Two Fulcrums (foreground) form up with F-16 aggressors in a 1999 Red Flag exercise in Nevada. (USAF/Courtesy Peter Steiniger)
Posted on 08/20/2014 12:46:38 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The MiG-29 Fulcrum outside the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Ohio’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has a hornet’s nest growing in its nose. Its tires, lifted off the ground by stands, are split and shredded. Bird droppings drool off its radome. The aircraft gives the impression of a war prize displayed like a head on a stake. In a way, it is a war prize, taken in the winning of the cold war.
It’s one of 17 MiG-29s the U.S. government purchased from the former Soviet state of Moldova in 1997, a deal that kept the jets from being sold to Iran. The loose confederation that replaced the Soviet Union was not in a position to stop the buy, and it became one more ignominy in the Soviet collapse. “Any military establishment of any country would be upset if its opponent would receive an opportunity to evaluate and test its most modern weapons,” says Moscow-based aviation historian Sergey Isaev. “I wonder how happy would the White House be and Pentagon if Mexico, for example, would even try to sell its UH-60L Blackhawk helicopters to the Russian Federation?”
The acquisition also gave Western analysts, some of them working inside the grim edifice of this national intelligence center, a chance to study the fighter that they had been viewing from afar for 20 years. When it first showed up, in 1977, the MiG-29, like its very distant ancestor, the MiG-15, was a startling revelation: The Soviets were catching up with U.S. aeronautical technology.
The U.S. intelligence community first learned of the new Soviet aircraft from satellite photos in November 1977, about the time of the jet’s first flight. “Simply by looking at the size and the shape of it, i
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
Two Fulcrums (foreground) form up with F-16 aggressors in a 1999 Red Flag exercise in Nevada. (USAF/Courtesy Peter Steiniger)
“The Soviets were catching up with U.S. aeronautical technology”
Yeah this is what globalization, off-shoring, and allowing people to come here for school and work and then go back to where they came from. China did the same thing (with help from Slick Willie). Also, have commies infiltrate every level of government with no repercussions because it would not be pc to out them.
Su-25 excepted......
Mig-29 ping excellent photos at the article website
It should be transferred to a museum that would take care of it.
...and the F-35 FAT
(means fighter attack something or other)
In the decades of the cold war, soviet aircraft technology was, in large part, immitation and duplication of western technology. For example, the powerplant for the MiG 15 was a licence built Rolls Royce Nene and the planes design was mostly captured German technology from WWII. To be fair, the US benefitted from the same technology too most notably the advent of swept wings.
Two airplane designs were blatant copies of the C-141 and B-1. These were jokingly refered as "skis" in pig russian i.e. C-141ski and B-1ski. Even the MiG-29 looks like it got it's design heritage from the F-15 class and the new T-50 looks very much like it has the same heritage.
There was some break-away technology that was home grown and that is when they surprised us. The divergance in technology appears to have been more noticeable after the end of the cold war. It makes you suspect that there was intentional as well as inadvertant or even subversive technology transfer starting in the late 80's.
Wow. Cry me a frikking river of whiny tears.
And to address his stupid point, the people occupying the seats of power have been trying to accomplish this very type of thing since they began to get their hands on the levers of power back in the Seventies.
In all fairness, the F-117 radar-deflecting design was built off the academic research work of a Soviet scientist.
Don’t forget the seizure and almost exact duplication of the B-29, right down to the badges on the control yokes
As you probably well know from your sig, a great book is, “America’s Secret MiG Squadron: The Red Eagles of Project CONSTANT PEG”.
Why not? We sold them to China didn't we??
Thanks for posting. Very interesting article.
I always admired the sleek designs of their warships.
Yes, I know it is a movie prop.
Do you recall when Victor Belenko fled to Japan with MiG-25 in 1976?
MiG-25 was derided as Sopwith-Camelsky. It's cockpit vacuum tube equipment was a laughingstock of the aeronautical circles until someone pointed out tubes are immune to EMP :-)
Ruskies do not keep tube production to the present day to keep McIntosh owners happy.
Why re-invent the wheel when you can copy the design without having to pay for the research?
Thanks for the ping. This is a very good article.
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