F-16 vs. MiG-31E (Syria)??

TJSmitty · by **TJSmitty** » 21 Jun 2007, 14:24

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,1 ... =dod-bz.nl

Russia is sending MiG-31E's to Syria...might just be sword rattling, but, the MiG-31's could be considered a worthy advisary if somebody get a "wild hair up his butt".

Within Visual range the F-16 wins, hands down, BVR, that wouldn't be a place I'd want to be sitting. If Russian avionics have progressed even at half the pace of ours, they might be a threat. Send some F-22's to fly CAP and let the F-16's go "toe to toe" and they'd (MiG's) be stupid to ever to leave the ground.

If these are "new" MiG's, they would be fighting 10 - 15 year old vipers....

Smitty

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 22 Jun 2007, 04:02

hmmm, the MiG-31 does have a significant avionics setup, not sure about missiles though, does it have ... IIRC R-77? AMRAAMski?

Pilotasso · by **Pilotasso** » 25 Jun 2007, 09:18

R-33, and there are plans for R-37 wich is active version of the 33 (AA-9 AMOS) but the russians have been very quiet about it.

Mig-31 VS F-16 would represent the most dissimilar air combat seen today as both planes have very mismatched capabilities over each others. I would rather put F-15's against the mig preferrably with datalink because the Mig-31 has one since its inception.

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 26 Jun 2007, 04:39

thanks for the correction

lraam · by **lraam** » 20 Feb 2009, 16:47

aa-9 is very deadly for any f-16s if its engaged in BVR combat with foxhounds. In close quarter though Mig-31 stands no chance against the F-16s of any class. Mig-31 doesn't even have the maneuverability of F-4s forget the F-16s

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 21 Feb 2009, 15:36

No, but the MiG would really never have to turn to fight. If the fight got that bad it could just go the other way and there is nothing a Viper could do about it.

andy-v-3 · by **andy-v-3** » 01 Apr 2009, 21:29

well, quite a big gap since the last post... MiG-31E performs quite poor against maneuverable targets. Especially R-33 is very bad against agile fighters, since it can't deal with big accelerations and has a passive seeker. MiG-31BM would perform much better, but not MiG-31E.

skyhigh · by **skyhigh** » 02 Apr 2009, 11:26

The MiG-31E would just light the 'burners and make a run for it if a Viper came WVR.

F16guy · by **F16guy** » 10 Apr 2009, 07:36

To talk hypothetically,

The Viper would do just fine against a MiG-31 BVR if the Viper had Amraams and the MiG-31 had AA-9's.

Now no one should ever discount an adversary because an old out dated plane can still beat a newer "superior" plane because it is about how the pilot flies the plane and not just about the cool avionics and weaponry.

Oh and if the Viper had Amraams with in visual range of the MiG-31... the MiG-31 could not out run them- skyhigh. WVR being defined here as 5nm. Andy-v-3 seems to know quite a bit about the Amos and Foxhound.