IAF to keep MiG-21 until 2019

rugved

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Who cares if the military thinks otherwise, in the end the military is subservient to the govt and obeys its orders. History will judge us as weak country, which is scared of war. It wont say military was strong and govt was weak and all that crap.. it will just record that India was a weak country which got slowly eaten up, and time and again got b!tch slapped by its much smaller and weaker neighbor using just their irregulars.

In the end the weapons wont be used to protect what its intended for. A weapon which fails to perform what its intended for makes it an useless weapon!
You're right about who in history will care and not care about what the citizens and the defence forces of a country thought and not thought about a rouge nation; but we are not pakistan. We don't have two parallel governments as theirs---the actual political government and the military government, which is why we can proudly say that there will never be a government overthrow in India through a military coup.
 

Armand2REP

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got any proof of the flight hours left in remaining in Mig-21s? Who told you they will all be grounded after first week of combat?
IAF did when they wanted them phased out in 2017. A MiG-21 fresh off the line is only certified for 2400 hrs.

can you say the same about remaining Mirage fighters in french Airforce?
M2000 frame is certified to 5000hrs so it lasts considerably longer than the ancient MiG-21.

If IAf Mirage-2000s which are more than two decades old and being upgraded at a cost of 40 million a plane , and good enough to serve till 2030 , then why are you questioning the Bison upgrade program which did the same for Bisons?
Because the upgrade is only half as effective.
 

Waffen SS

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I personally see no pint why IAF decided to buy MiG 21. This plane is of Soviet Origin.

Soviet Union had a fear of getting attacked by West Europe, Alaska and Japan based B 52 strategic bombers to counter this they needed a short range supersonic interceptor it is MiG 21. India had no chance of getting attacked by heavy bombers, we did not need Mig 21 at all.

Apart from MiG 21's supersonic speed it is useless.

It's armament is either 2 500 Kg bomb or 2 medium range AAM or 4 short range AAM plus 1 23 mm nose mounted cannon with 80 rounds and range was 1200 Km only. At least in 1 case in 1971 war an IAF pilot ran out of oil returning to airbase and jumped, the MiG 21 crashed.:tsk:

We should have acquired French Mirage 3.

It was better than MiG 21, it's speed was Mach 2.2,

Armament was 2 30 mm DEFA cannon with 125 rounds each, ability 2 carry drop tank(250 liters)or 2 SNEB air to ground attack rockets(68 mm) pods, 19 rockets in each pod. 2 AAMs and up to 4000 kg bomb load in 5 external hard points or even nukes :hail::wave:

This plane was Israeli air force's main plane in operation Moked 1967, this plane performed very well both in air to air combat and ground attack role.

It was wrong decision to buy MiG 21.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/mirage.html

http://www.amazon.com/Mirage-III-MiG-21-1967-Duel-ebook/dp/B0080WX3GS

It is good book, I would like to read it.



Operation Moked, animated.
 
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p2prada

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IAF did when they wanted them phased out in 2017. A MiG-21 fresh off the line is only certified for 2400 hrs.
Mig-21 pilots fly 220 sorties a year. The 2400 hours is effectively good for 20 years at that rate. The 1000 odd hours adds 10 years to the list.

You should read up on American life extension methods. The F-15C is being tested for 18000 hours in comparison, the F-15E for 32000 hours. Pushing the Mig-21's life for another 1000 hours is possible.

I personally see no pint why IAF decided to buy MiG 21. This plane is of Soviet Origin.
It was practically free.
 

Armand2REP

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Mig-21 pilots fly 220 sorties a year. The 2400 hours is effectively good for 20 years at that rate. The 1000 odd hours adds 10 years to the list.
Upgradation started in 1996 and ended in 2003. Your average ten years was up a long time ago.

You should read up on American life extension methods. The F-15C is being tested for 18000 hours in comparison, the F-15E for 32000 hours. Pushing the Mig-21's life for another 1000 hours is possible.
If obsolecence is no object, an airframe could be extended indefinitely. The question isn't what could be, the question is, what is and the answer is IAF MiG-21s are or soon past certified flight times. Continuing to fly the flying coffin is a death sentence.
 

