PAF F-16 vs MiG-21 - New Evidence

[jedit]

The issue is that none of you blokes, who have extensively detailed the Russian drogue shoot theory or dismissed the article outright, have unfortunately gone through the videos or the photos posted in the piece.

Yes well most will dismiss that blog, as alluded in the post above and for the reasons stated - you can't really blame them.

Yes if this was X and that was Y we could spend a lot of time speculating but still being none the wiser.


Both sides have had public celebrations recently to some extent haven't they with awards for Minty Aggarwal (Yuddh Seva Medal) and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman (Vir Chakra) - not clear if there will be an actual ceremony.

Pakistan seems to have had what looked like a music awards ceremony apart from the audience looks to be mostly military and both pilots with the MiG/Su claims are paraded on stage. They also showed new pictures of both R-73s they claim to have found with the Wing Commanders MiG - with English labels of course (they know their audience ) .

The truth is out there.......maybe

It is definitely out there but even if the truth turns out to be in favor of PAF, you will not be able to convince the Indian side because F16 or the smoke contrails there of is all IAF has to show for 27th Feb. They for sure lost a Mig21 and admitted to shooting down their own Mi17. IAF based their case on radar tracks superimposed on publicly available topography map images shown to media which is only convincing if you want to be convinced that IAF is doing this to bring out the truth and not to save face. PAF from the get go claimed a second jet (Su30) that they claimed landed on the Indian side but they played smart by not even trying to provide similar radar tracks. That reminds me to point you towards the interesting part of that music award ceremony thing where PAF showed video feed from the actual PGM that they landed near the Indian military site.

https://youtu.be/RYLcCzE4WIM?t=588 - skip to 9:51 in case URL doesn't automatically forward you there.

PAF waited 7 months to release this footage while IAF was parading actual metal shards from the AMRAAMs in a live televised press conference the day after the skirmish!
Narrative of superiority of armed forces over Pakistan has been built on the Indian media so definitively over the past decade or so that it is just impossible to accept a numerical loss. It is neutral forums like these that bring a reality check as neutrals pose questions and call out silly claims (from both sides).

[vm]

Its typical that instead of giving proof that the Pakistani army has given the casuality figures for the kargil conflict, you diverted the topic to planes crashed/shot down. Still awaiting the ispr or official figures of the army men Pakistan lost in kargil (4000 pak soldiers dead as per ex PM Nawaz Shariff).

I could similarly divert the topic to the Pakistani atlantique plane shot down by India, killing 16 personnel, including 5 officers, but I won't.

My post just exposed the historical lies inherent in the Pakistani army's statements, right from 1965 to kargil and now this incident. Understandable since pak army is a political organisation.

Also I alluded to video recorded official statements of the Pakistani army spokesperson, who continued contradicting himself for days after the incident.

Remember that your army head and president, gen Musharraf, is in record saying many times that bin laden was not in Pakistan. And now we know the Americans killed him right in the cantonment town of Pakistan, living in a palatial house with scores of his family members, undetected?? . Not very trustworthy the official statements of your army.

[jedit]

Its typical that instead of giving proof that the Pakistani army has given the casuality figures for the kargil conflict, you diverted the topic to planes crashed/shot down. Still awaiting the ispr or official figures of the army men Pakistan lost in kargil (4000 pak soldiers dead as per ex PM Nawaz Shariff).
I could similarly divert the topic to the Pakistani atlantique plane shot down by India, killing 16 personnel, including 5 officers, but I won't.
My post just exposed the historical lies inherent in the Pakistani army's statements, right from 1965 to kargil and now this incident. Understandable since pak army is a political organisation.
Also I alluded to video recorded official statements of the Pakistani army spokesperson, who continued contradicting himself for days after the incident.
Remember that your army head and president, gen Musharraf, is in record saying many times that bin laden was not in Pakistan. And now we know the Americans killed him right in the cantonment town of Pakistan, living in a palatial house with scores of his family members, undetected?? . Not very trustworthy the official statements of your army.

