The Flawed But Dangerous Soviet Cold War Super Fighter
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- The MiG-29 was the most common Soviet 4th Generation fighter. Over 1,200 were produced before 1991 and it thus represented the main threat to NATO air superiority in the 1980s. This video deep dives into the fascinating but flawed Fulcrum and assesses how it would have faired in an all-out war in the 1980s.
I am an absolute snob for 'amateur' youtube history and I gotta say, you're making the absolute top drawer stuff. Researched, insightful, well scoped, witty and tidily made. Very grateful for the effort.
Agreed! It's even worse with AI "bot" narration. But even so called "historians" like Mark Felton take liberties with truth for clicks and revenue. I enjoy Rex's Hanger, Military Aviation, and yes Greg's A and A.
agreed!
i would call this a "lo-fi" documentary, not amateur necessarily
@@MrStasyan2013 That is a tremendous way to describe this.
Wot Dom said!
Bravo. What a fantastic video.
What a great video... Congratulations.
The first picture of an armed Mig 29 was taken by a swedish fighter pilot who by luck had brought his SLR camera with him creating excellent images that was traded by Swedish intelligence with other western intelligence services.
Is it possible to view these photos? I couldn't find anything
Its very common in the late 80s publications.
You have probably seen it, it was public after 6 months
The b&w nose on shot? Great info by the way! 🇸🇪
Sweden at it again🤣
@@namelesscrow9351Sweden can’t stop accidentally finding shit, we detected radiation from Chernobyl. The pictures mentioned here. A Swedish plane from a very ye olden aircraft carrier spotted Bismarck moving which thanks to British ships leas to the sinking of her, etc
Aw... I wanna see a twin D-30 powered Mig-29. 😂
Awesome 😊
Have always loved the Fulcrum, never knew it had such a short range though!
2:38 Saab Viggen?!?!
*And Sepecat Jaguar.
wow what a Awesome video ❤❤❤ MIG 29S Very well presentation of the Mig 29
Would love to see you do a video on the F-101 Voodoo
This is my favorite channel and yet so underrated. Thanks for all the effort and can’t wait to see more. I like every video I can. Would love to see more Soviet aircraft. Su 34 or even a helo vid would be sick. Or the F-4x phantom that was in RND is so awesome.
Great insightful post. Perfect for a Geek like me.
That introduction has serious Red Storm Rising vibes, got hooked right away !
That's what professionals call a reverse Frisbee.
@@MrSpirit99 The Fulcrums Of Ferryland
I knew this had to be fictional...I was like wait a minute, I thought there'd never been an F-15 shot down in combat?! 🤣
Great intro indeed--shades of Frederick Forsyth.
@@MrSpirit99 In fairness a horde of MiG-23s manage the same thing during the breakout at Alfeld in RSR. Though the description of them flying through "clouds of missiles" kind of tells you how good their survival rate was.
I humbly object to the "no western fighter could launch from the austere road bases" thing. The Swedish Air Force have used dispersed road bases since at least the 1960's for Draken, Viggen and (currently) Gripen.
I also thought about the Swedish Saab's as soon as I heard that, the west also had USAF A10's and UK/French Jaguar's spring to mind as well as the Harriers.
@bush_wookie_9606definitely NOT the Harrier, they FOD out a lot, big problem even on paved spots.
But he was talking about dirt roads, i knew about Highways and other surfaced roads in sweden and germany, but did they launch from dirt roads?
NO, even the A-10's weight/footprint is very high, hence it gets stuck. Those big fat MiG tires solve this issue.
Don't forget the finnish hornets, they were used in the same manner of dispersed basing as swedish jets
51:50 the MiG-29 was even used to deliver Paratroopers 😂
Gotta do the su-27 next!
The MiG-29 was all kinds of fearsome… for the 29 minutes it could stay in theater before having to bug-out due to running out of fuel.