W.G.Ewald

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The last time I read on this subject, the year was 2015. Now it is pushed out to 2019? Not good. The precedent is set and it may be extended past 2019.
 

fulcrum

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You're right about who in history will care and not care about what the citizens and the defence forces of a country thought and not thought about a rouge nation; but we are not pakistan. We don't have two parallel governments as theirs---the actual political government and the military government, which is why we can proudly say that there will never be a government overthrow in India through a military coup.
You missed my point. sigh.. never mind. :}

Most of the problems associated with mig-21 is due to engines not with air frame.

In fact if you look at the crash data for the past decade in IAF almost an equal percentage of Mig-29s( which have two engines and newer than the Mig-21s ) also crashed along the MIgs. there are strict regulation governing air frame in IAf which wont allow unfit airframe to take to the skies.
It was wrongly diagnosed as the engine. The real cause was the fuel pumps which was acquired cheap from ex-soviet states with poor quality. They cause most of the crashes, and in the initial years IAF mistook that for a engine malfunction or a flame-out.

Almost an equal percentage?
Mirage-2000
49 + 10 - 10 = 49 (crash % = 17%)

MiG-29
73 - 12 = 61 (crash % = 16%)

It's even better than Mirage-2000.

And to my knowledge the last 2 MiG-29 crashes were due to pilot error.
Even the MiG-29 crashed by chibber{not of the last 2 mentioned above}, the pilot who locked on to 2 F-16s during the kargil war was due to spacial dis-orientation.. a.k.a accident due to pilot.
And in contrast, the last 2 mirage crashes were due to aircraft malfunction, which crashed in a gap of just 10 days.


Soviet Union had a fear of getting attacked by West Europe, Alaska and Japan based B 52 strategic bombers to counter this they needed a short range supersonic interceptor it is MiG 21. India had no chance of getting attacked by heavy bombers, we did not need Mig 21 at all.

Apart from MiG 21's supersonic speed it is useless.
Oi oi.. where do you get your info from? The USAF and the USN phantoms got their rears kicked in close combat by the MiG-21 in vietnam. MiG-21 is a very maneuverable plane and the Americans didnt have anything to counter it effectively in close combat. It was because of the MiG-21 that the US abandoned the 'bulky fighter with MRAAM concept' and put out a RFP for a light weight fighter program to counter the "Nimble migs" -> their own words. The result of that is the F-16. It's no surprise that the F-16 which was designed specifically for dogfighting the MiG-21, using MiG-21s 'energy fight' doctrine drilled into its design, and refining it.. one of the reason why the F-16 has a high wing loading, and was designed as an Air superiority fighter, not a multi-role fatty it has become in the recent years. And because of that, the F-16 didnt have any long range missile capability, and was only equipped with Aim-9 missiles. Only after the cold war ended did the F-16 get MRAAM capability.

And ofcourse, I'm not going to go about the MiG-21 vs the Star-fighter encounter which happened right here, everyone knows about that.
The PAF, during the 1971 war, in fear of losing their Mirages, didnt even scramble them when MiG-21s were routinely bombing the crap out of them during the last few days of the war.

Its a shame such a plane is not looked after properly by lazy **** at HAL with their 'govt job' attitude.

Even today, the MiG-21 beats the fabled LCA, in Thrust to weight ratio, climb rate, G tolerance and Max speed. And this was a plane which first flew in 1955, almost 60 years ago. And if i may say.. also radar, and long range and short range missiles and guns.. because even today LCA doesnt have a r-73 slaved to its radar, has never fired a MRAAM, and its guns are non-existant.

The MiG-29 took a different approach, and junked the 'energy fight' doctrine in favor of turn fight. Because they argued, short range missiles will be the norm of dogfights in the future, not the guns, and made the airframe extremely maneuverable with low wing loading and as a consequence, higher drag. Because its much easier to shoot a missile down the tail pipe of an energy fighter which is doing knife attacks showing its rear to you. However, the MiG-29 due to its superior thurst to weight ratio can be employed as an energy fighter as well against the F-16.

Upgradation started in 1996 and ended in 2003. Your average ten years was up a long time ago.
Read the news source I posted before.

Free ! how come ?
We paid for them with tea, coffee, wheat and other agricultural produce, and the rest with Indian rupees, not foreign exchange. The Soviet union was extremely generous. They even subsidized them for us, out of their pockets. Try doing that with the rip-off french charging 2.5 million for a missile and 40-45 million dollars for an upgrade.
 
