ALUMINIUM FALCON - The MiG-15 Was An Underestimated Soldier Aircraft That Terrorised The West
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- The historical record of fighter aircraft necessarily simplifies their qualities and capabilities. Reputations build down the generations. Some fighters are appreciated like fine wines, classy and ageless. Their meticulously crafted details are loved and obsessed over.
The MiG-15 is not one of those aircraft. It is remembered as an agricultural fighter. A tractor of the sky. A sufficiently dangerous antagonist to make poster-boy Sabre seem that much more impressive, but fundamentally a crude and ugly plane.
When it first emerged NATO called it the Falcon. Then they decided that this was too complementary and re-dubbed it the Fagot. A meatball made of minced offcuts and offal. That’s how they wanted it to be seen. A German design, a British engine, various obsolete Soviet and copied Luftwaffe components mashed together.
That’s not this story. This is the story of a weapon of war. A soldier aircraft. On one side of its genetic lineage, it is the ultimate realisation of early 1940s jet fighter design German philosophy. On the other it is a deliberately simple device intended to revolutionise an entire air arm in one strategic move.
Whereas its counterpart in the US started out with straight wings and muddled its way to greatness, the MiG-15 was the realisation of a single clear vision. When the West encountered it for the first time it terrorised them. It effectively ended the front line careers of the B29 and straight wing fighters across the board. Only the Sabre could match it in the air.
This is the story of the Soviet Union’s Aluminium Falcon. The MiG-15. Alongside my Sabre deep dive, it serves as a jumping off point to analysing the statistics of swept wing jet combat in the Korean War. I hope I've done justice to an aircraft that I personally regard as one of the greats.
Notes and Sources:
The companion F-86 Sabre Deep Dive is here: • SABRE: Development And...
Amongst other books, I found myself referring to Yefim Gordon's Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15: The Soviet Union's Long-Lived Korean War Fighter more than most
Also:
Walkaround: MiG-15 Fagot by Hans-Heiri Stapfer
MiG-15 In Action, also by Hans-Heiri Stapfer
MiG-15 Aces of the Korean War by Leonid Krylov
Red Devils over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950-53 by Igor Seidov
F-80 Shooting Star Units Over Korea by Warren Thompson
6:55
I've heard that it was a common joke within MiG, and among the pilots, that the fences on the wings were there to prevent the airflow from defecting. 😊
That's hilarious, I gotta remember that one!!
@@s.marcus3669
It's also the reason the MiG-17 had three, bigger fences instead of two - increased security to stop the treasonous airflow from escaping into imperialist hands . . .
🤪
Lol!😂
MiGs were not a joke. They produced many communist aces and provoked the creation of top gun. The phantom 2 were then exploited for their strengths and created American aces.
Sorry I missed the joke and haven't watched the video. Given my limited understanding of aerodynamics I had thought that those wing boards were to help maintain laminar flow in low speed situations. Ie slightly lower stall speed. Ie resist flow deflection
By far your most detailed and in depth researched video so far. I would go as far as to say that this is the most informative video that I have ever watched on the Mig 15, equalling some of the aviation books I have read on the subject. Well done sir, I avidly follow your content and each time a new video appears I save it for evening “my time” when I can watch and savour it. A small request, keep up the 50s and 60s jet videos, personally I’d love to see one on the Gloster Javelin 😊
YES!👍👍
The biggest problem with the MiG-15 was its penchant for losing flight control if the plane exceeded Mach 0.92, particularly in a dive. That's why the MiG-17 had a different wing and other changes to improve stability near Mach 1, and that fighter had a long career with many air forces.
It wasn't aluminum, it was armored and America was never able to kill it.
Wikipedia had a edit war to hide Yamato sinking itself. Likewise it has bullshit kill ratios.
During the Korean war, it was a MiG-15 flown by a PLAAF chinese pilot that shot down and killed a USAF American ace pilot George Andrew Davis Jr who was flying an American made F-86 Sabre during their dogfight.
@@Paul-H-Wolfram6608😂 still haven't figured out that they were no Chinese piloting Mig 15 in Korea? The Russians did declassified this decades ago. All 15s were flown by Soviet pilots, "LARPing" as Chinese and forbidden to speak anything then Mandarin. And all were experienced WW2 vets probably most were Aces too. Not saying that the mig was not impressive for the time but it was about on par with the "Saber" both had things better and worse than the other. I don't know if you can find the story about how the Soviets got the engines from Rolls Royce in English but if you can, both are interesting and hilarious.
Yep, assuming DCS is remotely accurate, even below that Mach number (say, 0.8 or so) feels really iffy. The controls are just super sluggish while the Sabre handles those speeds with no problems at all.
@@vladimirmihnev9702
I have a hard time believing you could teach Russian pilots Mandarin to a competent level AND expect them to use it in the chaos and excitement of combat. For whatever reason, could it be those documents were falsified? Or maybe, like many Stalinist era orders, they were just orders that couldn't possibly be fulfilled but would make Stalin happy.