Only fearsome at airshows
@@cnfuzzso would be the F4 Phantoms according to your logic
Yeah unlike the F-16 and Gripen which totally have a lot more fuel. /s
Doesn't the Mig-29A genuinely do lack range compared to F-16A, though? Mostly due to less economical powerplants as I understand it.@@alankucar8025
@@alankucar8025 Those don't need to stay on-station because they have radars and missiles that can track and hit targets from closer than knife-fight range.
Also, as we’ve seen, both Russia and the Soviets showed time and again their inability to do complicated sorties let alone complicated multi-ship sorties. Pilots trained to operate according to ground based commanders do not fare well in complicated, messy environments.
This was really good. Thank you! Very interesting.
The Jaguar GR.1 was also rough field capable. However the Soviet flexibility for the surfaces that their air superiority fighters could use to take off, and land is commendable.
Hello, new viewer here. Please could I ask; at 37:33, what is the small device that lowers from the pilot's helmet in front of his eye for?
Thank you 😊
Helmet mounted sight to cue an A-11 Archer seeker to highly off-bore angles. At the time, western jets could only shoot at targets within a relatively narrow cone forward.
@IsaacKuo Thank you Sir!
@IsaacKuo Mostly true, but some aim 9 variants supported radar slaving and the US navy did deploy early HMDs in phantoms.
This was really good, I wish I had access to content like this as a kid in the 90's. Thank you, this was so comprehensive, it reminded me of the chapters in the Great Book of Aircraft.
Exactly my thoughts
7:55 ironically the program that developed the f22 was also called the advanced tactical fighter program
Also 13:41 why is the f15 labeled as a f16?
Disturbed airflow improves maneuverability?!
Yeah, it's the same principle that lets golf balls with dimples go further than smooth golf balls.
@@IsaacKuo those are two different things. The dimples reduce the drag of a ball-shaped object. They don't make the ball able to turn tighter (of course, the ball doesn't even have control surfaces so it's hard to even compare it to a piloted aircraft)
@@sbreheny I don't really understand why, but the dimples help the air cling to the surface of the golf ball longer - which is like clinging to the golf ball's surface at higher angle of attack. So, a MiG-29 with rougher surfaces could go to higher angles of attack before stalling.
@@IsaacKuo OK, that makes more sense, although I've never heard that before. Thanks.
My second favorite jet of all time :)
I've always loved the Fulcrum, it just looks right.
I remember seeing a 29 at Farnborough Airshow , must have been in the early 90s. The public could get very close. The fit and finish I noticed appeared to be very rough. I was more impressed with the M 55.
1:00 Is this a post unification example or did the east Germans also use the iron cross at some point?
No, it's a Bundeswehr MIG29 so after reunification.
@@neues3691 Thanks for the clarification
You are the Drachinifel or aircraft content. The depth of your information and buttery smooth presentation are absolutely top notch
Rex's Hangar!
@dallesamllhals9161 Yeah Rex is much better, least of all cause the audio quality and levels are more consistent than Mr. NAPFATG.
Drachinifel is boring AF
That was very interesting. Thank you.
Where the MIG 29 wins is in good looks.
A handsome aircraft.
Great video as always.
But a couple of mistakes at 36:07 and 38:34
The gun is a single barrel (though designed by same bureau at the twin-barrel gun on the Su-25) and it is on the left (port) side of the cockpit. It's on the right on the Su-27.
The picture at 38:34 is of the GSh-30-2 from the Frogfoot. The '2' and '1' in the names of the GSh cannons refers to the number of barrels.
+1 on this, i was about to make essentially the same comment
Yeah I was confused when I heard that
I was about to say the same thing.
Surprised no homosexual storylines.
Ah, yes. Smokey Bandit, my country's air force's most popular fighter plane next to Cik Su.
Watching this at 1.4 playback speed, and the narration still sounds slow. No wonder it's 56 minutes long.
great vid! i used to work with a retired Bulgarian air force mig29 crew chief, who'd spent 15 years on the mig 21 prior to the 29.
i didn't realise until one day by chance i saw his phone lock screen was a mig 29. i complimented it, he realised i was a cold war jet nerd, and he later bought in his old camcorder with loads of scrambling and ground running footage of his unit, including footage of younger him sat in the cockpit for a ground power run. needless to say, he was by far my favourite former co worker!