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Defcon 1

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@fulcrum

Can you please explain how does high wing loading helps in dogfighting? Shouldn't high wing loading result in lesser lift being generated in comparison to weight? Thanks
 
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fulcrum

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^ I just added the MiG-29 paragraph. Check it out. :}

Higher wing loading coupled with a non-delta airframe means you bleed less energy while turning. So you dont lose energy as much as your opponent while turning to get behind his rear to fire your guns or missiles. However you can compensate for the loss in energy with a superior thrust to weight ratio, which is what the MiG-29 does.
 

fulcrum

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Ofcourse what i said above is just simplifying a very complex answer. As you pointed out, lift is nothing but useful drag. If you increase your wing loading too much then you end up with a shitty fighter like the star-fighter which doesnt even produce much lift and cant even turn. There has to be a balance in everything. Also fighters like the MiG-21 in comparison to the F-16, has a high wing loading coupled with a thin airfoil and hence cant turn compared to the F-16. Plus its delta bleeds energy. Also it has a lower thrust to weight ratio compared to the F-16. F-16 took the MiG-21 fighting doctrine and extremely polished it to perfection. I said extremely because, the engineers at Lockheed junked no less than 49 F-16 prototype fuselages to achieve that perfection.
How many protoypes of tejas do we have? :p Not comparing, just pointing out the enormous resources of the U.S Military Industrial Complex.

So fighters like the F-16 will have a good STR[sustained turn rate], but a poor ITR[instantaneous turn rate] because it is less maneuverable{compared to its 4th generation rivals}.

Rough approximation off the top of my mind.

STR
F-15 ~ Su-27S > F-16 ~ MiG-29 > Mirage-2000 ~ Su-30MKI

ITR
Su-30MKI > Mirage-2000 ~ MiG-29 ~ Su-27S > F-16 > F-15

Things which enhance the STR are high G tolerance, high Thrust to weight ratio, low Drag{non delta wing and reasonable high wing loading[not too high like the star-fighter, not too low like the MiG-29}.

Things which enhance the ITR are G tolerance, Low wing loading and delta airframes, and most importantly the single most ITR enhancing entity, the Thrust vectoring Engines.

Practically, STR is useful for Guns dogfights while ITR is for missile dogfights. Energy fighting is an old way of dogfighting, which got drilled into the Americans through their fear of the MiG-21s.
 

roma

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You missed my point. sigh.. never mind. :}


It was wrongly diagnosed as the engine. The real cause was the fuel pumps which was acquired cheap from ex-soviet states with poor quality. They cause most of the crashes, and in the initial years IAF mistook that for a engine malfunction or a flame-out.

Almost an equal percentage?
Mirage-2000
49 + 10 - 10 = 49 (crash % = 17%)

MiG-29
73 - 12 = 61 (crash % = 16%)

It's even better than Mirage-2000.

And to my knowledge the last 2 MiG-29 crashes were due to pilot error.
Even the MiG-29 crashed by chibber{not of the last 2 mentioned above}, the pilot who locked on to 2 F-16s during the kargil war was due to spacial dis-orientation.. a.k.a accident due to pilot.
And in contrast, the last 2 mirage crashes were due to aircraft malfunction, which crashed in a gap of just 10 days.



Oi oi.. where do you get your info from? The USAF and the USN phantoms got their rears kicked in close combat by the MiG-21 in vietnam. MiG-21 is a very maneuverable plane and the Americans didnt have anything to counter it effectively in close combat. It was because of the MiG-21 that the US abandoned the 'bulky fighter with MRAAM concept' and put out a RFP for a light weight fighter program to counter the "Nimble migs" -> their own words. The result of that is the F-16. It's no surprise that the F-16 which was designed specifically for dogfighting the MiG-21, using MiG-21s 'energy fight' doctrine drilled into its design, and refining it.. one of the reason why the F-16 has a high wing loading, and was designed as an Air superiority fighter, not a multi-role fatty it has become in the recent years. And because of that, the F-16 didnt have any long range missile capability, and was only equipped with Aim-9 missiles. Only after the cold war ended did the F-16 get MRAAM capability.

