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.