La Rouge Beret
Donor
With a choice between a F-5 A - E, Saab Draken F or modified Hunter - which aircraft would be more effective against a Mig 21 PFM or Mig 19SF?
WI more effective against a Mig 21?
- Thread starter La Rouge Beret
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Draken or a late-mark Hunter, because a Draken is first and foremost an interceptor while a Hunter is a fighter-bomber/CAS aircraft.
abc123
Banned
Not true at all.
abc just thinks that a subsonic aircraft can't be a serios opposition to a supersonic aircraft if they are armed with al pari missiles.
The Hunter is really not ideal for tangling with the MiG-19. The latter posses thrust to weight ratio of 1:1, whereas the Hunter is only at 0.5:1. The Hunter should avoid this Farmer unless it has the jump or numerical superiority.
As Vietnam showed the best fighter doesn't always win. I've recently been reading about air combat in Vietnam, and how US pilots weren't trained to get the best out of their weapons. In a few cases Phantom crews would use their merge time to set up Sparrow shots and fire as soon as they went visual with reasonable results. But this wasn't standard practice for all Phantoms, which reduced the effectiveness of half the weapons system to virtually nothing.
A Mig21 against a Hunter needn't be a simple walkover. The engagement envelope of the Atoll missile is limited to a minumim range of 600 metres and a max range of about 1200-2000 metres from a cone directly behind where the heat is best. That's awesome in a surprise ambush but when turning combat develops your Mig21 will struggle to get into that envelope with a Hunter so the result will rely on things like fuel, starting position and the rest.
A Mig21 against a Hunter needn't be a simple walkover. The engagement envelope of the Atoll missile is limited to a minumim range of 600 metres and a max range of about 1200-2000 metres from a cone directly behind where the heat is best. That's awesome in a surprise ambush but when turning combat develops your Mig21 will struggle to get into that envelope with a Hunter so the result will rely on things like fuel, starting position and the rest.
La Rouge Beret
Donor
I was doing some reading on the BA Lightning how would that perform v a Mig 21?
I'm talking about the MiG-19 not MiG-21, the latter could be beaten in a horizontal fight. The MiG-19 is a different story. Unless the MiG pilot was an untrained amatuer, the Hunter is decisvely inferior in every catagory and would be hard pressed to win one on one. It's one generation behind the MiG-19, more of a MiG-17 counterpart.
Both are short legged interceptors. They would never fly much beyond their own airspace let alone see eachother. If a MiG-21 was dogfighting a Lightning, it would mean Soviet troops have landed on Britain.
MacCaulay
Banned
I'm going with the Hunter. What history would show as the nearest Western equivalents to the MiG-21 in maneuverability, the Sabre and the F-104, were both beaten by the Hunter over Pakistan and India.
We also know that in the right hands (like those of the Jordanian Air Force), the Hunter can be a match for an interceptor like the Mirage III in an air-to-air duel.
I believe that it would probably come down to the skill of the pilots, but without appearing biased: the better air force usually has Western equipment.
We also know that in the right hands (like those of the Jordanian Air Force), the Hunter can be a match for an interceptor like the Mirage III in an air-to-air duel.
I believe that it would probably come down to the skill of the pilots, but without appearing biased: the better air force usually has Western equipment.
I'm currently reading about the RAAF Meteor in Korea, Their tally was 4 lost and 9 damaged by Mig 15s, against 5 Mig 15s shot down and 5 damaged by Meatywhores. This is despite the Mig 15 having it all over the Meteor, as the RAAFies and USAF were first to admit. So while the Mig 19 may be superior to the Hunter it isn't going to scythe it from the sky, and in a good airforce the Hunter may very well win outright.
As for the Lightning did Kuwait or Saudi Arabia have any nieghbours with Mig 21s? These two countries used improved F6s with overwing tanks and the belly bulge holding additional fuel, and the Saudis performed very well against Yemen in 1969.
As for the Lightning did Kuwait or Saudi Arabia have any nieghbours with Mig 21s? These two countries used improved F6s with overwing tanks and the belly bulge holding additional fuel, and the Saudis performed very well against Yemen in 1969.
You're now drifting the topic to pilot training rather than aircraft effectiveness which is the thread title.
The Meteor was inferior but the pilot quality was simply far too extreme, you're talking about 300+ hours verus at most 30 hours of training. That's not a condition any airforce wants to count on. It doesn't make the Meteor the right fighter to go up against MiG-15s.
The Meteor was inferior but the pilot quality was simply far too extreme, you're talking about 300+ hours verus at most 30 hours of training. That's not a condition any airforce wants to count on. It doesn't make the Meteor the right fighter to go up against MiG-15s.
Aircraft effectiveness depends so much on pilots and the culture of their airforce and the like that I don't think the two can be divorced. Similarly so much depends on the backup from things like radar, comms and the like that a well backed up force of shit fighters will do well against the red hot but poorly supported shiny toys of dicatators.
What about weapons? We have 9B & D Sidewinder, Falcon, Sparrow, Matra 530 and Red Top and Atoll. I personally think the Red Top would have been the best, but it was the only one that wasn't used during the period. I was surprised that as late as 1967 Israeli Mirages were doing mostly guns kills, the Israelis didn't really like missiles, they used the 530 and thought it was shit and the shafir1 was also shit.
What about weapons? We have 9B & D Sidewinder, Falcon, Sparrow, Matra 530 and Red Top and Atoll. I personally think the Red Top would have been the best, but it was the only one that wasn't used during the period. I was surprised that as late as 1967 Israeli Mirages were doing mostly guns kills, the Israelis didn't really like missiles, they used the 530 and thought it was shit and the shafir1 was also shit.