And ofcourse, I'm not going to go about the MiG-21 vs the Star-fighter encounter which happened right here, everyone knows about that.
The PAF, during the 1971 war, in fear of losing their Mirages, didnt even scramble them when MiG-21s were routinely bombing the crap out of them during the last few days of the war.

Its a shame such a plane is not looked after properly by lazy **** at HAL with their 'govt job' attitude.

Even today, the MiG-21 beats the fabled LCA, in Thrust to weight ratio, climb rate, G tolerance and Max speed. And this was a plane which first flew in 1955, almost 60 years ago. And if i may say.. also radar, and long range and short range missiles and guns.. because even today LCA doesnt have a r-73 slaved to its radar, has never fired a MRAAM, and its guns are non-existant.

The MiG-29 took a different approach, and junked the 'energy fight' doctrine in favor of turn fight. Because they argued, short range missiles will be the norm of dogfights in the future, not the guns, and made the airframe extremely maneuverable with low wing loading and as a consequence, higher drag. Because its much easier to shoot a missile down the tail pipe of an energy fighter which is doing knife attacks showing its rear to you. However, the MiG-29 due to its superior thurst to weight ratio can be employed as an energy fighter as well against the F-16.


Read the news source I posted before.


We paid for them with tea, coffee, wheat and other agricultural produce, and the rest with Indian rupees, not foreign exchange. The Soviet union was extremely generous. They even subsidized them for us, out of their pockets. Try doing that with the rip-off french charging 2.5 million for a missile and 40-45 million dollars for an upgrade.
Bro,
you obviously know your stufff - and reading your post - i was inclined to take a different view

but please in that case just enlighten us ( me ) on just one point

why in that case have the flying coffins been so strongly linked to the indian mig21's ?
why have we lost so many of our precious pilots
more than any nation on this earth
more ( if im not mistaken ) than we lost in all wars with pak combined ?
just because of this one model of plane
which you so strongly recommend ?
are all pilot error ? - we have such lousy pilots
whooo i have been mistaken all this while
i though we had among the best in the world !

( as a reference point, just to let you know ....in fact i tend to agree with
frenchman armand above - that structurally mig21 is past it's operational lifetime )

and please dont be too harsh in your answer
i hereby declare that im a military technology know nothing !
( i only mostly post on strategic and financial topics not specific technology )

besides being a woman ! :namaste:
 
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p2prada

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Upgradation started in 1996 and ended in 2003. Your average ten years was up a long time ago.
At the time of the upgrade contract the Mig-21 Bis was 10 years old. The actual upgrade of the Mig-21s actually happened in 2001 and completed in 2003. Until 2001 only two Bis aircraft were converted to Bison standards.

So 1985-2003 was nearly 18 years. The upgrade pushed Mig-21s life by another 10 years. In 2006 Mig-21s underwent structural tests where IAF wanted an extra 1600 hours, but NAL said the aircraft are good for only 1000 more hours. So, the Bisons are good to go for another 10 years from the date of the article. A phase out from 2017-2019 is achievable for the aircraft.

Of course, I don't know how they will push it past 2017-19 and into 2025. It looks like that push to 2025 is simply fake news.

10-yr breather: MiG-21 can fly 1,000 hrs extra - Times Of India

Free ! how come ?
Soft loans.

Mirage-III was a competitor. SU sweetened the offer very generously and we bought it.
 

ersakthivel

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^ I just added the MiG-29 paragraph. Check it out. :}

Higher wing loading coupled with a non-delta airframe means you bleed less energy while turning. So you dont lose energy as much as your opponent while turning to get behind his rear to fire your guns or missiles. However you can compensate for the loss in energy with a superior thrust to weight ratio, which is what the MiG-29 does.
Still a high wing loading hornet will never get behind a low wing loading delta like RAFALE or TYPHOON to fire the missile in a dog fight.

Despite being a low wing loading fighter RAFALE and typhoon and will get behind Hornet as they lose no energy in turns.

The reason this problem of low wing loading deltas bleeding energy in turns belong to the Mirage-2000 Vs F-16 era and it has been rectified with lift inducing vortex generating canards or levcons or LREX and cranked or compound delta addition.

result is due to the formation of lift inducing vortices above the wing due to this contraption pressure substantially drops above the wing leading to substantially improved lift to drag ratios resulting in equivalent sustained turn rates for cranked or canard deltas.

