Posted on 01/30/2010 7:57:47 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Nearly three miles above the turquoise waters of the South China Sea last July, U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Dan Shipley eyed the dim outline of a fast-approaching Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum. Flying with the Royal Malaysian Air Force on a training mission, Shipley had been tracking the MiG by radar from the cockpit of his Boeing F/A-18D Hornet. While Shipley and Captain Justin Archibald, the Hor-net’s weapons and sensors officer, could have tried to simulate firing an air-to-air missile at the MiG from a distance, the war game required that the two confirm with their eyes that the MiG really was a MiG, and not a friendly military aircraft or an unarmed civilian airplane.
The Hornet and MiG rocketed past each other at a combined velocity of nearly 1,000 mph, granting each side a clear, albeit fleeting, view of the opposing jet. Both fighter pilots banked hard, each trying to maneuver into position first and stay there long enough to make the other one fall victim to an air-to-air missile or a volley of cannon rounds.
The MiG went nose-high, its pilot relying on the Fulcrum’s superior thrust-to-weight ratio to vertically outrun the Hornet. Anticipating this, Shipley had pulled the Hornet’s nose up and torqued the jet inside the trajectory of the MiG, a maneuver generating 6.8 Gs. Fifteen seconds and two high-G turns later, with the tail of the MiG directly ahead and the distinctive squeal in his headset telling him the infrared seeker in one of the Hornet’s missiles had a lock, Shipley squeezed a red trigger on his control stick, sending a signal to fire. Forty-five seconds into the engagement, the Hornet’s mission computer confirmed a simulated kill.
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
Radius fight vs. an F-18? Not a great gameplan.
Great article...aggh. DAMN that must be exciting to dogfight in one of those things with an evenly matched opponent.
Don’t knock the Russians.. You wouldn’t want to get in a close contact dog fight with this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAF2Q32zURo
Airshow tricks are one thing, actual combat another.
Our boys had to “fight” with one hand tied behind their back because of visual ID rules during an exercise. They would have smoked that plane before it knew what was happening if they were engaged in actual combat.
Our planes are designed to avoid the “close contact dog fight”. I had a pilot tell me once that if he got into a dogfight he eff’d up.
Only fools fight fair.
Exactly. A "fair fight" means a fair chance of dying. A "good" air-to-air engagement resembles an assassination more than a boxing match - and we want it that way. We want our pilots finishing their missions, we want our pilots and aircraft returning to base. If the other guy dies before he even knows he's engaged, tough luck. Being a good sport is just that - for sports.
>>Only fools fight fair.<<
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I like that expression — it is a complete description of the GOP.
Look at 36 to 50 or so seconds in the vid, that’s a great visual demonstration of the effect of the Migs detection by the Hornet.
Isn’t this the “super plane” the ruskis had 2 of them crash at one airshow?
F-22 v.s that...wussup wit dat!
ping
One of the greatest hazards for the Hornets during Air Warrior came from a virtually invisible source: FOD—foreign object debris. A close inspection of the Kuantan flightline reveals chunks of broken concrete every few feet. Most of the pieces are pebble size, but even a paper clip, if sucked into an intake, can destroy the turbine blades of a Hornet’s engines, grounding the craft. Each day of Air Warrior, the Marines spent time doing “FOD sweeps,” shoulder-to-shoulder walks to scan the pavement for debris.
MiG-29s, on the other hand, have special engine intake louvers that block foreign objects, so the Malaysians don’t rank FOD removal nearly as high in priority as U.S. aviation units do.
Since I watch “Dogfights” I now know have a much better appreciation of that. :)
I wonder how her Muslim subordinates like taking orders from a woman?
Now, the Mig cannot win against the old F-15. Even a young inexperienced pilot can easily beat a Mig-29 in an Eagle. Mainly because of the massive power and superior thrust to weight ratio. Add to that, the incredible maneuverability and agile slow flight characteristics of the F-15.
My nephew (Who now flies an F-22) went against the Navy's best Top-Gun program instructors, them in F-18’s and him in an F-15E. He beat them hands down. After defeating them one on one, they ganged up on him 2 to 1 and he beat them again. He said it was easy. All he had to do was force them to push the limits of their limited flight and climb performance as well as several proven tricks he had learned during actual combat dog fights. (Desert Storm)
What he can do in the Raptor is classified but surely well suited for a pilot like Lt Col. P’.
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In a proper fight, as opposed to “fair”, an E-2C or E-3 would have done most of the heavy lifting (radar work) from a couple hundred miles away. Datalink to the F-18s (in EMCON status, of course), and away the AMRAAMs go. MiGs gone.
Exactly. Assets, force multipliers, and you’re even familiar with EMCON. Sweet!
I spent way too much time with computer Harpoon many years ago. Grew up a military brat, always interested in military hardware/history/capabilities. Survived history in grade school and college by linking together the wars, which I generally already knew.
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