MiG-29 vs F-16

[ACSheva]

Maybe, when you take the weight of the both jets. the 29 is a bigger jet all around. But in the Novalogic 29 game, it can do a loop going about 175knts.

Sheva

[Northax]

So, this is written proof, not just inexperienced people theorizing about these 2 jets' capabilities. The Mig-29 is more agile at low speeds, but the F-16 is more agile at higher speeds. So, which do you think is better in battle? Going fast? Or slow? I think the obvious answer is: Going fast is better for actual battle. Now, if the F-16 is more agile at higher speeds, that means, it's the better jet for actual war. Case closed.

If we want slow aerobatic jets for airshows, then we (the U.S.) can whip out the X-29 jet, F-16 MATV, F-18 HARV, HiMAT, etc. and impress the viewers; however, we like building our jets for REAL COMBAT, to save lives, and take out the enemies at the same time.

[LebaneseAce]

Well.. I think that the latest MiG-29 will prevail.. It is extremely manueverable, and when we are talking about the armament it can fire the 'Archer' missile. It is the deadliest and most accurate short-range missile ever made.

[Viperalltheway]

Not sure at all.. the 9X has better off-boresight capability - 90deg, it is even designed for more than that -. Pk in tests has been close to 100%. And its range is much longer, giving it a short BVR capability.

And it's not the only one that is equivalent or better than the archer.

[Pavel5150]

I love listening to the horse$hit that these MiG and Sukhoi drivers spit out on the "Discovery Wings" documentaries. You might as well write a script and have each pilot say the same thing, over and over again. "Oh, our MiG-29, or Su-37 can out-manuever the F-15 or F-16." "We can do this, that, or the other better than the F-15 or F-16." It's funny though...How many kills of American fighters do they have to show for it? I'll tell you how many. Doughnut baby. Goose Eggs. Balls. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nil. The Eagle and Viper have a combined near 170-0 kill ratio against all Russian-built fighters. Face it folks. We have the better fighters. We have the better pilots, which is the true key here. It really isn't the machine, it's the man flying it, although I would want every advantage a great piece of equipment can give me. Now you can argue about what foreign unit got a simulated kill against an F-15 or F-16 in some horse hockey exercise, but that really doesn't mean squat. Put your money where your mouth is. Put up or shut up. If you get a real, no bull$hit kill against an American fighter, then that is some validation for your performance. But again, the MiG-29 has never achieved a true kill against an American-built fighter, so forgive me if the plane's career combat record doesn't impress me. Sorry if I stepped on any toes there, but religion according to TC dictates that ABC v. XYZ is settled on the battlefield, not at some DACT exercise.

Beers and MiGs (whodathunkit?) were made to be pounded!

Why do Americans get so upset when they see technology that equals or betters what they have. I have no flight experience in F15/16 but many thousands of hours in Mig29 Suk27/and variants and have recently had the good fortune to fly Mig29OVT. The F16/15 ar very fine aircraft with good combat records against countries with pilots that cannot fly and it fills me with sadness to see these planes being flown by such people. On any given day I know what my equipment is capable of and I am quite sure that any American pilot would not want to meet me or one of my fellow pilots in the same piece of sky on a bad day. The match would be more than even except in an OVT. I consider this the most manouverable plane that is currently flying. As for doing a 250Kt loop in a Mig 29? We do this in the OVT at Zero airspeed or at 350kts, it makes no difference. The F16 should turn a lot quicker because it is much smaller but I dont think there is a difference with good pilots. And please remember the Mig 29 is similar in performance to the F/A18 and not the F15/16. As such there is nothing else that compares to it. F16 is a lightweight fighter F15 Air superiority and compares to the Suk27. All are awsome planes and I would fly any of them on any day.

[Raptor_One]

Hi Pavel,

I haven't seen any posts from Russian pilots here. Excellent! I'm pretty sure late model MiG-29s (without thrust vectoring of course) will turn quicker than the F-16 under most situations. Late model F-16s have gotten quite heavy. That being said, they put a multiaxis thrust vectoring nozzle on the F-16 once too (F-16 VISTA/MATV). Had they developed that engine for the F-16 beyond the prototype stage, you'd have some F-16s pulling circus stunts like the MiG-29 OVT at airshows too. Not just that, but thrust vectoring would give the F-16 the ability to fly at higher angles of attack during normal combat maneuvers beyond its 25 degree limit. At least I think that would be the case given the thrust vectoring nozzles ability to add enough downward pitching moment to prevent the F-16 from going into a deep stall above 29-30 degrees angle of attack.