Thats why even the Russians who make traditionally high wing loading Su-30 s too have shifted to low wing loading LEVCON assisted deltas in PAKFA.

f-22 , J-20 too follows on that with compound delta planform which is pretty much norm for these days.

The advantage is these new deltas get better STR and at the same time higher ITR which is forte of low wing loading deltas and helps immensely in launching high off bore WVR missiles with a better nose pointing ability.

The high subsonic and trans sonic flight profiles of deltas are considerably better for low wing loading deltas than for high wing loading fighters.
 
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ersakthivel

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If Indian leaders wet their pants to even face pakistan when they are constantly provoking us and occupying our heights, do you really think we have the guts to take on China? When China comes and occupies our land, our leaders will say its just a "pimple" like before and concentrate on improving economy. Afterall, the more the economy improves, the more wealth there is which they can loot and stock overseas. Fighting a war means more work for our ****** leaders and less loot.

Instead of spending money on costly toys which will never be used[read rafale], like you said, IAF should be stomped on their ass repeatedly and be given just the LCA.
galloping down the himalayan barrier and occupying Indian lands and holding them is impossible for china even if the Indian army is not around.

Even helicopters will find it hard to fly across Himalayas in most of the time.

if at all a pared down 40 or 60 LCA s were accepted in 2004 conditions situation may not have been that desperate for IAf.
 

p2prada

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The last time I read on this subject, the year was 2015. Now it is pushed out to 2019? Not good. The precedent is set and it may be extended past 2019.
It is not entirely accurate.

The time given at first was 2014-2017. Now it should still be 2014-2019. Actually I don't know if it is still 2014. Overall there was an advancement of 2 years, not 4.

-----------------

Hmm, most of the questions have been answered by fulcrum. Looks like I am not needed here.

*Goes and sits quietly in the corner.
 

ersakthivel

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Ofcourse what i said above is just simplifying a very complex answer. As you pointed out, lift is nothing but useful drag. If you increase your wing loading too much then you end up with a shitty fighter like the star-fighter which doesnt even produce much lift and cant even turn. There has to be a balance in everything. Also fighters like the MiG-21 in comparison to the F-16, has a high wing loading coupled with a thin airfoil and hence cant turn compared to the F-16. Plus its delta bleeds energy. Also it has a lower thrust to weight ratio compared to the F-16. F-16 took the MiG-21 fighting doctrine and extremely polished it to perfection. I said extremely because, the engineers at Lockheed junked no less than 49 F-16 prototype fuselages to achieve that perfection.
How many protoypes of tejas do we have? :p Not comparing, just pointing out the enormous resources of the U.S Military Industrial Complex.

So fighters like the F-16 will have a good STR[sustained turn rate], but a poor ITR[instantaneous turn rate] because it is less maneuverable{compared to its 4th generation rivals}.

Rough approximation off the top of my mind.

STR
F-15 ~ Su-27S > F-16 ~ MiG-29 > Mirage-2000 ~ Su-30MKI

ITR
Su-30MKI > Mirage-2000 ~ MiG-29 ~ Su-27S > F-16 > F-15

Things which enhance the STR are high G tolerance, high Thrust to weight ratio, low Drag{non delta wing and reasonable high wing loading[not too high like the star-fighter, not too low like the MiG-29}.

Things which enhance the ITR are G tolerance, Low wing loading and delta airframes, and most importantly the single most ITR enhancing entity, the Thrust vectoring Engines.

Practically, STR is useful for Guns dogfights while ITR is for missile dogfights. Energy fighting is an old way of dogfighting, which got drilled into the Americans through their fear of the MiG-21s.

If the fuel pumps from SU was the reason for crash how come the Su-30 which too have pumps from russia does well?

Are you insisting that IAF was unable to change sub standard pumps for two decades after the collapse of SU?

carrying a low primitive weapon load of 2 tons for less than half the range of tejas with a low radar detection range of 50 Km makes Mig-21 equal to LCA!!!!!!!!! News to me. if it is so why did IAF and IN combined gave order for 200 LCAs?

Mid-21s have fatal design flaws too which make them lose their stability once 2 /3 rds of its fuel is emptied right from the start.

Please write the thrust to weight ratios of both Mig -21 and tejas for comparison.