Thats wicked cool!!!
BulAF dudes are the best they have so many story's
Was he an officer?
unsuccessful, sums it up, no matter how pretty of a silhouette it made(can't deny those gorgeous lines)
My dad was an American hornet pilot, he said the very best dogfighters in the world at his time were the German Mig29 pilots. That plane is a beast
Tbf it is hilarious how the Soviets were a decade ahead of anyone with there missiles and hmd set up.
I think when those f18s and f15s got surprised by how much alpha the mig 29 could pull and still get missiles off they went to there cos and basically begged them to get the new toys.
Makes sense though if you cant outcompete through digital or electronic means just design a better system in the first place and revolutionize dogfighting in order to make the difference mean way less.
Kind of hilarious how roundabout it is but they did it
The MiG-29 was a fearsome dogfighter in the 80s and 90s, and especially so in the hand of Western-trained pilots.
Most of them came from the F-4, and after reunification, we had a joint MiG-/Phantom wing for almost 10 years. However, it is important to note that basically all of the German pilots who flew both, when asked which one they would go to war with, answered „Phantom“.
APG-65 and AMRAAM are simply way more effective, but the main reason was the superior man-machine interface of Western fighters. Essentially, close-in dogfighting in the way the MiG-29 was designed for was a thing of the past already in the 80s. And yes, the Eurofighter Typhoon is super maneuverable, but this is more a by-product of its main design focus, which was to lob AMRAAM at the enemy at supersonic speeds and then make hard supersonic turns in order to avoid the enemy volley of similar missiles.
@@parkerlong2658 The US developed the Helmet-Cued AIM-9G and VTAS for the F-4B/F-4J in the late 1960s, with several iterations of helmets. This system was also tested and evaluated on F-14As and F-15As at AIMVAL at Nellis AFB in the mid 1970s, and the pilots all loved the capability.
The US decided to focus on improving the AIM-7F into the AIM-7M, while working on AMRAAM.
DDR took matters seriously, possibly a bit too seriously if „die STASI” were any indication
45:29 the rudder reversing at high alpha is crazy!! What a beautiful fighter though
This is perhaps your best video yet!
I had no idea how much there was to learn about the mig❤
42:00 As true as the common wisdom surely was about low training hours of Soviet and Warsaw Pact pilots and later Russian pilots, I think all the pilots in Russia must be considered highly experienced at this point, with far more actual flight hours of combat than any NATO pilots including US. We in the West need to assume the adversary is very well-trained at this point, unlike even say 2021.
Flare dispensers didn't move into the fuselage until the late production models, such as the 29M and 29K... and at 27:04 you're LITERALLY showing a close-up of the standard flare pack at the base of the vertical fin, while falsely captioning that it's in the spine in front of the collision light...
The cannon is most definitely not twin-barreled either. It's a GSh-30-1. The dash one at the end of soviet aircraft gun designations signifies the number of barrels.
hearing a computer's specs in operations per kg makes me giddy.
It improved on the MiG-28 in many ways.
23:10 The Klimov RD-33s were not gas guzzlers. In fact, they have better specific fuel consumption than the F404 of the F-18. The problem was what you said: the internal fuel tanks were too small. To give you a perspective, it was closer to the internal capacity of the F-16 than the F-18. In fact, the Hornet had about 50% more internal fuel than the Fulcrum.
I think the real culprit of the mig29s lack of fuel is actually the lack of a fly by wire system.
The fuselage and engines where basically designed the way they were because the Soviets couldn't afford in the early seventies to do fly by wire for all of there aircraft.
Arguably in the later half of the seventies they could because the cost came down alot but the decision was made really early.
The f16 can be the way it is because fly by wire helps the pilot fly the aircraft.
