MiG-29 OVT at Farnborough - King is Dead, Long Live The King

This never was about "Made in USA is better", I didn't "trash" the Mig-29 here on this thread; all I’ve stated about it are facts. I had no interest in this thread until I saw your post and I didn’t question you out of any "patriotic foundations", I questioned you because from what I can find the SH is "better" than the Mig-29 in BVR combat. And thanks for the link by the way, it really shows who needs the SH to be something that its not.

While the M2 seems like a bargain when compared to most Western fighters, the question remains as to how much fuel does it use and how many man-hours are needed to maintain it? While the the Western fighter aren't any bargains out the door, the big cost for any military service is weapons systems maintenance costs. From personal experience, I can tell you that even old block 27 and 40 F-16's were twice as reliable as the F4E's they replaced. I'm fairly sure that the newer Western fighters will have even better operational hours to maintenance hours ratios than current operational fighters. Tactics will win battles, logistics is what win wars.
We had some older Warsaw Pact fighters( Luftwaffe MiG-29's) come over to Nellis AFB for joint exercises . 2 of 8 them were hard broke as soon as they landed and never flew with us during their stay there. Their crewmembers scavenged them for parts to keep the other aircraft going. US fighters flew from their US and European bases in 1990 to Saudi Arabia, landed to be hot pitted with live ordinance and took off to again to pull topcap missions. They only shut off their engines to safely refuel.
From what I understand the Iraqi Air Force in 1991 had the same maintenance issues with their aircraft as the Luftwaffe did. If you have to maintain 25% more aircraft to keep maintain your combat levels, your total cost goes way up. I've read some Russian engines have to be replaced after less than 1,000 hours running time. Western fighters engines are often recertified after 10,000 flying hours and sent back into service for another 10,000 hours. I'm not saying that Russian fighters aren't capable of tremendous performance for the dollar but in the long run if you've got to buy 4 times as much maintenance to keep them up, they're not as great a bargain as they seem.

Originally posted by Pazo
You might want to check this article about the SH (and F-14). It is quite long, but interesting. It doesn't talk about its RCS or radar but has interesting views on other qualities of the plane
www.findarticles.com...
It's by Rear Adm. Paul Gillcrist U.S. Navy (Ret.) and Bob Kress

Eh, that article was proven mostly untrue in the last few years especially on the point of the SH's airframe performance and range. It was written by pro-Tomcat guys who just didn't want to see their favorite plane hit the boneyards. While the SH doesn't have the range and outright speed of the Tomcat, it makes up for it in other areas.

I don't think the Navy sees the SH as a true replacement for the F-14's mission but other's seem to think otherwise. It's there to cover some of the F-14's mission and further its own strike capabilities.

[edit on 26-7-2006 by JFrazier]

crgintx,

you are correct to some point. Luftwaffe MiG-29's are very old machines, they haven't had the factory suppport for maintenance they need since the end of the cold war. You can't expect them to be as reliable as a brand new fighter. Russian planes (and engines in particular) used to be made with quite a different philosophy. During the cold war, they had to have very high specific output, low cost, use low quality fuel if needed and work from unprepaired runways. Their designed lifespan was not too important because they were cheap and easy to replace. This kept the production lines open which would be a good thing if you start a war and need to double your airforce quickly. With new models and engines this tendency has shifted. New Russian engines don't have much more power than the old, but are much more reliable(according to the manufacturers, we have yet to see how they perform in long term use).
The experience in my country(we've had every single MiG except MiG-1/3,9 & 31),
shows that with regular maintenance (which is easy and cheap) these machines have proved very reliable. After the funding became scarce, most planes were grounded, but this can be expected. Even the USAF will have trouble with maintenance if their budget is reduced hundredfold

Originally posted by JFrazier

Eh, that article was proven mostly untrue in the last few years especially on the point of the SH's airframe performance and range. It was written by pro-Tomcat guys who just didn't want to see their favorite plane hit the boneyards. While the SH doesn't have the range and outright speed of the Tomcat, it makes up for it in other areas.

[edit on 26-7-2006 by JFrazier]

I'm willing to believe that. The guys indeed sound like they watched 'Top Gun' too many times. I was interested not in the F-14/SH comparison, but the references to the F-18C which is mentioned as a stronger performer. Anyway, I like the SH better than the F-18C, it looks better, I watched a video of an airshow with it and it made a strong impression, display was very tight, pilot even made a somewhat successful cobra. I think that designwise, it's the coolest plane in the US, it's still young and with future upgrades might prove to be an all time great.

Originally posted by TSR2005
Eat your heart out, USA.

I'm probably gonna get sacked for the one liner, but:

QFE