- Burden of proof lies with IAF not Pakistan. If IAF could spot 1 ft holes (that no one else but Indians could see) in tin roof of the Balakot compound they allegedly struck, it must be a cake walk to find an F16 shot down by their pilot, that their soldiers saw going down, and that likely gave a huge smoke trail possibly for hours. Let us see that, its been 7 months!
PAF planes are watched by aviation nerds like many present on this forum and tail numbers of virtually all jets are in public, IAF hasn't been able to categorically say, well viper tail number XYZ went down, flown by this pilot. (Indians allege Pakistanis lynched their own PAF pilot, as if there could be any more absurdity left to add.)

- IAF Chief in what is pretty much his farewell interview to media as Air Chief said that even though he believes a jet went down, he does not have any 'evidence' (irrefutable). Being in charge of this operation, his legacy will probably be based on this operation (way more on the line than a bruised ego of an average Indian aviation fan), yet he simply tones down the rhetoric to "unfortunately we do not have the evidence, we are 100% another air craft went down in that sector and our only Air Craft in the area was Abhinandan (mig21 shot down)". That should be enough to say he doesn't even want to be as categorical as saying it is an F16 because he being so experienced knows way better than to think PAF hid a shot down F16 in plain sight!

https://youtu.be/GAxoAYD-JQs?t=805

He couldn't tone down the rhetoric any bit more or it would simply mean retracting all earlier claims from Govt and IAF itself, can't imagine the shame it would bring. I guess you have more credible information than Air Chief of IAF on the day this happened, so I urge other members to show your claims due respect they have so far denied.

- You did cite Atlantique incident, brave of you. I will not waste more than a sentence to enlighten the unaware here that an IAF Mig 21 jet shot down a Pakistan 'Navy' maritime patrol twin prop aircraft Bréguet 1150 Atlantic in what many say was an unprovoked kill to boost morale of IAF that lost 2 jets and a Mi17 chopper in 1999 Kargil conflict a month earlier vs 0 for PAF. Let's not switch topics though.

- Pakistan 'Army' spokesman's statements do not prove an F16 went down. If a F16 went down, provide the irrefutable evidence, India lost that window, its been 7 months. Case closed, let's not spam forums trying to cite 'new' evidence when its all those videos from the same day showing smoke. I encourage Indians to not make absurd terms like 'tadpole smoke f16' googleable tags linking to Indian blog posts like the one you posted originally.

[eloise]

Indian saw the blip then it vanished but they can't provide physical evidence

I think the false track could be generated by this:

[vm]

Indian saw the blip then it vanished but they can't provide physical evidence

0_P3wgpR_oehMAy4qz.png

I think the false track could be generated by this:

71947424_1121569974698402_9193381289544122368_n.png

I think aliens could have generated the signals.

[eloise]

I think aliens could have generated the signals.

Pakistani F-16s are equipped with ALQ-211
http://www.f-16.net/f-16-news-about-ALQ-211.html

[Corsair1963]

The IAF and PAF account of the 2019 vary, what actually happened? What are popular misunderstandings of it?

We shot a MiG-21 on our side and a Su-30 on their side (which we didn’t claim initially because we already had the MiG-21 pilot in custody and that was enough of a message that we had the superiority). Plus we didn’t want to rub it in their face that we had shot two jets which in turn would escalate the problem. Needless to say, we have the wreckage of MiG-21 with all four missiles intact (hence no shooting of our jets took place) plus our electronic warfare (EW) platforms have all the radio transmissions of the IAF — and it’s a treat to listen to those confused and devastated calls of IAF pilots and controller which the shooting was taking place (IAF do not operate on secure radios so all their RT chatter is easily picked by EW platforms. Plus a MiG-21 in Block zero-one i.e below 20,000 with AA-12 Adder can only dream of getting a missile off rail against targets beyond 20NM (plus the Kopyo radar doesn’t support AA-12 launches beyond 20NM and that too on head-on aspects). Plus the evidence the Indians showed was a AMRAAM piece on their side claiming it was from a F-16 they shot. My simple question: if they found a piece of AMRAAM on their side but no jet attached to it then where did the wreckage go? Duhhh. And for a MiG to launch a missile against an F-16 and get it to A-pole and in the meantime get shot by another jet speaks poorly of the MiG-21’s pilot’s priorities as a fighter pilot. Nobody in their right frame of mind would enter the kill zone being spiked from all side and still continue hot without listening to any controller or formation member. In the intense comm jam environment with non secure radio the poor MiG-21 pilot didn’t receive any threat warnings given by his controller and I’m sure he didn’t have a moving map display telling him he had crossed the border and the comms were being jammed.