As for American aircraft flown by American pilots engaging Russian aircraft flown by Russian pilots... that's rumored to have happened during the Korean War. But it will be a dark day on Earth if we have a conflict where Russian and American pilots are openly engaged in air combat. It's generally not a good idea for two countries with lots of nuclear weapons to get into direct conflict of any kind. That's why there were so many proxy wars during the cold war. Pavel... I hope you never find out how well you'd do against American aircraft flown by American pilots.

[HunterKiller]

. The F16/15 ar very fine aircraft with good combat records against countries with pilots that cannot fly and it fills me with sadness to see these planes being flown by such people. On any given day I know what my equipment is capable of and I am quite sure that any American pilot would not want to meet me or one of my fellow pilots in the same piece of sky on a bad day.

Salute! I hope we are talking about real RuAF pilot.

There were two actual air combats where Soviet pilots took part. First was Korean War, where most of kills were made by WWII Soviet airmen who's expertise was out of question. But in later stages, using regular pilot school
graduates, US Sabres achived kill ration over 10:1. Interesting thing is that Soviets still claim number of victories that is far larger than number of US jets in theater. US and Soviet jets were more or less equal.

Second air combat happened in 1970 between 8 Israeli Mirage III-s and 4 F-4E Phantoms vs 24 MiG-21MFs at Suez. Soviets had ground radar control support while Israelis did not. Most of combat occured in dogfight range, where MiG-21MF has far better chances than Israelis.

The result was 5 MiG-s shot down (4 in combat and 1 crashed later because of battle damage). Soviets did not achieve a single gun hit! If Israelis were allowed to pursuit Soviets further - I think there would have been some 10 kills, because after some minutes in combat Soviets lost all battle order and started to escape the battle.

So what you say? Again "arab pilots who can not fly"?

The last combat proved well for Egyptians who were constantly accused by soviet advisors about bad skills using good weapons. In real combat Russians proved themself no better

During some months in 1970, entire crack soviet MiG-21 regiment (that is about 30 planes) accounted only 1 IAF Skyhawk damaged and later was revealed that nine pilots lost their lives (that means that there were other combat losses as well).

[Pavel5150]

. The F16/15 ar very fine aircraft with good combat records against countries with pilots that cannot fly and it fills me with sadness to see these planes being flown by such people. On any given day I know what my equipment is capable of and I am quite sure that any American pilot would not want to meet me or one of my fellow pilots in the same piece of sky on a bad day.

Salute! I hope we are talking about real RuAF pilot.

There were two actual air combats where Soviet pilots took part. First was Korean War, where most of kills were made by WWII Soviet airmen who's expertise was out of question. But in later stages, using regular pilot school
graduates, US Sabres achived kill ration over 10:1. Interesting thing is that Soviets still claim number of victories that is far larger than number of US jets in theater. US and Soviet jets were more or less equal.

Second air combat happened in 1970 between 8 Israeli Mirage III-s and 4 F-4E Phantoms vs 24 MiG-21MFs at Suez. Soviets had ground radar control support while Israelis did not. Most of combat occured in dogfight range, where MiG-21MF has far better chances than Israelis.

The result was 5 MiG-s shot down (4 in combat and 1 crashed later because of battle damage). Soviets did not achieve a single gun hit! If Israelis were allowed to pursuit Soviets further - I think there would have been some 10 kills, because after some minutes in combat Soviets lost all battle order and started to escape the battle.

So what you say? Again "arab pilots who can not fly"?

The last combat proved well for Egyptians who were constantly accused by soviet advisors about bad skills using good weapons. In real combat Russians proved themself no better

During some months in 1970, entire crack soviet MiG-21 regiment (that is about 30 planes) accounted only 1 IAF Skyhawk damaged and later was revealed that nine pilots lost their lives (that means that there were other combat losses as well).

Hi, It is interesting that you should pick these two examples of combat. There have been a few other examples of "unofficial" involvement as well. Of course I was talking about recent combat in the middle east where F15/16/18 had been flying against all types of Russian aircraft. I consider these aircraft very poorly maintained and piloted. I also think that one day soon, Russian and American pilots will fly side by side.

PS. My favourite aircraft that I want to fly? A4!!!!!

[HunterKiller]

I hope that you can give some source about this recent combat?

Why i got those examples is the fact that those wars have been studied by many historians and both cases are proven to be true.

All this tell-tale stories like "Indian Su-30s whiped a$$ of USAF F-15s" are just like any other beer stories. Without no proof, without knowing RoE and so on.

There were two nations in former Warsaw Pact, who's expertise about driving MiG-29 has become widely known. Serbs did not manage to make single shot in 1999, most died not knowing where the missile came from. East Germany's MiG-29 "skill" was later thoroughly checked by the German Luftwaffe and their air combat training and tactics were considered poor by even F-4 standards (which generally do not attempt to dogfight. I will say nothing about Iraqi MiG-29-they were too poor to mention. All forces were trained by Soviet standards and used standard soviet tactics.