If the f16 didn't have fly by wire it would literally fall out of the sky doing a lot of dog fighting manuvures.
I would say overall it's impressive to get almost just as much performance out of a lightweight fighter like the mig29 without fly by wire as they did.
They basically matched the maneuverability of the f16 with such an important hindrance in design. But of course it came as the cost of two engines and very little room internally
It's highly unlikely that a less powerful economy would seek to invade a more powerful one.
8:15 Looks like a Fencer and a Tomcat had a baby together.
Brilliant video, as indeed all your videos are. Thank you for the hard work and effort that goes into each production - it is very greatly appreciated
@07:12 A military forced designed for the defensive concept of "the offence IS the best defense." Then there are the "defense" plans that show them moving across the BRD beyond the French border and another showing all the "defensive" first use nuclear strikes. Yes, they were very defensive of their offensive plans. Until Gorbachev actually made plan an actual defense.
This gave me the nudge I needed to redo my mig controls on dcs after I got a new hotas so cheers for that 👍
Wow your videos are excellent!!! I really enjoy watching them!!!
Another absolute banger. Fantastic video
"5 miles"
Wait what?
Even the 1st export model, which was nerfed, had a much greater effective range than that.
"a couple of miles"
Dude, the R-60, THAT has an effective range of 8km/5 miles...
One of the big advantages of the R-73 was that it kept the best parts of the R-60 but added much more range...
"roll rate"
No, the 360 is the correct number. But not with full warload.
The 160 degrees is with wing fueltanks (more or less full) and otherwise full warload.
IIRC, the rollrate with full warload but no wing fueltanks is 300 or 320 degrees.
"salvoes"
Salvoes of 2 was also standard because it allowed launching with multiple seeker heads, making it drastically harder to evade them.
But the plane was not unable to fire singles. It most certainly did not unbalance the plane as much as you suggest.
"comparable to the Sparrow"
No, it wasn't. It was more comparable to the AMRAAM.
The EXPORT version was MAYBE closer to the Sparrow, but even that is very questionable.
Really looking forward to the Flanker video. That's the ultimate Soviet fighter.
The level of detail in the descriptions of aircraft systems, construction and dynamics is absolutely excellent. You are a professional. Thank you for the video.
I read somewhere that the fulcrum was the only soviet plane to be officially named after the nato call sign. Because the Soviets saw it as the fulcrum of their air defence
It still doesn’t have an official name, the Russians just like the NATO call sign
@@hydra8845 so much some MiG-29 squadrons put it on their shoulder patch.
@@hydra8845 : Quidquid Latine Dictum Sit Altum Videtur (Anything said in Latin sounds deeply meaningful).
The Soviet pilots generally hated the NATO code names but they liked the Fulcrum. Wasn't official though.
@@RCAvhstapeTBF NATO Call signs weren't always the nice sounding, but by the end of it were the best with "Condor, and Fulcrum" and the like, way better than frog foot or fishbed
A wonderfully balanced summary was great information, as always, I appreciate your neutral view and ability to highlight perspectives I hadn't considered
And here i thought the video would be about the plane, but it's fan fiction instead 😅😅
2:44 I'm pretty sure that's not entirely correct. I'm fairly confident the Swedish Saab Viggen and the SEPECAT Jaguar were also designed to take off from rough and improvised strips.
Well the Viggen was only used by a non nato country
@@mustang5132 Yeah, fair enough
@@andrewclark891 I would argue that the Jaguar was a striker, i don't think it had a role in air to air combat. The A10 had the ability to use rough airstrips but again just a striker.
In the context of the video the MIG 29 was a fighter / point defense interceptor designed to operate from primitive bases (which the USSR always had or tried to have).
None of the contemporary fighters / air superiority fighters (F18, F16, F14, F15, Tornado - yes i know but the british tried to turn it into a fighter / interceptor and it would have been deployed as such :) ) that would potentially come up against, could do that.
People also brought up the Harrier, while it proved it can "dogfight" in the Falklands it's still subsonic!!! and i really wouldn't like it's chances in this scenario.