Source: https://hushkit.net/2019/07/19/flying-f ... ter-pilot/

[garrya]

Plus a MiG-21 in Block zero-one i.e below 20,000 with AA-12 Adder can only dream of getting a missile off rail against targets beyond 20NM (plus the Kopyo radar doesn’t support AA-12 launches beyond 20NM and that too on head-on aspects).
https://hushkit.net/2019/07/19/flying-f ... ter-pilot/

Good point.
Below 20k ft, AA-12 Adder is limited to 22 km from head on aspect and 5 km from tail on aspect.

RVV-AE@.jpeg (53.88 KiB) Viewed 11063 times

[eloise]

Bravo and a R-73 will lock on to fake Radar Tx because it's ARH missile, not IR guided.

The screen is from AWACS. No R-73 was used

Few salient points regarding article that no one bothered to address
> Author (A Mirage 2000 vet, not just another journalist) proves both crashes happened 50 seconds apart

Just because he is a pilot doesn't mean he isn't bias. Another Indian pilot said Mig-21 is more maneuver than F-16 and he was proven wrong: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1872&start=90

> Both crash sites are 13-17 Km apart.
> Both events happened on Pakistan's side.

R-73 can't fly that far

[garrya]

.
> Both crash sites are 13-17 Km apart.

That is further than R-73 tail chase range.
R-73 engagement envelope from manual:
Head on range on the left hand side, tail chase range on the right hand side.

424CB230-55A8-4441-AC12-04412B68FADA.png (33.94 KiB) Viewed 10514 times

[notafanboy]

The screen is from AWACS. No R-73 was used

IAF stated position is R-73 brought down F-16. PAF says Mig21 didn't fire any R-73 for which i gave the other link.

Just because he is a pilot doesn't mean he isn't bias. Another Indian pilot said Mig-21 is more maneuver than F-16 and he was proven wrong: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1872&start=90

Fair enough. Not uncommon for pilots to vouch for their fighters. It's favoritism.

R-73 can't fly that far

That is further than R-73 tail chase range.
R-73 engagement envelope from manual:
Head on range on the left hand side, tail chase range on the right hand side.

424CB230-55A8-4441-AC12-04412B68FADA.png

The answer to this is in article itself plus once R-73 hit F-16, Mig21 was gunning back towards border/LoC. He intruded in Pak's side because he locked on to F-16. Hence the distance and 50 sec delta t between events.

[garrya]

The answer to this is in article itself plus once R-73 hit F-16, Mig21 was gunning back towards border/LoC. He intruded in Pak's side because he locked on to F-16. Hence the distance and 50 sec delta t between events.

When I wrote tail chase range, I mean maximum engagement envelope from the tail aspect.
Moreover, the diagram I referred to isn't of a generic IR missile but it is the envelope of R-73 itself taken from manual
At altitude of 20k ft, from tail aspect, the maximum engage distance of R-73 is roughly 5 km
This is an enlarged version of that launch envelope.

I read the article but feels too forced like the author has the belief that an F-16 was shot down, he tends to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, by searching for evidence consistent with that belief instead of all relevant pieces of evidence. Sort of confirmatory bias if you will. TBH, some analysis is questionable, such as the tadpole analysis, he said the "Tadpole’ is mathematically calculated to be at a distance of between 37–40 km from, and 8,000 feet higher than the observer" and " height of the Tadpole is calculated as approx. 800–1000 feet" but it wasn't actually explained how they were calculated exactly for the reader to examine the accuracy. Furthermore, his conclusion that the "tadpole" is indeed burning fuel doesn't sound very convincing. For instance, why assume it to be fuel instead of afterburner or missiles launch or flare?.