The Bundle of sticks
"What the hell is a aluminum falcon!?"
I feel like that's from a star wars spoof but I don't know which one. Lol
Great video man. Indepth but not boring,lots of great film footage I've never seen of the Mig-15 (if I use its Nato designation I'll catch a ban lmao) fighter. You are the the up and coming Drachfinel of warplanes.
It's from the Robot Chicken version. Specifically, Papa Palpatine's phone call with Vader.
OMG, he's crying!
It's really depressing that just mentioning the word (the one with only one "g") is potential banhammer bait...
My Grandma's 'gafots'* are still one of my happiest childhood memories.
@@SounakDas-zb3xcthank you man lol I couldn't remember from what. Hahaahahhahah
When the Aluminum Falcon came out, Roosevelt tried to kill Eisenhower with his lightning powers, but MacArthur rediscovered his humanity, threw him into the rebuilt White House core, and looked at his son without his giant hat one time before fading away.
Truman got a star destroyer to his face.
Source: pieced together from old sugar packets.
And just when I was about to start watching a hot new series on Netflix. Oh well, here goes another hour of my life
Is it not time well spent?
Going to be better than anything on RevisionistFlix….
@@jeffreyskoritowski4114
Right? I see this as an hour *_gained._*
You made the correct decision.
Netflix is the waste of time.
MiG 15 all the way. Korean War Legacy...
Considering the F-86 was the only aircraft that could challenge it, it's fair to say it's a great aircraft.
The training of the Saber Drivers might’ve helped some as well.
"underestimated F-15" was a big stretch to even start with. The F-86 was designed to kill it, not the other way around, the Mig-15 was great.
The Sabre was under armed. That required getting danger close, then hosing the target. Rather like British fighters and bombers in 1940, armed with the ridiculous .303's, facing German 20mm cannons.
The Mig15 blew away B29's easily with either gun, but numerous B29's got blown apart with 2 or 3 hits by the 37mm.
@@OrvietaHow exactly was the F 86 designed to kill the Mig 15? The Sabres first flight in early Oct 47 was near three months before the Migs first flight in late Dec 47. Both planes were designed and intended as interceptors. They became default air superiority fighters because they far outclassed anything else in the air.
@@Ares-jx4epThe F86 underwent a major overhaul to improve its specs when the USA found out about the Mig 15 over Korea. Result was the F86D.
One of the best 60 minutes I ever spent on RUclips, thank you for this. I have a huge interest in Cold War jets, especially the MiGs and US straight wings. 👍🏻👍🏻
It was a workhorse, not a racehorse... Kurt Tanks FW190 philosophy for the jet age
Yes, Tank - have a look at the wings of the Ta 183.
A state of the art jet fighter, in its time, both performing the air superiority and interceptor tasks has to be a racehorse and a workhorse!
Which the Mig-15 and the Sabre were!
He actually said a "cavalry horse" not a race horse" No ideas where 'work horse" comes from, but TY anyway.
@@robertsolomielke5134 "dienst pferd" literally service horse...
"The Messerschmitt 109 [[i]sic] and the British Spitfire, the two fastest fighters in the world at the time we began work on the Fw 190, could both be summed up as a very large engine on the front of the smallest possible airframe; in each case armament had been added almost as an afterthought. These designs, both of which admittedly proved successful, could be likened to racehorses: given the right amount of pampering and easy course, they could outrun anything. But the moment the going became tough they were liable to falter ..... This was the background thinking behind the Focke-Wulf 190; it was not to be a racehorse but a Dienstpferd, a cavalry horse."
@@RichardGoth TY. The FW 190 also had fair armor, so we think that's why Kurt made the cavalry horse reference , a horse for war conditions , to keep going , where a race horse is on the frail side of things, pampered for peak performance.
For myself, a US veteran; "All versions of all Soviet/Russian military aircraft are garbage compared to any contemporary US military aircraft" is a hard concept, well... feeling, to overcome when attempting to evaluate the relative capabilities of each country's air forces. To be fair, the same concept is true for most Soviet/Russia military vets, as well as most any country's veterans where that country produced or modified viable designs that competed on the world stage, for example, Britain, France, and Sweden produced outstanding unique designs and Canada and Israel produced modified designs of aircraft that were arguably better than the original, licensed version, to name just a few examples of each. Anyway, my point is that bias is very hard to overcome in any time you are attempting to compare any 'thing' of your country or 'side' against that 'thing's' competition produced by another country or 'side', as it were. The Narrator of our beloved channel, @Not A Pound For Air To Ground, manages to overcome this bias quite well.
You'll see it a lot on 9 hole reviews, one of them is a US vet & heard all the same about the AK being worthless past x00 yards & so inaccurate as to be ineffective.