Leaving aside the politics of Sweden (in a fictional cold war turned hot) i was under the impression the Viggen was more of an interceptor with heavy Ground Control (like when they were "intercepting" SR71s) rather than an air superiority fighter (maybe i am wrong on that last bit, if anyone has more details on their use feel free to correct me) so it wouldn't really qualify either.
@@b.elzebub9252 and the F-5 series
@mustang5132 it's NATO now 😊 and it was a western country. But yes, not NATO then
Great video! Especially interesting is the photo shown at 25:59 which clearly shows a MiG-29 launching what appears to be an R-77 (AA-12 Adder). Although notionally accepted in to VVS / VKS service there has always been debate around how many of these were actually bought by the Russian ministry of defence as they were almost never actually seen being carried by MiG-29s or Su-27s until the VKS got involved in Syria.
Yep, very interesting indeed. Probably one of the prototypes used to test these missiles in the mid-80s.
One of the things that most intrigues me is why post-1991 Russia didn’t chose the R-27EA, the active radar homing variant of the R-27ER, which was claimed to be successfully tested by the mid-80s, instead of the then brand new R-77 (which seemingly they never truly adopted until, like you said, mid-2010s in the form of the R-77-1)
@@IllustriousUnknown416 That's a very good point. Just speculation on my part but I'd imagine that the R-27EA was probably killed off for financial reasons, especially since the chances of general war with NATO had substantially reduced after the dissolution of the Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact. This is probably also why the original base version of the R-77 wasn't procured in any real quantities, if at all: someone somewhere probably thought that the R-27 and R-27E versions already in the inventory were 'good enough' at that time.
It's remarkable how basically similar the forms of the MiG-29 and Su-27 ended up, considering how different the F-16 and F-15 were, or F-18 and F-14.
Really, only the F-16 differs in basic layout, mostly because it's a single engine. The other 5, plus the F-22 are variations on the same theme.
@@zacklewis342 Sure, if you ignore enough about the forms, you can say they're variations on the same theme. My point is about the degree of similarity, and so details like the positions and shapes of the intakes, the spacing between the engines, the blending of the fuselage and wings, shapes of the wings and other surfaces ... those things naturally come into play.
The main differences between the MiG-29 and Su-27 forms are the degree to which the nose pokes out ahead of the intakes, and the precise shape of the intakes. These differences are much more subtle than the numerous differences between, say, F-18 and F-15 (the two most similar of the USA fighters listed).
I remember seeing this for the first time at Farnborough in 1988. It was quite a spectacle at the time.
The most extensive MiG29 video ever!!!
That introduction was fucking immaculate. This channel is absolutely the best aircraft history channel out there, and you're frequency of uploads is absolutely insane. You're definetly one of the greats. ♾️/10
RAVE on XL106FM. Daytona Beach 1992.
25:37 that's the most soviet thing ever lmao
I think around the 45 min mark when you are talking about the rudder being reversed at slow speed I think you got that confused with adverse yaw from the ailerons causing opposite
Direction to the input . I don’t understand how the rudder would reverse at slow speed and high angle of attack.
Does anyone else want to weight in on that ?
That depends on the exact airflow of that particular plane. It does weird things in weird flight attitudes. And the control surfaces interact in unexpected ways. Say you use left rudder, that causes a roll to the right , which increases drag on the right wing, which causes a yaw to the right even though you are pressing left rudder. A lot of jets need to be roll controlled with thw rudder at low speeds because the ailerons will cause the drag and stall issues you describe. So to roll right you give it left rudder. Which might be what he's talking about.
@ yes that’s what I’m saying adverse yaw cause by ailerons not rudder
This airframe has been my favourite eastern bloc aircraft, since I first saw it as a 12yr old in 1988, in a pocket book of modern military aircraft and their silhouettes. The lines of this bird has always just looked so sleek and sexy. I've always wondered how the MIG-29 and the SU-27 would perform with modern Western tech and avionic.
