The Truth About MiG-29 ("Air & Space", USA)
In the bow of the MiG-29 (Fulcrum on the NATO classification), standing near the building of the national military-air and space intelligence center at the Wright-Paterson airbase in Ohio, a hornet nest has grown. Tires on his wheels raised above the ground were cracked and torn. Avian droppings dried up on the fairing. The plane gives the impression of a military trophy, paraded as a head at the peak. In a sense, this is the trophy taken as a result of the victory in the Cold War. This is one of the seventeen MiG-29-s, purchased by the US government in the former Soviet republic of Moldova in 1997 year. They purchased airplanes so that they would not be sold to Iran. The weak confederation that replaced the Soviet Union was not able to stop this deal, which was another act of humiliation after the collapse of the USSR. "Any military department in any country would be seriously upset if the adversary were able to study and test his most modern weapon- says the Moscow historian aviation Sergey Isaev. “I wonder if the White House and the Pentagon would be happy if, for example, Mexico tried to sell its UH-60L Blackhawk helicopters to the Russian Federation?”
This acquisition also gave Western analysts, some of whom worked in the gloomy building of this national intelligence center, a chance to explore the fighter they were looking at from afar for 20 years. When the MiG-29 first appeared in the 1977 year, he, like his distant ancestor of the MiG-15, became a startling revelation: it turns out, the Soviets are catching up with the United States in the field of aviation technology!
American intelligence first learned about the new Soviet aircraft from satellite photographs taken in November 1977 of the year, about the same time that the fighter made its first flight. “It was enough to look at its size and shape in order to understand: The Soviets are designing an analogue of our F-16 and F / A-18, says Benjamin Lambeth, who wrote the book AIR Power in Crisis in the year power during the crisis period), and at the end of 1999-s worked as a military analyst at the RAND strategic research center in Santa Monica, California. “Of all the numerous intelligence sources and means of collecting electronic and other information, the American government knew quite a lot about this plane from the very beginning, and it was clear to us that we had to do something.” The Air Force began to design stealth technology and electronic systems for tracking and targeting several aircraft simultaneously. In 1970, the leadership of the air force came up with the first official application for the development of the next-generation fighter technology — a promising tactical fighter that would eventually become an airplane called the F-1981 Raptor.
In subsequent years, the scattered information that was collected about the MiG-29, has developed into a clearer picture, because it became possible to study the 21 Moldovan MiG. From 20 to 27 in October 1997, these MiGs (14 front-line fighters of the “C” model, six “A” older models and one two-seater aircraft of the “B” modification) were dismantled in Moldova and sent in parts to the National Intelligence Center in Dayton, where carefully studied at the facility for the operation of foreign military equipment. What happened next - the National Air Force and Space Intelligence Center does not report this. Public Relations Officer James Lunsford says: "We don’t want our opponents to know what we know." Perhaps a few MiGs that were in flightable condition were sent for testing at the Edwards Air Force Base in California. At least one copy was in Nevada at Nellis airbase. There he was sent to a training center, which the pilots call the "menagerie for young animals." In the center there is a whole exhibition of foreign-made military equipment, which is exhibited there to familiarize it with young intelligence officers. As for the rest of the machines and parts, the data about them is classified, except for one of the first model "A", which got into the national museum of the USAF.
Inside the museum, his curator Jeff Dufford (Jeff Duford) invites me to explore the gallery of the Cold War, which is located on almost four thousand square meters of exhibition space. First, he shows me the Checkpoint Charlie exhibit. This newly acquired NASA space shuttle crew simulator takes up the entire left side of the hangar, pushing the planes into the right, where they stand like a hodgepodge. There, the second MiG-29 from Ohio stands face to face with the unattractive attack aircraft Fairchild Republic A-10 nicknamed Warthog (warthog, ugly, monster - approx. Transl.).