But then he'll demonstrate shooting one out to 600m without too much difficulty
It's interesting to see the disconnect
@Not A Pound For Air To Ground is clearly English just by going off his accent.
No respect for the MIG 21?
Just kidding. As you say our stuff is either the very best or the very worst. No middle ground.
It's the amerikans and their way of thinking which is garbage.😂
"Incompetence" No I think a Labour politician just liked the Soviets and wanted to see them succeed over the Americans.
LOL, so not incompetence, but idiocy.
This is the best documentary I've ever watched on the classic MiG-15, loved it and thank you!
"landed successfully, collected his money, and then probably went and got drunk"
Unsubstantiated slander! *hic*
Haha
Not a Pound just gave us all a fantastic Christmas present/New Year's Day gift. An hour long episode on the MiG-15? Let's go!
I really wish you would include metric measurements so I don't have to open a conversion calculator every 2 minutes
my dad was in the korean war usaf. he said when those migs showed up the usaf was shocked how good it was.
Your dad was a war hero ❤
@@binder946the United States killed 20% of the population of North Korea, mostly civilians. There's no way for me to know if the commenters dad was happy about that or not, but he was no hero.
Because it shouldn't have been. Russia was behind about 10 years with jet engine technology. A couple guys from Russia were sent to visit Rolls Royce to ask for an engine. When told they replied "they'll never just give us one of their engines" well guess what? The morons at RR gave them two of their best engines. The excuse was "they'll never be able reverse engineer it and if they do they are incapable of mass producing it"... Well they did, and they did, and were able to create the MiG-15. If not for those idiots the MiG-15 would not have been and the Korean War would have been MUCH different.
@@RedTail1-1 nah china beat us on the ground. if they had a air force with lots of migs it would have been much worse.
@RedTail1-1 you are aware they made their first jet in 1945 just 2 years after britian and the u.s
This is such a good video. If you have not heard of No Kum-Sok, that’s how America got their hands on the Mig 15. There’s a very good book out there about that pilot. If you have ever been to the museum in Dayton, Ohio, that’s No’s Mig.
No-Kum-Sok? Sounds like advice for a hormonal teenager who spends too much time in his room.
Franciszek Jarecki delivered one on Bornholm, in NATO, on 5. of March 1953, half a year earlier than No-Kum-Sok delivered his MIG 15. All in all Bornholm recieved three MIG 15s.
That would be Full-Kum-Suk
@@life_of_riley88 Poor mother doing the laundry.
Or as he changed his name to after his defection, Kenneth H. Rowe.
No need to apologize for England's sale of the Rolls Royce engine to the Soviets. In retrospect imagine what chaos the world would have been thrust had both sides of the cold war not been relatively equal in terms of capabilities. The Cold War was a dangerous time of balances, it seems likely that the world would have seen even more bloodshed if that balance had been less equal.
Stalin asked, “Who would be stupid enough to give us their jet engine technology?” The answer was, “The British.”
"Who would be stupid enough to just let some J's steal the atomic bomb plans and give them to us?" -Stalin
"The Americans."
A British Labour government to be exact !
And who else would they have even got jet engines from? Can you list off all the nations with successful jet engine development programs in the late 40s that the Soviets could have asked for jet engines? There was Britain and the US, and Britain was ahead of the US for a while. So who else would they ask?
From the point of view of the UK government in 1947/8 selling the nene to the Soviets was a sound idea. The Nene was an old engine developed during the war as a quick way to increase the power of jet engines but as a centrifugal flow engine was seen as a dead end. It wasn’t used in any current or planned strategic RAF requirements which were all planned to use engines in development from axial flow designs. So the engine was already listed for export and licensed production. It was used in several US designs in the period and through into the late 50’s. So while a substantial improvement on anything the Soviets had it wasn’t seen as crucial by the UK.
Secondly the Soviets weren’t viewed by the Labour government as implacably hostile. The Cold War was yet to really get going and we had been allies with the Soviets for longer than the US during WWII. So selling them an obsolete jet engine isn’t a big stretch there.
Finally the government needed the money and the Soviets were prepared to pay top rubles for it. The UK needed the cash, particularly from a source the US couldn’t squeeze. There was a lot of passive aggression coming from the US towards a UK government seen by the Macarthyites as virtually communist, which had reneged on wartime tech sharing agreements and was using war time loans as leverage to limit British freedom of action.
If the US didn’t want British tech (in this area in advance of US capabilities) in Soviet hands they should have listened to Keynes at Breton Woods.
Now They just give cutting edge tech to 🇺🇦 where it's captured without all the hassle of begging for a handout. Now pretty much all nato weapons and tech are both Useless due to Countermeasures as well as reverse engineered and introduced into their existing systems.
Why the British gave the Soviets example(s) of top current jet technology when they were seeing the Iron Curtain falling is still a historical mystery to me.