With modern tech? China and India are literally doing that.
With modern tech and avionics is pretty much what the Su-35 and MiG-35 are. Really cool aircraft.
@@nikod8412 SU-35 is russian tech (with western consumer goods lol) and Mig-35 is basically canned because nobody wanted it.
I think some indian SU-30M's might have western or at least Israeli tech in them.
Its su 30mkm
India is set to do a big upgrade on the radar & avionics on 80 of its Su-30MKI.
You're telling me the trainer version was harder to fly than the frontline version
36:10 that is a Flanker
Yeah took me a second to think "Why's there stuff under the fuselage?"
Nice video. One note though. Saying that the MiG-23 had "essentially no capabilities within visual range" is a bit of an exaggeration. From my understanding, early MiG-23M/MS were indeed poor manoeuvring aircraft, the n=7 limit load factor further reduced by structural problems, knuckle-wrapper stall warning device, poor weapons system, large wing loading and others. But in terms of sustained turn rate, according to former Red Eagles pilot, Ted Drake, the MiG-23MS comparable to a hardwing F-4. Which isn't good by the late 70s standards. The later production M and MF didn't have the same structural problems & raised the limit to n=8, introduced the anti-stall SOUA stick-pusher. An improvement but likely still at, or just under, hardwing F-4 level.
The MiG-23ML:
-with the wings at 45°, close to slatted F-4E
-with the wings at 30°, a bit above slatted F-4E.
Soviet MiG-23MLD and US F-4S are a mistery to me, not sure how they stack-up.
I have to admit, I think the USAF 'missed a trick' by not factoring in the option for American fighters to operate from unimproved runways as the 29 can. Those 'gills' and closable main air intakes are seriously worth exploring for future fighter concepts.
It adds a lot of weight. In addition to the extra weight of the door/bypass system you have to have larger wheels/tires/brakes and landing gear. The gear wells themselves have to be larger reducing internal volume for fuel/systems.
Considering the amount of support equipment needed to cycle sorties with a modern fighter it becomes a giant logistical nightmare.
It really only works in the Soviet model where the aircraft don't come back. With European weather norms the odds of landing on a tree lined dirt road in the dark with no night vision or landing aids is essentially zero.
Western forces do not build doctrine (aside from nuclear strike) around 1 way missions
@Fulcrum205 And yet, other European nations have incorporated some of these features into their aircraft design and battlefield planning. American fighters are lucky if they can 'operate' from a well-swept paved highway, with only the 'lowly' A-10 having anywhere near the level of operation base flexibility the 29 exhibits. Think of it this way: you've got troops in the field, in contact, against an opponent with (semi)modern jets available for support. To protect those troops from the threat, you either need to maintain a 24/7 CAP over the battlefield, or an extremely effective MANPAD system embedded with your troops...or a fighter that can operate from bases close to the front that can rapidly respond to an unexpected threat. Something like the 29 would be very effective in that role, wouldn't it?
definitely not for 1 way mission. the keyword here is improvised runway. runway quickly prepared by engineer corps after securing an area. the flight/squadron moves along with the army (no permanent air base)
@andrewreynolds9371 those other nations face similar constraints to the Soviets (primarily lack of tankers or lack of geographic depth).
US doctrine "bases" on call tactical aircraft in the air 100-200 miles behind the front where they can react very quickly.
This isn't WW2. Pilots can't rush out and be airborne in a couple of minutes. Modern aircraft systems systems have to spin up/align/BIT check.
FOD sweeping a section of freeway doesn't take long. The USAF had a big giant snowblower looking tractor that can clear a runway in a couple of passes. It's the lack of landing aids (this was before FLIR or pilot NVGs) and the giant convoy of fuel, bombs, AGE,parts, and people that have to be continually moved to all your dispersed strips to sustain operations.
Full tempo operations are hard to sustain when all that stuff is on the same base as the airplanes. Moving it across Western Europe's medieval road network in great big trucks is not worth the effort.