Dufford removes the tape fence, and we come closer to inspect the plane more closely. Unlike the Mig-29, rotting near the intelligence center, this specimen is remarkably restored and basks in comfort with climate control, enjoying the soft light of the lamps and glittering in fresh paint that feels like satin.
Let's admit: Soviet fighters were ugly, and MiGs are almost the most disgusting in appearance. Aircraft MiG-17 and MiG-19 since the Vietnam War is a utilitarian pipe with wings. After them came the deadly MiG-21, representing a rational sculpture of corners and a cone. But Mig-29 is completely different. This beautiful in its streamlined machine resembles its two-kilogram contemporary with flat sides F-15 Eagle no more than a ballerina from the Bolshoi Theater boxer from the street ring. When the gallery is ready, these two icons of air combat will be displayed together, Dufford says. Either Fulcrum will flaunt a pair with its more sleek rival F-16. Dufford, together with his colleagues, is devising a plan for placing the exhibits in such a way that the MiG-29 looks like a worthy opponent, which it is.
“We were very lucky that we received this aircraft,” says Dufford, passing his hand along the right air intake of the MiG-29. - When he came to us, he was painted Moldovan Air Force. Everything was done very rudely. When the repair and restoration work began, the workers, cleaning the surface, hoped to find the airborne numbers (the equivalent of the serial number in the Air Force). During the stripping process, the 08 number was clearly visible. ”
Having learned the number, Dufford realized that this MiG was not only one of the first combat vehicles of this brand, located at the Air Force base in Kubinka near Moscow, but also one of the first aircraft shown from outside the Soviet Union. “Some details helped to clarify its origin,” says Dufford, “Plates for reflecting the flames .... There are only six holes, and this indicates that our plane is one of the first models.” Another tip was the method of drawing numbers. Unlike the US Air Force planes, where the rules are very strict in size, up to a millimeter, "on Russian planes, the distance between the numbers can be different," Dufford notes. He carefully studied the images of the MiG-29, taken in 1986 year at the aviation exhibition in Finland in Kuopio-Rissala. “It's like a fingerprint. Looking at the distance between the numbers and their location, I made sure that this car was exhibited in Finland. ”
In 1986, Jukka Hoffren was a photographer for the Finnish Air Force, working at the Tikkakoski Air Force Base, where the Finnish Air Force Academy is located. Fascinated by the new MiG, Hoffren went to the Kuopio-Rissala air show for the aircraft's international debut. Until 1986, foreigners only saw the fighter in fuzzy satellite imagery published in Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. “This whole air show was built around the MiG-29,” Hoffren told me by e-mail. The Soviets were interested in selling their new aircraft to the Finnish Air Force, which had a very diversified fleet of aircraft, stemming from the complex policy of post-war Finland, governed by various treaties. The air force included the Soviet MiG-21 bis, the Swedish Saab Draken, and the British Hawk produced by British Aerospace. According to Hoffren, in comparison with the highly combat-ready MiG-21, which was built in Tbilisi, Georgia in such a way that the construction method can be called “hammering”, the new MiG was an amazing machine. "If the MiG-21 can be called a rocket with wings, then the MiG-29 was a very maneuverable aircraft in aerial combat, and it seemed that it was in no way inferior, and maybe even superior to the F-16."
Seeing not a photo, but a real car that Hoffren made in Finland was much more informative; but the plane can only be known in flight. And in December 1989, Lambet got that opportunity. December 15, based in Kubinka in disgusting weather conditions, he became the first Western analyst to fly the MiG-29, and also the first Western representative after the end of World War II, invited to take off in Soviet airspace on a combat aircraft on the MiG in August 1989 at the Abbotford Airshow).