A diplomatic thing at the time, no doubt. West Berlin diplomacy? US just refused us Marshall post-war funding. Who really knows.
That's because you don't know history very well. The "iron curtain" quip was made by Mr Churchill who was not the PM at the time when the government of Mr Attlee decided to be nice to the Soviets.
@@roo72
There was Russian things going on by Russian in London at the time, anti-Stalin. I say again, who knows.
To be blunt Britain was bunkrupt after the war and had massive loans to pay back from America
I am old enough to remember soviet embassy posters covering the wall of my school social studies class and teachers enthusiastically suggesting we get some by contacting the embassy ourselves. There was a definite fanboy culture for the USSR in certain areas of the public service across the Commonwealth so this incident never surprised me.
Thanks. It was a very nice summarization of the revolutionary "Aluminium rabbit". I wish a rather more detailed analysis of the "Mig vs Sabre"
The Ruskies are a bit crude in their approach to things, but perhaps that is part off such a huge and diverse land !,but what has always amazed me is they make things work for them even if it is not always state off the art, and they have developed some real no frills no fuss weapons systems that got the job done!
As an Englishman I do understand and share some of the guilt about the Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet we didn't know however that are allies covering the eastern front of World War II had the future after the war with the axis powers would come back to bite the B-29 over North Korea and the tupolev design Bureau would make copies of the B-29 when the Americans landed in Russia as they couldn't return to safety in the Pacific Islands making special design markings on the tail so mistakes wouldn't happen
I enjoyed your video the Russian would say the west make plane like fine watch we make like tank
History is full of best intentions
I hear the decision for the English turbojet some history says it was over billiards but I do not believe they won the engines we are Englishman after all
Professional quality video
Anyone who says the MiG-15 is just a tractor has no idea. So they didn't get it perfect, they got it first. No one knew exactly what they were doing at that time. And the science that went into designing it was just as advanced as any at the time. The way it looks also has nothing to do with how technical the construction is. I think you will find that it isn't just made it angle iron with sheet metal riveted all over it. It was made the way any aircraft was made, and significantly more advanced than the WW2 year era aircraft of a few years before. The F-86 was no more "advanced" than having better equipment fitted into it.
Really a great video. Very informative. I am a WWII and Cold War aviation buff. I discovered RUclips documentaries about a year ago. Since then, I have watched many dozens of RUclips videos about military aircraft. This is the best one that I've see so far. You do your research very well. Lots of interesting detail here.
Thank you!
I believe the 262’s swept wings were not added for aerodynamic efficiency, but to alleviate CoG issues with the engine nacelles.
the usual nonsense. in 1935 the germans held a lecture ,inviting british designers too, about the benefits of swept wings. as usual the british had the intention : we re so good we do not need german stuff. so Meteor and Vampires (:-)
While the Germans had done considerable research on swept wing technology, swept wings were never part of the 262 design. The initial 262 design had straight wings just like the early British and US designs. However when the engines were relocated to wing nacelles, the CoG of the plane was thrown off. The simplest fix was to sweep the wings back slightly.
Are you saying that Me 262's original design didn't call for wing mounted engines?
@@MrRobertX70 yeah originally they were to be mounted on the fuselage, like the Bell Airacomet.
I have heard this as well. To dispel this myth, note the wing sweep of the empinage. There is truth to the center of gravity shift but it was indeed also swept for better low transonic aerodynamics.
My father worked in the aircraft industry for around 20 years so I've always loved these early jets. It was funny reading about how much distain Western pilots had for the MiG because of it's looks then that quickly turned into grudging respect after actually engaging them. I appreciate the objective analysis, it was interesting and well done and the narration is fantastic. Just subscribed 💙
I actually don't think that is an ugly plane? 🤔
Was not so much incompetence from your brits when they sold the engine, dude, as much the need for money ! UK was a broken country after the war, and your daddy, the US, was hammering your finances for the loans given to UK during the war.
You must realize, by now, US was most interested to strangle the UK economy and to drive out UK influence in order to consolidate their position as the world's biggest economy and financial power. Obvious they kicked hard UK finances, so the brits were desperate to get some money, in order to survive. Even if that money comes from the soviets.
Considering the time and the competition, you HAVE to respect the MiG-15. It was ahead of what the British could make even when it was their engine!
It was better than almost all the US fighters opposed to it, even if they were more refined. In a sense, it was like the Mitsubishi Zero-Sen.
I have to disagree with your opinion regarding Mig 15's looks. In my opinion, it is a beautiful plane - especially when viewed from a distance.
Being a Combat Vet I'd much rather Ugly and Effective over Beautiful and Useless as Tits on a Bull.
FYI the aircraft at 1’39” is not a MiG. It is a Lavochkin La 15. Note the shoulder mounted wing.