That was not long ago when one Flanker came down in the middle of Lithuania. Trojanov was reportedly top ranking pilot in VVS?

[CheckSix]

HunterKiller


Are you sure?

To my knowledge having spoken to MiG-29 pilots, german mig-29 first had fly stereotype tactics to be a great target.

When they used their own tactics they became the well known enemy.

Former eastern germany had an the export version of the mig 29 for just about one year, so training was underway.
Btw. soviet MiG-29 had a datalink, you know a contemporary western aircraft with such a device?
Soviet technology may be simple but works reportetly.

[Pilotasso]

Everything I came to know, including pilots in exchange initiatives say the Mig-29 can do manuevers at slow speed the F-16 cannot replicate but on the other hand the F-16 is much more responsive and easier to fly. In BVR F-16 seems to still hold the edge.

In a final analysis once can arrive to the conclusion up close and personal the better pilot will use its plane to its fullest and win, but in BVR the falcon has an edge, not only due to radar tehcnology but also due to missiles.

If you ask me, the bilions of dollars of difference between US and russian dev programs do make a difference on the quality and reliability of their hardware. I have heard often that for example even the RVV-AE engineers admit this missile has disapointing perfomance, and whats more there are also reports that latest PESA and AESA versions of the Zhuk-M and M-AE dont have range and target discrimintaion quality anywhere near the western counterparts.

The indians/russian optimistic claims donne about the delivery of the first Mig-29KUB to india stating that it is superior to every F-16 save block 60 for example is probably BS.

[donk14N]

The MiG 35 going to India, is at best equal to a Block 60. Don't get me wrong, I believe it to be a very potent fighter, but Russia does have a tendency to over exaggerate their aircrafts performance. I was reading an official press release on the MiG 35 (and it's upcoming delivering to India) and they were saying it has 5th generation avionics, advanced AESA radar, ect... It looks to be a very capable fighter in the leagues of a later block Viper, but nothing that a Super Hornet couldn't handle.

[avon1944]

All this tell-tale stories like "Indian Su-30s whiped a$$ of USAF F-15s" are just like any other beer stories. Without no proof, without knowing RoE and so on.

AW&ST did an article which included the ROE's, it totally changes the complexion of the exercise. URL;
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1237790/posts

East Germany's MiG-29 "skill" was later thoroughly checked by the German Luftwaffe and their air combat training and tactics were considered poor by even F-4 standards

True, this was talked about in the Discovery Channel's program, "Red October." Ten USN F/A-18's went to Laage, Germany in Oct 1996 to train with the Luftwaffe's 73rd Fighter Squadron for two weeks. Conversations between F/A-18 pilots and MiG-29 pilots revealed the 73rd squadron's pilots were not able to fly displaying fighter pilot flying skills to the level of which NATO expected. Nor were they able to act to unexpected events without the aid of GCI. So a large percentage of the squadron pilots were let go or washed out.
The program also revealed there are tactics to avoid the Archer!

Adrian

[falcon_sgd]

when we compare 2 things ,we just place them side by side and critically examine every thing related to them...a smaller comparison may be as follows:
1)AIR TO AIR:both crafts r roughly equal
2)AIR TO GROUND:f-16 is far a head.
3)COMBAT HISTORY:f-16s have scored a number of confirmed kills..has mig-29 any or few?
4)PRICE:very clear no need to mention
5)MAINTAINANCE:F-16S r far easier to maintain than migs.
6)SALE HISTORY:due to being cheaper f-16 also prevails this portion.
7)FUTURE:according to my view both planes have to retire but the period of f-16 will be longer...

MORE COMPARISONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED.....
PLEASE COMMENT!

[falcon_sgd]

SWEET PAVEL,
one should `nt be so much boastful...coz the reality is far different than theory...
if u r a russian warrior u will be well aware of it .
HOW MANY RUSSIAN WERE LOST DURING AFGHAN WAR,BETWEEN THE ENGAGEMENTS OF PAKISTAN AIR FORCE AND RUSSIANS?
THE ANSWER IS 9:1
PAKISTANI F-16S MADE 9 CONFIRMED KILLS AND EVEN ONE KILL WITH A 20MM CANNON.
ONE F-16 WAS LOST AND THAT WAS AN OWN GOAL,HIT BY ANOTHER F-16`S SIDEWINDER...
ARE THOSE RUSSIANS WERE NOT TRAINED WELL WHO WERE SENT INTO ANOTHER COUNTRY`S AIRSPACE...