Two years after the debut of Mig-29 in Kuopio-Rissal, the Soviets showed this car in England at the air show in Farnborough, and in 1989, at the air show in Paris. Lambeth was a senior analyst at the RAND research center at the time. Previously, he worked as a specialist in Soviet military technology at the CIA, as well as a civilian pilot. Lambet's work in RAND with a specialization in the combat use of tactical aviation gave him the opportunity to fly on many jet planes with excellent flight tactical characteristics. In Farnborough, he met with the chief test pilot of the Mikoyan design bureau Valery Menitsky, who accompanied a group of pilots, technicians and support personnel at the first major western exhibition in which MiG-29 participated. They became friends.
“I have been writing about Soviet aircraft for many years,” says Lambet. - When I heard that the MiG-29 was brought to Farnborough, I could not believe it. I could not even imagine that I would be so lucky, and I could fly on it. It was a kind of drama of the Cold War - a man who worked for the CIA gets a chance to fly into the sky in a Soviet fighter with a red star. ” Lambet told Menitsky that he really wants to fly the MiG-29. "He did not fall out of his chair laughing, but said that maybe it will work out." Lambet chose the right time: the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev recently began to pursue a policy of glasnost, and since the Soviets hoped to sell the new fighter to other countries, they were ready to demonstrate its capabilities and characteristics in every way.
The weather in Kubinka was disgusting that winter, so before taking off for the MiG-29UB Menitsky took the front seat, and Lambet climbed into the back. The flight involved a series of maneuvers that Lambet had been performing on F-15 National Air Force aircraft at Hickam airbase in Honolulu a few weeks before. Lambet's RAND report, published in 1990, was the first unclassified analysis of a mysterious fighter before. Lambet stressed that he did not undergo any training as a test pilot or fighter pilot, but in his report he described in detail the impressions of flying in the cockpit of the MiG-29.
Soon, the West learned all about the MiG-29, having the opportunity to use it. Three months before Lambet’s flight to Kubinka to Hungary, they traveled around 7000 East Germans on tourist visas, who camped near Budapest. 10 September 1989 Hungary officially opened its border with Austria, giving the refugees the opportunity to go to West Germany. By 1990, Germany was united, and the day after Christmas, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
The MiG-29 was the only combat aircraft in the armed forces of East Germany, which the combined German government retained as part of the Air Force. “The Germans have done an invaluable service,” says a historian from the military-air and space intelligence center Rob Young. - They told us about the MiG-29 more than we could find anywhere. Our exchange program included majors and lieutenant colonels. It was similar to the MiG-15 in that we created models with it and conducted simulation experiments long before we were able to get this car. ” During the Korean War, the Airborne Technical Intelligence Center, the forerunner of the national military-air and space intelligence center at Wright-Paterson airbase, obtained details of the MiG-15 crashed and explored the wreckage to learn more about the characteristics of this altered MiG force. The US Air Force test pilots were able to fly on such a plane after a North Korean pilot deserted 1953 of the year in September.
In 1991, the former East Germany had 29 MiG-29 machines based in Presche near the Polish border. When the Iron Curtain fell, the pilots and technicians of West Germany began to assess their former opponents, trying to figure out whether they could be introduced into the new German Air Force. Eventually they began a training program in which the pilots of the former East Germany acted as instructors.
The best of the best young West German lieutenants and captains were selected for retraining to MiGs. In the following years, the 73 wing of fighter aviation, which was deployed on the Baltic coast at Laag, was bombarded with requests from Western air forces and navies who wanted to fly in a training battle against the MiG-29.