I just ordered a 1/32 Mig 15 Hobbykraft kit! It will look great sitting next to my Italeri 1/32 F 86 Sabre!! And compliment my Revell 1/32 Phantom and 1/32 Trumpeter Mig 21!! In November 1996 I bought my first computer. Don't remember exactly when I found "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat" flight sim in the bargain bin! I have been modeling these aircraft since!!
I don't get it why this channel doesn't have at least five times the number of subscribers.
Not as many of us left who will watch anything in black & white regardless of the subject matter.
There are ... aspects ... of this video that aren't favoured by the Almighty Algorithm.
*On behalf of Soviet people i thank your countrymen for helping us in defending our country from nuclear annihilation by selling us the Nene engine* .
Regarding the primary role of MiG-15: i think it is important to take a closer look at its 23mm cannons. They are a class heavier than cannons used in previous fighters.
A 20mm ShVAK cannon fired 96 gram round with 6.7grams of explosives at 790m/s muzzle velocity. 800 rounds per minute.
NS-23 fired 198 gram round with 15.6 gram of explosives at 690m/s muzzle velocity. 600 rounds per minute.
While ShVAK round was quite underpowered for its caliblre, it was still sufficient to tear any fighter plane a new one. A shift towards lower fire rate and muzzle velocity negatively impacted the dogfighting performance. I have only one explanation for that: long-range performance against sturdy targets. Bombers.
So, even though MiG-15 was designed both as interceptor and fighter, i beleive the interceptor role was heavily prioritised. And i think i was justified considering the threat of B-29 hordes bringing Totality or Dropshot to your home.
Honestly I think these were better looking than the mig -21s although less advanced
Great vid spoiled slightly by RUclips jamming in ads every 5 minutes! Still enjoyed it though.
Yep, during the Korean war it was a MiG-15 fighter jet flown by a PLAAF Chinese pilot that shot down and killed a USAF American ace pilot George Andrew Davis Jr who was flying a F-86 Sabre.
The 262 wing sweep had nothing to do with Mach performance. It was to place the center of lift in a favorable location relative to the center of gravity.
That’s an old myth, Richard, it was the other way around, they only used moderate sweep on the 262 in order to keep the centre of gravity forward! The Germans had three supersonic wind tunnels since the thirties, the allies none till after the war. Sadly, the Germans were years ahead in many areas. As Capt Eric Brown said, ‘more advanced than we were.‘
"and then he probably went and got drunk". Why would you say that?
Excellent video. My only nitpick is that the aircraft identified as a "gunval" Sabre in the video is actually a postwar F-86H. But overall this well researched video certainly puts to bed a lot of western myths about a very important fighter aircraft
Superb content this! I enjoyed every minute. But I stronglu oppose your apology for Britain selling its engines. Historical guilt is nonsense. I refuse any responsibility for Swedish wrongdoings in the 17th century. I am half German and I refuse any blame put on me for what Germany did in the war. Actions, views and decisions are personal. Any guilt for those engines being sold rests with those making the decisions back then.
So shoot me…
ugly...? actually it is the essence of supersonic evolution...high mounted tail... gorgeous...
would love to see one retrod with a thrust vectoring nozzle..
as for copying the germans ...
russia g=had the BEST fighter of ww2 in the yak 3 .. most agile fighter and killer of ww2!!!
I disagree with the opening sentiment about the MiG 15 being ugly, the very efficient tail group of the MiG 15 is elegantly beautiful in the opposite way to the F-94 that has a "fat-ass" afterburner mod.
I would have wanted four 23mm guns without the 37mm.
I've often had the same analogy regarding the replacement of the N-37 with at least one additional NR-23 and more ammo, once it was appreciated that although good for killing bombers (as the MiG-15 was intended from conception), the reality was, in the air superiority role of fighter-on fighter-combat, the N-37 was a disadvantage to the MiG-15.
It was much easier to kill a bomber with 37mm shells. That's half the reason they made the plane. It wasn't just to go dogfight, the entire purpose of a fighter is to defend against enemy bombers, which are the ones that can actually attack you, or to defend your own bombers so they can attack the enemy. There is a reason the French and British went to 30mm and everyone started using rockets, 20mm class guns just can't kill a bomber easily enough with the closing speeds. And 2 23mms aren't exactly weak armament against a fighter. If you think they didn't need a 37mm to destroy a large bomber, why do they need a third 23mm to destroy a fighter? No one was forcing them to shoot the 37mm at fighters, they had the option of just using the 23s. I like to assume the Soviets weren't total idiots who had no idea what they were doing.
One of the best ever . So beautifully balanced . Yes with issues , but still if flown properly just a great plane . From a REAL pilot who has seen the Mig up close , but never flew one .
