History of Soviet Cold war fighter aircrafts

George1 wrote:

Good find that, thanks for sharing.

nastle77 wrote:I was trying to find out what was the total number of Mig-23M/ML/MLD in service with VVS and PVO by mid 1980s like 1985-1987 period

please any suggestions are welcome

thank you

I might dig out World Air Power Journal volume 3 later and post here as it's got the numbers of aircraft used by the PVO/ VVS/ Navy in 1990 so I could compare to post 65. That issue is worth a buy as it's got orders of battle for the Warsaw Pact Countries in that year.

*Edit*

F*ck it, I'll do it now.

According to this, the PVO in 1990 had

MiG-21bis- 40
MiG-23mf/ML- 900

MiG-25M- 350
Su21- 475
Su27- 150
Tu-28- 15
Il76- 12
Tu-126- 3

Very impressive numbers in hindsight.

VVS had:
Su-24 450
TU95 Bear B/C 70
TU95 G 40
Tu142 50
Tu160 12
Tu22 120
Tu16 220
Tu26 175
MiG21PFMA/SMB/bis- 200
MiG 23MF/ML- 875

MiG29- 450
Su-27- 135
MiG21PFMA/SMB/bis (ground attack)- 130
MiG 25- 45
MiG 27- 855
Su 7- 50
Su 17- 700
Su24 (ground attack)- 300
SU25- 225

mya 4- 40
Tu16- 20
Il78- 40

MiG 21R= 60
MiG 25- 130
Su 17- 150
Su 24- 100
Yak 28- 160

I'll add the rest later.

"The Birth of Carrier-Based Aviation": How Vertical Take-off and Landing Aircraft Developed









https://tass.ru/opinions/12487617?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

I was around in the 1980s and I remember the hype around VSTOL fighters like the Harrier and also the caustic negative crap directed at the Yak-38... like suggesting it could not perform a rolling takeoff severely limiting its payload potential.

The fact of the matter is that all VSTOL fighters of the time were terrible, the Sea Harrier had an excellent radar and in the falklands campaign got the best model Sidewinders from HATO stocks, but if Argentina had anything better than a MiG-21 they would have been in serious trouble.

A MiG-23 would have made the invasion impossible... they could operate from rough airstrips on the island and no Vulcan attack would have succeeded in the face of MiG-23s operating as air defence.

Against Harriers I would say the best weapon the MiG could have used would have been the R-23T IR guided missiles which were all aspect and would have been even more effective against the Harrier because of its fuselage side mounted engine nozzles that increased their IR signature from all angles except dead in front.

The MiG-23 is fast enough to leave combat when it wants to against a Harrier and it has excellent flight range.

In comparison the Yak-38 lacks a radar and agility and speed and is a rather ordinary fighter.

The Su-25 is not a great dog fighter either but it is a strike aircraft so that is not such a problem, it is more optimised for speed than it appears.

The Swing wing was complex but was also a good solution to the problem... it added weight to the design, but it was useful weight because it allowed customising life and drag in the entire flight envelope, whereas lift jets are dead weight except landing and taking off, but it is much more than that.

VSTOL aircraft like the harrier had swivelling engine nozzles but they were not 3D nozzles like we see on the MiG-29OVT... they were fixed... so there was high pressure piping of gas from the hot parts of the engine to the wing tips and the nose and the tail for puffer thrusters to help balance the aircraft in the hover and very very low flight speed mode where the airflow over the wings and tails was not sufficient to allow the control surfaces to have any effect.

This makes the VSTOL aircraft heavier and also very vulnerable to damage and with two engine nozzles down each side of the Harrier, or two rear side mounted main engine nozzles and two lift jets in the front the Yak-38 would be easy targets for MANPADS.... even the crappy oldest ones like the SA-7 Grail and the US equivalent Redeye... which normally needed to be fired at the engine end of a target in full AB to get a hit.

A key soluton for VSTOL would be engines with TVC nozzles so they don't need an internal piping system for puffer jets to control the aircraft at low speed, but also engines that balance the thrust front and back but can also be used in forward flight so they are not dead weight.

The problem is that any future VSTOL design will be handicapped with the demand to be supersonic and also 5th generation which is all going to add up to make it rather too difficult to be affordable.

Perhaps with new technology electric jet engines that engines on the wing tips that can rotate... with forward swept wings to move the wingtip engines ahead of the centre of gravity and have the main engines in the conventional place moved a bit forward closer to the centre of gravity too so they balance might create an opportunity to get something that works.

Another fundamental problem with aircraft like the Yak-38 and Yak-141 was that the lift jet engines just behind the cockpit blew hot air with much of the oxygen already burned up and in the form of CO (carbon monoxide) so if that hot air went in the front mounted engine intake for the main engine it would choke because there would not be enough oxygen to burn its fuel to generate heat and thrust and it would suddenly lose power which is the last thing you want when the lift engines are running because you are likely in a hover either landing or taking off so your main engine is keeping you airborne.

Engines way out on your wing tips that are electric so they exhaust is oxygen rich and presumably cold air should not effect the intakes for the main engines... more importantly the wing tip engines can be angled to say 95 or 100 degrees (ie 5-10 degrees forward) in the hover so the rear engine nozzles can be angled 85 to 80 degrees backwards so the hot oxygen depleted air being sucked through those engines will go backwards and away from the belly of your aircraft so you can have belly mounted weapon bays and centreline fuel tanks if you want.

Even more radical.... how about five engines... two side by side at the rear like the MiG-35, but with a serious forward swept wing with electric engines... due to the forward sweep of the wing they could be level with the cockpit, so two engines on the wing tips that can be rotated down or horizontally for forward flight, plus a dorsal fifth engine that does not vector... four engines for takeoff and landing and the fifth pointing forward... perhaps a simple ramjet to boost acceleration speeds....