Peter Steiniger was a fighter pilot of the West German Air Force and a graduate of the prestigious joint training courses for European-NATO jet aircraft pilots at the Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. Returning to Germany, he flew the F-4F, which was the export version of the legendary "Phantoms" of the company McDonnell Douglas, who were in service in the German Air Force until the year 2013. When he was a lieutenant in 1986, he and his comrades were shown satellite images of a sobering Soviet development. But less than five years after unification, as he found himself in surrealistic circumstances, generated by intricate bends stories: Steiniger not only became a well-trained MiG-29 pilot, but also an officer in the operations department of the 73 wing who coordinated the exchange program. “For example,” says Steiniger, “I put a young, excited and over-excited F-16 pilot together with a pilot from the former GDR air force. They rise into the sky and make several elementary maneuvers taken in fighter aircraft. We had hundreds of such departures, and thousands of lessons during the debriefing with colleagues from Western planes who listened to us and watched our videos ... mostly with amazement. ”
Pilots from numerous MiG-29 opponents who arrogantly called us to the competition and gave us the words “come on, show what you are capable of” (among them are airplanes like the F-14 Tomcat and the F / A-18 Hornet Navy USA) were confounded and often figuratively broke their noses in the blood after the first collision with 29. “With some experience, you could outperform any jet plane, even the F-16 and Hornet, with a large angle of attack,” says Steiniger. “The beautiful design combined with one type of on-board armament turned the aircraft into a real killer: this is an Archer AA-11 rocket (the name of the P-73 rocket in the NATO classification is approx. Transl.).” This is a rocket with a thermal homing system, which has remarkable characteristics and a greater range than the American Sidewinder. "A simple monocular lens in front of the right eye allowed me to point a homing head at a target at a very large angle." The ability of the MiG-29 to capture the target for automatic tracking, even when its nose was turned away from it, made it "shed a lot of tears," says Steiniger.
But although the MiG-29 was good in close combat, Western pilots soon discovered several flaws in it. Former F-16 pilot Mike Jaensch, who studied at an Air Force weapons school and served in air defense, returned to active military service in 1994 after he was fired from American airlines. Good German, Jensh got a place in the group of pilots who went to 1998 for the exchange in Laag in the squadron, where there were MiGs. Jensh literally fell in love with this plane, with its power and maneuverability, but experienced certain difficulties with the on-board radar and auxiliary systems. “The Soviet system of views was such that the pilot is basically an actuator for the control stick,” he says. - The plane was very different from what we are used to. Onboard electronics was the bare minimum. Such a belief system also meant that the Soviets did not need to transfer information to the pilot. ” Since MiG systems could not transmit to the pilot information about a complex combat space, combat flights by car were prohibited. In 1998, NATO forces thought about sending MiGs from Laage to Kosovo, but abandoned the idea. The operators of the on-board radar detection and warning system (AWACS) would have to pay special and special attention to the MiGs. “AWACS gives information to three to six aircraft on combat patrols, but for us we would have to pass on additional information,” says Jensh. “We decided that in the end we would interfere more than help.” In addition, the Serbs also had MiG-29, and therefore the identification of "friend or foe" in the air would be difficult.
In 1996, Fred Clifton (Fred Clifton) became the first in the framework of the exchange program for the MiG-29 pilot, seconded to the 73-th wing. This graduate of the Air Force weapons school, who served on the F-16, and also flown thousands of hours on the F-15, F-5 and MiG-29, fits the characteristics of the Russian aircraft soberly and coldly as an analyst. “This is a great machine [in terms of elementary maneuvers],” he says. “But of the four fighters I flew, this is the most disobedient and difficult to control.” Before becoming a MiG-29 pilot, Clifton received his first instructor assignment, becoming an “enemy plane” pilot and flying an F-5 through an intensive training program for experienced pilots who mastered combat skills against known threats, including MiG -29. Upon arrival at the 73-e wing, he received a unique opportunity to critically test the curriculum in which the pilots were engaged in the United States. “I got a chance to understand how correctly I trained pilots as an enemy pilot,” he says. “Much of what intelligence gave us turned out to be true.” Yes, the MiG-29 was an exceptionally combat-ready machine in an air battle, and was impressed with its ability to launch rockets at a very large angle relative to the direction of flight (by 2002, the Russians lost this pointing advantage, because the Americans adopted AIM-9X rocket and assault target designation system). But the plane had a small capacity of fuel tanks, and, therefore, a short range, a close cockpit with many buttons and switches on the dashboard, an average radar quality and low indicators in terms of versatility. His capabilities were limited by the fact that he intercepted and shot down enemy targets at a short distance from his own aerodrome. The Eastern bloc pilots were taught to obediently follow the instructions of the ground operators, so the MiG-29 systems, including the indicator on the windshield, were not developed well enough, and the pilots had very little control of the situation in the air.