MiG-15 ugly ?! Looked better than the sabre haha
*especially that variant with red/bordeaux on top or with north korean air force symbols on it
I feel like the mig 15 has a reputation as an extremely capable aircraft that was ahead of it’s time that surprised and outclassed the American Air Force in Korea. Is this not a widely held view? I don’t really know where you’re coming from in this video.
"What do you mean they BLEW IT UP?!!! WHAT THE HELL IS AN ALUMINUM FALCON???!!!" -Emporer Palpatine to Darth Vader, Robot Chicken
The Mig15 was better than any U.S. aircraft in the Korean war until the F86F model came out.
Another interesting video, I hope you'll do one on the Hawker Hunter at some point
my dad always called it the Cocker Cunter
Please do a video on the Mig-19 Farmer. Seems like everyone just skips over that bird
Nice to mention original name before it was changed.
Piston engine aircraft shot them down. Get me a break just joking love your website.🍁🙂
Stalin was incredulous, he is on record as saying he couldn’t believe we were so stupid as to give Russia a jet engine.
Great to get such a balanced view of a Soviet plane, particularly the Mig-15.
As you say, even now it's reputation is distorted by cold war propaganda, and bias.
Interesting take on it, that the Soviets didn't choose to upgrade the plane significantly, but focused on volume production, and then moved quickly on to making the Mig-17 instead.
Agreed. Trying to untwist the differing, tangled and adversarial narratives from the real, physical realities of the era can get to feel like a real chore.
Somewhere between the version that one side tells, and the version that the _other_ side tells, is the real story of the plane.
In today's post-fact world, a truly unbiased presentation is a pretty rare thing - this was *_really_* well done.
Intro is very interesting to me. Because the view of the MiG-15 I grew up with (child of the cold war) was that it was great. It was the the first thing that made the west feel the USSR could real compete and surpass the west on a technological level
Along with the Soviet T-10 heavy tank.....
@@RobertWilliams-us4kwehhh the T 10 was alright. I'd say the T 54 or T64.
In tne photo ay 52:15 the secon pilot from the left looks a lot like Yuri Gagarin. Don:t think he was old enough to fly in Korea.
Got to see a Mig 15 while stationed at Homestead AFB in 69, the wing commander invited all of us to do a walk around. Our whole shop went together ( F 4E engine shop).was a cuban mig 15
11:58 Discussing the external tanks, you converted liters using UK (or Imperial) gallons, which is fine since you're British. For our US friends, those volumes work out to 66, 79, and 158.5 US gallons, respectively for the 250, 300, and 600 L tanks. The Soviets did not need to "persuade" the British government to sell them the Nene. All they had to do was ask and the British government obliged willingly. To be fair, before you apologize for this, you have to remember that Britain and the USSR were WW2 allies, the Iron Curtain had not yet encased Eastern Europe, and the start of the Cold War was still many months away, so there's nothing to apologize for.
And britian was broke
I cant ascertain this it was just said elsewhere
Ok, good introduction to the MiG-15. I assume that your deep dive video, that will be about 50 hours long, will come out soon.
Haha
An excellent video in all respects.There is no doubt about it, the Mig-15 was a very important aircraft for the USSR; the Mig bureau obviously learned a lot from the Mig-15's limitations because its successor, the Mig-17 was a much better aircraft and probably as good as the late mark Hunters of the RAF.
It is also quite the coincidence that the Panther and Mig 15 in that 1st jet fight were both powered by versions of the Rolls Royce Nene!
Great Title! 😀
Is it true that the reason why the Rolls Royce engine was allowed to be sold to the Soviets is because the Soviet delegates won against the British over a game of Billiards/Pool?
Soviets weren't intelligent enough to play billiards. Too many generations of inbreeding has that effect
Service ceilings are often defined by the altitude of a specific maximum rate of climb qnd not the altitude that the aircraft cannot climb beyond. IIRC the RAF servi e ceili g was that were the maximum rate of climb had fallen to 100ft/minute.
Re the Nene, the Labour Government were told by experts/civil servants "Centrifugal" engines were obsolete Axle flow were the future... Which was true but...
The Americans bought the same engine.
@@WALTERBROADDUSwe would sell that outdated shit to anyone who wanted it.
@@WALTERBROADDUSwe would sell that outdated shit to anyone who wanted it.
WOW! This is by far the best detailed documentary I've ever seen!💜👏👏👏👍👍👍👍
Can' t wait for your MiG - 17 video!
ruclips.net/video/3F1d3QWsyk0/видео.html&ab_channel=AdultSwim
@00:39
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
The mig-15 in dcs is such a fun aircraft to learn and fly. I know people say it looks agricultural but to me it’s a great looking plane.
It must have been absolutely awesome to be the guys that went from piston to jet?
That cutout on the port wing fence was actually to see the flap actuation indicator! And of course you would only need to see one side, but with undercarriage you would need to see both!