The lesser G limit on tejas was due to IAF bringing up specs on tejas other wise it would have achieved 9Gs.
 
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fulcrum

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Bro,
you obviously know your stufff - and reading your post - i was inclined to take a different view

but please in that case just enlighten us ( me ) on just one point

why in that case have the flying coffins been so strongly linked to the indian mig21's ?
why have we lost so many of our precious pilots
more than any nation on this earth
more ( if im not mistaken ) than we lost in all wars with pak combined ?
just because of this one model of plane
which you so strongly recommend ?
are all pilot error ? - we have such lousy pilots
whooo i have been mistaken all this while
i though we had among the best in the world !

( as a reference point, just to let you know ....in fact i tend to agree with
frenchman armand above - that structurally mig21 is past it's operational lifetime )

and please dont be too harsh in your answer
i hereby declare that im a military technology know nothing !
( i only mostly post on strategic and financial topics not specific technology )

besides being a woman !
We all learn. No one knows everything. : )

1] MiG-21 is a difficult aircraft to fly is the one reason. Unlike other aircraft, it does not exhibit the phenomenon of stalling{massive vibrations}. So there is no physical warning for the pilot of the approaching stall. And once stall sets in, your MiG-21 usually drops like a brick with little chance of recovery. So pilots should be well trained in the unforgiving aircraft. It does not forgive mistakes. Using this as a training aircraft with rookie pilots in them means adding fuel to the fire.

2] After the soviet union collapsed, the spares just stopped abruptly because they didnt have money to keep the MiG-21 spares production open{they retired the MiG-21 years ago, so it was not an active aircraft for them}. We bought spares from ex-soviet states excluding russia, which were very poor in quality. As a result mid-air failure of components.

3] With age, an aircraft requires more maintenance, more frequent overhaul and basically looked after more often. HAL with its incompetent attitude of sub-par maintenance and manufacturing sealed the fate.

4] Our every hungry reporters looking for a story and catchy phrases came up or rather copied the "flying coffin" tag from the western media when it described the star-fighter.

Basically MiG-21 is a victim of circumstances. Ask any vietnam war vet or a Russian pilot of that plane and they will give a different account and slam us for for giving it a bad name.

Still a high wing loading hornet will never get behind a low wing loading delta like RAFALE or TYPHOON to fire the missile in a dog fight.

Despite being a low wing loading fighter RAFALE and typhoon and will get behind Hornet as they lose no energy in turns.

The reason this problem of low wing loading deltas bleeding energy in turns belong to the Mirage-2000 Vs F-16 era and it has been rectified with lift inducing vortex generating canards or levcons or LREX and cranked or compound delta addition.

result is due to the formation of lift inducing vortices above the wing due to this contraption pressure substantially drops above the wing leading to substantially improved lift to drag ratios resulting in equivalent sustained turn rates for cranked or canard deltas.

Thats why even the Russians who make traditionally high wing loading Su-30 s too have shifted to low wing loading LEVCON assisted deltas in PAKFA.

f-22 , J-20 too follows on that with compound delta planform which is pretty much norm for these days.

The advantage is these new deltas get better STR and at the same time higher ITR which is forte of low wing loading deltas and helps immensely in launching high off bore WVR missiles with a better nose pointing ability.

The high subsonic and trans sonic flight profiles of deltas are considerably better for low wing loading deltas than for high wing loading fighters.
I agree. Like I said, that was just simplifying a complex answer. Indeed, delta-canards and cranked deltas solves this issue because you dont have to increase your Angel of attack too much to turn more, which inturn means you save energy. However it has a draw back. Canards and crank-Deltas creates massive drag in the high supersonic flight regimes. The reason why these planes don't reach the speed of a MiG-29, Su-27 or a F-15{2.3, 2.3 and 2.5 respectively}. The reason why the Su-30MKI has a poor max-speed of only 1.9. Bad for scramble missions and Intercept missions where speed is crucial. They don't even reach a single engined F-16s speed of Mach 2.1. Lets see if levcons are the solution to this problem. Too early to tell although the signs are they are the solution.

Su-30s are generically low wing loading planes, not high{although compared to the Su-27 they are high wing loaded because of their increased empty weight, but they fall in the low wing loading category.}. They just have a poor thrust to weight ratio compared to the MiG-29, the reason why their STR is poorer than the fulcrums.

galloping down the himalayan barrier and occupying Indian lands and holding them is impossible for china even if the Indian army is not around.