The pilot of civilian airlines Doug Russell (Doug Russell) at one time participated in the exchange program and flew as part of the 73-th wing. Today, he occasionally flies on the MiG-29 registered as a civilian machine, acquired in Kyrgyzstan and owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (Paul Allen, Russell sometimes flies on other MiG-29 registered in the United States in Illinois). He likes this plane, but he says that the flight on it looks like a weekend in Vegas: there is not enough thirst for pleasure, and there is little satisfaction with the result. “We were in a high degree of readiness and flew with on-board armament, but this did not give us anything,” he says about the time spent in the German Air Force. “It was difficult for a guy from the West to fly this car because he didn’t have that level of awareness of the environment .... We were never invited to dance.” Russell believes that NATO analysts were very interested in the MiG and insisted that the Germans continue to fly it.
Shortly after arriving at 73-wing, Clifton learned that technical analysts in the United States would soon find out all the remaining secrets of the MiG-29. During a business trip to Ramstein Air Base, he attended a secret briefing, where it was said that the US Air Force was purchasing Moldovan MiGs. Many believed that the Air Force would form a squadron from the MiG-29, so that they participated in the training of pilots as enemy aircraft. But only a few of the vehicles purchased were fit for flight. To lift the rest into the air, big expenses were needed. In addition, it was extremely inconvenient to bargain with the Russian Federation because of the spare parts. Therefore, the creation of a squadron of the "enemy" turned out to be impractical.
Peter Steiniger launched a website on which he chronicles the German MiGs enthusiastically and shares his feelings about flying to them. There are many striking photographs and words of praise addressed to the MiG-29. At the same time, Steiniger says: “Would I like to fight on such an airplane? Not. If we set aside the Archer AA-11 rocket, the work in the cockpit is very laborious. Possession of the situation beyond the line of sight is limited to the map. ” In other words, the pilot has to lower his head, open the map and watch where he has appeared.
Some MiG-29 aircraft are still undergoing further modernization: new flight computers, navigation equipment, and even Rockwell Collins UHF / UHF radio are installed on Polish MiGs. But the rest of the Air Force, short of a small number of former Soviet allies, is not in a hurry to get in line to buy MiG-29 after the Cold War. “After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the MiG-29 was left to the mercy of fate,” says Clifton. - There are practically no new deliveries abroad. Who buys it? Yes, no one. And about the feasibility of upgrading this machine in order to transform it into a modern computerized multipurpose fighter, Clifton says: “Buy F-16. It is more economical and better. ”
Today, the Russians offer to export a new MiG, the 35. This aircraft is of higher quality. “Over the years, the Russians modified the MiG-29. They have improved it, made changes, - says Ben Lambet. “MiG-35 is similar to MiG-29, but it has much more features.” So far, he has attracted the attention of only one potential buyer: India. According to the available information, the Russian Air Force MiG-35 will be in service in 2016 year. But the attention of Western analysts, and probably the compilers of training programs in the Air Force weapons school today is attracted by the products of another aviation design bureau.
In 2010, the Russians launched the F-22 Raptor in the sky. This machine Sukhoi Design Bureau, which is a descendant of the Su-27. The T-50 is a multipurpose fighter whose onboard electronics can compete with the F-22. But Lambet notes that he is still ten years behind Raptor. “Many have a suspicion that it will not be so subtle,” he says. “This aircraft has many such features and features that will give it out on the radar screen.” But from a distance it is difficult to judge how T-50 will show itself, and whether Russia will continue to develop it at all. This is a new mystery, and in the near future the Russians are unlikely to invite anyone from the West to ride this car to solve it.
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