The USAF wargamed all this stuff in the 70s and 80s and found it was much easier just to deploy more tankers. As one of my friends, who was an F-4 Crew Chief in Germany told me, total Charlie Foxtrot or scripted and "simulated to absurdity". The Marines even tried it with OV-10 Broncos flying off the beachhead and elected just to operate from the boat whenever possible.
It sounds like a great idea to anyone who hasn't any experience operating modern-ish tactical aircraft. In reality it only works for a sortie or two and then a couple birds need parts you don't have, and your next missions worth of fuel and bombs are lost and asking for directions in some French village
The way the West, United States, etc would do that would be the way they do the f-35, have a separate variant for dirt roads. Be certain that if it could be sold to the Pentagon it would be done. Very limited use and decreases capabilities of the aircraft@@Fulcrum205
The Iraqi loadout did have R-27s but used the R-60 sidearm missile instead of the 73.
Great documentary as always. Little correction though
36:03 that's a Flanker depicted, and the internal gun on the Fulcrum was a single barrel, not twin barrel revolver cannon.
Correction to the correction, revolver cannon have one barrel. The twin barrel Soviet gun is a Gast gun, not a revolver or Gatling type. The GSh-1-30 is a single barrel 30mm revolver cannon replacing the GSh-23 Gast type and GSh-6-23 and 6-30 Gatling types.
Such an underrated channel
Do you have a Patreon yet? I would definitely be interested in supporting.
Didnt the mig-23 have a turbofan? The R35?
R35 is a turbojet engine.
It shouldn'ylt be too difficult to design and retrofit a modern cockpit that improves the human - fighter interface to make it a capable stand alone fighter.
36:10 isn't that an SU-27
Great video, great channel.
Top for Cold War aviation as far as I’m concerned.
These mission/incident narratives and deep design dives are tremendously well done and interesting. The best yt channel for Soviet era coverage.
27:40 amusing because we made the exact same mistake in tuning our flare countermeasures to sidewinders and not to r-60s or r-73s. Often little things like this that seem. Obvious things like this in hind sight are often missed.
This is a simply outstanding report on the MIG 29. Well researched , informative , professionally presented . Nice job .
The intake panels cover the axial intake after sufficient pressure in the main hydraulic system and signal from a weight on wheel switch on the left main landing gear. It is not from the nose wheel WOW switch. Cheers for the awesome video!
top shelf history channel, the best around
It sure looked the part. Made a lot of people nervous when it hit the scene. Gorgeous aircraft.
Absolutely fantastic video as always, you hit the new year in stride :)
Wrong diagram of su-27 at 36:04
I gotta say, I love the alt-history story at the start of the video. I can imagine it animated as a cutscene in the World in Conflict RTS.
Yeah, I sat back and felt like I was reading "Red storm rising" for the first time again.
If the MiG-29 gets close enough to dogfight an F-15. Israeli F-15 pilots went up against the Warsaw Pact export variant in Syrian usage in a 1989 skirmish.
The MIG 29 is the sexiest fighter jet ever!
51:49 The text! LOL. The subtle humor and digs (especially of the French) in these videos make me laugh. I'm sure some fly over my head.
Did somebody fix those overheating foxbat engines??? That's why they never succeeded in ever getting close to any SR71s
He keeps showing all these pics but I've seen Iron Eagle II. I know what a Mig-29 looks like.
Was the beginning of this video from a book?
Why was it called fulcrum?
I can remember seeing German MIG -29s flying at low level over the Highlands of Scotland as part of an exercise in the middle 1990s
The Luftwaffe with their Shoot where you Look missiles.
I see a new Not A Pound For Air To Ground video, I click....I'm a simple man like that! 😏😉👍🏻👌🏻👏🏻
2:41 Erhm, doesn’t Sweden belong to Europe? How could you miss the 4th biggest air force during the Cold War?
The SU-27's radar was jammed by American Prowlers during the 1996 Taiwan Crisis. I doubt the MiG-29's would have done much better against the American Raven or Prowler during a war in Europe.