[notafanboy]

When I wrote tail chase range, I mean maximum engagement envelope from the tail aspect.
Moreover, the diagram I referred to isn't of a generic IR missile but it is the envelope of R-73 itself taken from manual
At altitude of 20k ft, from tail aspect, the maximum engage distance of R-73 is roughly 5 km
This is an enlarged version of that launch envelope.

The attachment R-73.jpg is no longer available

I read the article but feels too forced like the author has the belief that an F-16 was shot down, he tends to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, by searching for evidence consistent with that belief instead of all relevant pieces of evidence. Sort of confirmatory bias if you will. TBH, some analysis is questionable, such as the tadpole analysis, he said the "Tadpole’ is mathematically calculated to be at a distance of between 37–40 km from, and 8,000 feet higher than the observer" and " height of the Tadpole is calculated as approx. 800–1000 feet" but it wasn't actually explained how they were calculated exactly for the reader to examine the accuracy. Furthermore, his conclusion that the "tadpole" is indeed burning fuel doesn't sound very convincing. For instance, why assume it to be fuel instead of afterburner or missiles launch or flare?.

One basic look and rough calculation tells me that in proportional navigation we can assume jet taking periphery of circle while missile takes straight route between fire and explosion points i.e, for missile taking 2r distance, jet flies pi*r (half circumference of circle) distance. That in itself gives 1.5x range (not that its point of argument here)

Author hasn't pinpointed loss of F-16 just for the sake of it. What are the chances that RADAR track of F-16 vanishes at two distinct RADAR monitoring systems at same time when Mig 21 fires R73, two jets go down in Pak at distinct places and time, Pak acknowledging arrest of two pilots and then altogether denies using F-16 while India shows wreckage of AIM 120 C-5?

Crashed jet can be JF-17 etc for all author cares but he maintains two jets crashed in Pak and rest circumstantial evidence points to F-16.


P.S:

Here is Pakistani story broken few days back

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1181574970973003776

[basher54321]

What are the chances that RADAR track of F-16 vanishes at two distinct RADAR monitoring systems

Where did the IAF state the exact composition of the radar track they presented? I have seen that they stated both AWACs and (unknown number of) ground radars involved but not what the track was actually made up of.

One thing bothering me since this began has been the presentation of technology as being infallible and not subject to issues including EW/SigInt.


The Brazilian may have a point regarding the serial no on the R-73 and generally makes a good attempt to match up the photos. I don't see him mention that the photos/videos do not necessarily show the entire MiG crash site.

[garrya]

One basic look and rough calculation tells me that in proportional navigation we can assume jet taking periphery of circle while missile takes straight route between fire and explosion points i.e, for missile taking 2r distance, jet flies pi*r (half circumference of circle) distance. That in itself gives 1.5x range (not that its point of argument here)

To start with, proportional navigation doesn't mean the missle will fly a direct path to target,a BVR missile will fly ballistic arcs and still use lead navigation. To elaborate, proportional/lead navigation only means the missile will fly toward the future location of the aircraft instead of its current location.

lead.PNG (50.63 KiB) Viewed 11527 times

Furthermore, the radar will only tell you the direct distance between your aircraft and your enemy rather than the distance the enemy have flown. What I meant is that radar will let you know the current direct distance between the two aircraft, represented by the green line in the photo below, this is also what shown on his HUD, rather than the distance that enemy traveled represented by the red curve.

radar distance.jpg (31.5 KiB) Viewed 11527 times

Moreover, the engagement diagram is not supposed to show the maximum fly distance of R-73, it supposed to represent the maximum distance that the pilot can take a shot and that missile can reach the target. The pilot doesn't have to care what trajectory the missile will take, the manual only need to tell him at what range he can launch his missile and that missile can reach target before it falls down from the sky.
To sum up, the distance that the jets fly in your calculation was never a part of consideration.

Here is Pakistani story broken few days back
https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1181574970973003776

This is how we feel about the alleged F-16 shootdown