Anyone ever hear of this story?

In 1964, the MiG-21 Scored Its First Kill — Against an American Oil Company

https://warisboring.com/in-1964-the-mig-21-scored-its-first-kill-against-an-american-oil-company/

Fresh news for me

Mir wrote:Fresh news for me

I like this part:

At 10:17, multiple cannon rounds ripped apart one of the C-82’s engines and the wing.

That must've felt like target practice lmao.

The American pilot and Swedish pilot effed up big time, they should've landed in Cairo when they were intercepted the first time and fixed the bleeping radio and submitted a flight plan.  They thought they were dealing with some rag tag and undisciplined air force or something like that because they broke a lot of standard, required protocols and thought they could just get away with flying through Egypt's airspace without any consequences.  They paid the ultimate price for their lack of respect for a sovereign country's airspace, giving the EAF the first MiG-21 kill!

Here's a great oldie.

GarryB wrote:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8jdt-bCf8JpiEMS57ILEjnG-IpW8fhJ6

This is the wings of Russia play list... they are not in order... there are 18 programmes...

BTW I should add that I use Mozila Firefox as my web browser and I have the "Easy Youtube Video Downloader Express", which is free and adds a download button to Youtube pages where you can click on it and choose to download the video.

Means I can download the Wings of Russia videos and watch them any time I like.

I can also download music videos and other videos of interest.

Occasionally Youtube will update their system and it will stop working but the guy who runs the addon usually gets it working again within a few days.

I use the free version but there is a paid version too...

Note: MiG-31 post moved to MiG-31 thread... https://www.russiadefence.net/t1812p875-mig-31bm-interceptor-attack-aircraft-news

Really great story told by an english speaking Russian with all that wonderful Russian sarcasm. When Russia decided to put a BFG on a small ground attack jet.

Hope this in the right place, i've found some initial info on this subject which interests me greatly but wonder if anyone knows more.

Basically after the break-up of USSR and emergence of modern Russia, aircraft deliveries plummeted to practically nothing by the second half of the 1990s.

According to one source the deliveries were 77 aircraft  (not clear if just jets or including helicopters too, another source with slightly different figures seems to show helicopters included) in 1992, 66 planes in 1993, 29 in 1994, 31 in 1995, 19 in 1996, 6 in 1997 and then none (but see below).

From the incomplete info i gathered, in this timeframe there were delivered (not including various prototypes which presumably remained OKB property) the 24 Su-33, 16 MiG-29S (deliveries stopped  after 1992), 5 Su-30, then at least 8 Su-25T/TM and at least 3 Su-35 (Su-27M)? Then there should have been the last of the MiG-31B (deliveries stopped 1994), and some standard Su-27S/P (not clear when deliveries stopped, perhaps 1992-1993, but another article says  8 Su-27s were delivered in 1998 as the last of the standard type). There should have been also a few Tu-160s, possibly even a few Tu-22M3 (production stopped 1993), and then also some transport planes?

If anyone can help with more info than what i have above would be much appreciated. And indeed if there info from 1991 and earlier, that would be great too! I have read that in the 1980s there were as much as 450 planes delivered a year.

mack8 wrote: Hope this in the right place, i've found some initial info on this subject which interests me greatly but wonder if anyone knows more.

Basically after the break-up of USSR and emergence of modern Russia, aircraft deliveries plummeted to practically nothing by the second half of the 1990s.

According to one source the deliveries were 77 aircraft  (not clear if just jets or including helicopters too, another source with slightly different figures seems to show helicopters included) in 1992, 66 planes in 1993, 29 in 1994, 31 in 1995, 19 in 1996, 6 in 1997 and then none (but see below).

From the incomplete info i gathered, in this timeframe there were delivered (not including various prototypes which presumably remained OKB property) the 24 Su-33, 16 MiG-29S (deliveries stopped  after 1992), 5 Su-30, then at least 8 Su-25T/TM and at least 3 Su-35 (Su-27M)? Then there should have been the last of the MiG-31B (deliveries stopped 1994), and some standard Su-27S/P (not clear when deliveries stopped, perhaps 1992-1993, but another article says  8 Su-27s were delivered in 1998 as the last of the standard type). There should have been also a few Tu-160s, possibly even a few Tu-22M3 (production stopped 1993), and then also some transport planes?

If anyone can help with more info than what i have above would be much appreciated. And indeed if there info from 1991 and earlier, that would be great too! I have read that in the 1980s there were as much as 450 planes delivered a year.

see at post No65 of this topic. It might clear some points

They paid the ultimate price for their lack of respect for a sovereign country's airspace, giving the EAF the first MiG-21 kill!

The problem of course is that this was in the middle of the cold war and the CIA and US intelligence and western intelligence in general would use businessmen all the time for their nafarious purposes...

The fact that it briefly turned towards a high security area suggests something...

Of course during the cold war there was the official story that it was an error or it was not a spy plane at all... it was a weather balloon... but the number of western aircraft shot down over the soviet union just after WWII and before they got decent anti aircraft systems working is surprising... many of which flew to support nazi opposition to the commies in the Ukraine... the west will help the devil himself if it suits them...

Thanks George1, very interesting tables no doubt, will come in handy. Although what i'm looking for is post-1990 deliveries, so hopefully someone has more info.

I do have what must be quite accurate numbers for VVS/PVO/DA total aircraft holdings, including units, for i believe the year 1993 in a Naval Institute book on world air forces.