1:03:22 DPRK operates IL 28 which uses the same engine so keeping the MIG 15 as A basic jet trainer makes sense
Kudos. Excellent episode. Excellent source videos.
grow up. we get it 🙄 Har har har!!!! what a child.
Allegedly Staline when hearing about the British jet engine sale to the USSR said something akind to "What kind of fool would sale us his secrets ?"
What a way to start the year. You've been doing great work but this was a step above what you've done. It feels like I just watched an old Discovery Channel Wings episode but better, that is without all the bias they had to contend with as they got information from only government sources.
A very fair take on a legendary airplane, I wonder what the next deep dive you will give us will cover, and when that will come out (I'd expect all videos can't be of this detail).
...but seriously, who thought UTI was a good name for a variant of a plane? #itburns
Someone who didn't name variants based on English ?
Some of my fav fighter style - sleek and simple-- wonder if you could do a rebuild with modern tech- like classic cars- and how would it perform?!? I never understood why us didn’t really adopt cannons sooner- if I understand the cannon is faster then guns?
The Navy and Marine Corps did.
No, cannon is not necessarily faster than a machine gun!
Neither in the rate of fire (unless we speak of revolver cannons or modern gatling guns, like for example the 20mm vulcan here, even then, a 7,62 Minigun is also a gatling gun with enormous 6000 rpm, but firing 7,62 Nato rifle = MG rounds), nor the muzzle velocity.
That depends on which cannon vs. machine gun we´re talking about. The US .50 cal MG has a higher rate of fire and a higher muzzle velocity, than say for example a german MG/FF (despite its name a cannon). Eight of these guns (as in the P-47) would make a far superior gun platform against other fighters than two 20mm FF cannons.
On the other hand a german MG 151/20 (despite its name a cannon) has comparable rate of fire and muzzle velocity to a .50cal. AND a much higher shell weight. But you can´t fit eight of them in a nimble fighter.
The thing is, cannons have explosive shells (which, to make the confusion even worse, MGs can also have. This is HE, but AP cannon shells usually also have explosives, just much less of the total weight of the shell) That makes them better against heavy and damage absorbing large bombers, here it´s about the WEIGHT of fire per second you can throw at the target, not necessarily about being "FAST".
Also, some of the 20mm cannons used in WWII and up to the Vietnem War, in this case for example the M39 as used in the F-100, had a reputation about being unreliable, meaning frequent jamming of the guns. While the .50cal is very reliable in this regard.
As you can see from this video, the original Mig-15 cannons have so low a rate of fire that I absolutley would prefer the Sabres 6x.50 cals in a dogfight. With the Mig-15bis, the rate of fire of the cannons is improved significantly, I would say to be on par with the Sabre in a dogfight.
For the record, US Navy and USMC used F4U and a rare number of F6F with 4x20mm cannons in place of the more common 6x.50cal. The Air Force used 20mm in the P-38 and early Allison powered P-51. And the 37mm cannon in the P-39. That´s WWII.
Then there were the Sabre variants F-86H and (Navy) FJ-4 Fury, the Navy Korean war era jets like Banshee and Panther, the mentioned F-100 and the F-101A/C, Navys F-8 Crusader, all using 4x20mm. And finally the 20mm Vulcan fitted to the F-104, F-105, F-106 "sixshooter" upgrade, F-4E and all subsequent US fighters.
Great vid mate.
Very well done.
Tons of good info here.
Thanks!
WW2 German Huckbien.
The MiG-15 gets a lot of praise and admiration nowadays. Even the MiG-23 that's been laughed at for so long is getting more and more love.
And then there's the century series which were hyped to no end and every kid had a model of one. They're getting more disliked by the day.
Funny how that goes...
Its decline.
Half of our country joined a cult.
Led by a certified con man.
Migs.. Might... Migs... Thank you, keep up the great work.
Didn’t Argentina have a better version of this exact aircraft?
Are you thinking of the 'FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II ' (not a very catchy name lmao ) . Interesting jet that would make a great video!
Thanks for this video. This being the first model aircraft that I built, I always felt this aircraft was beautiful.
Mig 15 and Pulqui II came from a german project called FW Ta-183 Huckebein. That´s it.
I find it weird that the Russians have been designing jet fighters for so long and still have problems in designing new jet engines.
Boeing has been designing airliners for decades and yet they still have problems keeping door panels on the plane when flying...
Boeings problems are only recent.
Symptom of decline.
And now theyre whacking whistleblowers!
At the section of the film begiining at 46'30" may I offer this - 12 March, 1953 An Avro Lincoln bomber of the Central Gunnery School, RAF Flying Training Command, was shot down by Soviet Air Force MiG15 fighters during a training flight from RAF Leconfield in Yorkshire, with the loss of seven lives. Due to a navigation error, the Lincoln had inadvertently strayed into the Soviet Zone of Germany during a routine fighter affiliation exercise.