Even helicopters will find it hard to fly across Himalayas in most of the time.
They wont come deep where their logistics wont be able to sustain them. But they can still occupy a significant amount of our land to humiliate us.

If the fuel pumps from SU was the reason for crash how come the Su-30 which too have pumps from russia does well?

Are you insisting that IAF was unable to change sub standard pumps for two decades after the collapse of SU?

carrying a low primitive weapon load of 2 tons for less than half the range of tejas with a low radar detection range of 50 Km makes Mig-21 equal to LCA!!!!!!!!! News to me. if it is so why did IAF and IN combined gave order for 200 LCAs?

Mid-21s have fatal design flaws too which make them lose their stability once 2 /3 rds of its fuel is emptied right from the start.

Please write the thrust to weight ratios of both Mig -21 and tejas for comparison.

The lesser G limit on tejas was due to IAF bringing up specs on tejas other wise it would have achieved 9Gs.
Exactly. Su-30 has fuel pumps from Russia{or does it? I think HAL has got more ToT on the Su-30s than they did with the MiG-21s, so probably they are manufactured in-house} while MiG-21 got their fuel pumps from non-Russian ex-soviet states. Russia just stopped their production.

Yup. Just replace IAF with HAL. They indeed are incompetant to even reverse engineer a fuel pump. Even now we buy critical spares which HAL cannot manufacture from other non-russian ex-soviet states.

Losing stability is an exaggeration. The Center of Gravity changes on Low fuel and the pilot has to compensate for that. This is subject to several aircraft, not just the MiG-21. Since MiG-21 is generally a unforgiving plane, this means the pilot now has to be extra cautious and compensate for that too. Losing stability means MiG-21 is dangerous to fly when its fuel is 2/3rds, which is rubbish. Most of the MiG-21s will crash that way because I suspect most landing are with less than 2/3rds fuel anyway.

In tonnage, and range yea, the Tejas has an advantage. We are talking about a plane of more than 60 years ago. If Tejas cant even do that then the engineers working on the Tejas should be shot. What's troublesome is, the MiG-21 a plane which first flew in the 1950's still beats Tejas in Thrust to weight ratio, Angle of Attack{forgot to mention it earlier}, climb rate, G tolerance and Max Speed. Ideally it shouldn't be superior in these parameters{if not all atleast a few}, but it is superior, which is a shame on us.

MiG-21 Bison's Kopyo-M has a range of 80km for 5m2 Target. Not 50kms. LCA doesnt even have a fully integrated radar as of now. It just flew with it. The integration is still ongoing. Ofcourse it as no guns, and no short range missiles{slaved to its radar} and never fired a long range missile as of today.


MiG-21Bis
Empty Weight + full fuel = 5460 + 2364 = 7824kgs
R-25-300 - 7100KGF After Burner, 9900KGF Emergency Thurst

Tejas
Empty Weight + full fuel = 6560 + 2458 = 9018Kgs
F404-GE-IN20 - 8665kgf After Burner, 9165kgf Emergency Thrust

Thrust to weight with full fuel and afterburner

7100/7824 = 0.91 MiG
8665/9018 = 0.96 LCA

Just a 0.05 difference which is negligible in practical terms.

With *Emergency thrust kicking in, this is where it gets interesting -
9900/7824 = 1.27 MiG
9165/9018 = 1.02 LCA

Too lazy to add missile weight. But I increased the fuel weight to full instead of calculating with half.


*Emergency Thrust is a little known thrust. I prefer to call it a Superburner. But unlike an Afterburner, it cannot be used continuously for longer periods. It's like nitro for cars. Good to give the needed boost for a couple of minutes then shut it off. MiG-21 has a massive "nitro boost" or a "superburner" for scramble missions to climb up faster to meet its opponent, and ofcourse even for dogfights.

Some known Emergency Thrusts.
Fighter - Afterburner - Emergency {all in kgf}
MiG-29K - 9000 - 10500
MiG-29UPG - 8300 - 8700
Su-30MKI - 12500 - 12700

That's the thrust of each engine BTW. MiG-29K uses that to take-off from its ramp. So the massive difference.
 
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