel hungry turbo-jet engines. The 1st turbo-fan used on Soviet fighter was the modification of the airliner engine, introduced in the 1980s on the MiG-31. West started almost 20 years earlier, and get in the stride 10 years earlier.

grampi said:

Speed? Climb? Turning radius? Roll rate? Diving ability? Please rank in order and explain why, and add any other performance category you feel was also important...

Click to expand...

Werner Mölders stated three requirements for a modern fighter (to Finnish Air Force representatives in late 1941): Superior speed, good climb rate and good armament.
Manouverability is a plus, but the if a fighter has these three qualities, good manouverability is not mandatory.

Joe Christy writes:
Immediately following the Battle of Midway in early June, 1942, LeRoy Grumman dispatched General Manager Leon "Jake" Swirbul to Hawaii. Swirbul's assignment was to find what combat pilots thought of the Japanese Zero. It was hoped that experienced fighter pilots could make helpful suggestions as to what performance characteristics were necessary to gain supremacy over the Japanese fighter. Swirlbul talked to many of the aviators who had flown Wildcats from Enterprise, Hornet and the sunken Yorktown, seeking their opinions, observations and criticisms.

Chief among these was Lt/Cdr John S. Thach, the Navy's leading fighter tactician and skipper of Fighting Three. It was "Jimmy" Thach who summed uo the Wildcat pilots' desires in one succint sentence:
"Give us more speed and more climb".