Thank you very much for your great effort. An impressive and detailed and effort calmly presented with no noticeable bias. Indeed I am impressed by your research and balance of opinion. Please keep up your great work. The MIG-15 is possibly and probably an underrated aircraft but one that cannot be ignored. The British contribution unfortunately to Soviet jet engine development was a bit of a home goal or two or three or ...
Best report ever on the Mig-15, which was the realization of an earlier German design of Kurt Tank et al.
I wonder if the sensationalizing of MiG attacks on B-29s has a lot to do with the powerlessness of the bomber crews. Their .50s could do basically nothing, so they just kind of had to pray that the enemy didn't manage to hit anything important.
27:43 assembly tolerance is also confirmed for... the 'bleeding edge' US SR-71, according to pilots.
This is by far the best Fightet jet channel on youtube, great work
Thank you!
I used to play a great game called Mig Alley on pc without knowing anything about the plane. Fascinating video, thank you.
The wings design came from German engineers researched tech, who were paperclipped the other way. Very ME 163, aren't they, but bigger.
Osovakahim
The only similarity is that they are both swept wings, after that any relation ends
Rather the Focke Wulf Ta 183 than the Me 163. But given that the FW was a wooden mock-up that never flew, I think we can appreciate soviet engineering.
Copied British jet engine - they were given one free and they did a direct copy, with improvements. Similar to the Vampire engine, I believe.
Didn't brits also sell the license for the engine's production ?
@@lapantony No, not the license, but they were stupid enough to sell them the blueprints.
@@philp8872 Still, not like they stole anything
@@lapantony Never said they stole the whole thing. It was (in the face of the upcoming cold war) a very very stupid move from a left wing british government, desperate for foreign currencies after the war, to sell them the blueprints.
I don´t remember the story in every detail, just look it up yourself. IIRC they sold the blueprints and one or two engines. The Soviets reverse engineered it and of course never paid license fees for the thousands of Nene engines they produced. BC you know, it happened on the other side of the iron curtain...
So in terms of international patent laws, yes you could call it stealing.
Also kind of amused to hear you use the NATO code name so openly. Most sources these days will just politically leave that it entirely and just call it the MiG-15. Which is the correct name anyway. Maybe "fagot" doesn't have the same connotations in the UK? Or maybe you just don't care? It's kind of refreshing anyway.
Best I’ve ever seen on the Mig-15. I wish someone would do similar on the 1954 RB-47 Soviet overflight where a number of Mig-17s failed to shoot it down.
Mig-15s were responsible for "Black Thursday" on April 12, 1951 in Korea, destroying a wing of B-29s, plus several F-86 under 10 min. What kind of "underestimation" are you talking about?
Oh for the love of your diety of choice... alright to a lot in this documentary is on-point. But there are some major glance-overs and stupid comparisons.
Firstly when you just throw Kurt Tank's plane into the picture yet at the same time doublethink your way around that literally HALF the plane was MiG-9 spares. Literally moved over onto a new wing, tail and engine.
Secondly, this is as moronic as comparing Tu-144 to the Concorde which had lierally differences in speed, range ans literally the entire design up the wazoo. This "looks the same" idiocy has to stop.
Thirdly - Tank did not work on any MiG designs, as you know he went to S-America. Lippisch however DID work dirctly on the Sabre, pardon the whataboutism.
Then there are the non-explenations of aerodynamics: the soviets (from an aerodynamics point of view) correctly chose mid-fuselage perpendicular mounting of the wing to delay root stall (as was first practically and deliberately done on F4U, though at an angle). However when you talk about fences you literally talk as if you were Mikoyan in 1947 - they were used NOT because of some "lateral flow that just happens" but specifically because they didn't use the area rule correctly, which is the same reason fences were never seen or heard of again later in history because they stopped solving one problem with another.
As far as the ever-present and seemingly immortal myth of swept wings "solving" high speed drag- sorry. If you look at F104 it was the literal, living fire breathing proof that proper airfoil and proper use of area rule solves literally all high speed problems. There's a damn good reason why MiG-19 was the final stop for ever-increasing sweep because there's a much more refined way of going about things and that is - yet again - area rule. Which you should have actually mentioned but you didn't, and THAT was a real late-WW2 german invention, that was if not in practicality solved then at least very extensively theorized.
Lastly, and this is something many including yourself fail to understand - MiG-15 all the way to 19 were all interceptors. Not fighters. They had insufficient horizontal turn rate (no slats), they never really had range for escort missions and no escort-specific fighters were really ever made in USSR after WW2, they had not only 23mm guns (could have cramped 4 if they wanted to) but specifically a 37mm gun to be able to actually intercept and not f around and my final proof is the climb rate and ceiling. USSR didn't design a clean frontline fighter until MiG-21.
Funny thing is - you mention one side exxagerating to its favor, and the other vica versa... well, same goes when opponents talk of each other's gear.