I think the Su-27 Flanker needs a little love in this thread.

The Ethiopian Air Force (most likely using Russian or Ukrainian mercs) shot down 7 MiG-29 using the Flanker between 1999 and 2000.

Not sure if there were any confirmed incidents of Russians flying combat missions for the NVAAF but there were confirmed reports of North Korean pilots flying for the Vietnamese. Apparently the Koreans got their butts handed too them by our boys and were asked to go home. I read in Proceedings a few years ago that a few are buried in Hanoi.

But the Russian advisers I was thinking of were the guys working air defense sites.

I found a Russian documentary on youtube once about the Russians running the SAM sites in Vietnam. But regarding the air war, it seems kinda crazy that they wouldn't send some of their pilots up, for actual combat experence. I've never found anything confirming it, just their training of Vietnamese pilots.

Maybe their best pilots were transitioning over to the Su-15s, MiG-23s and MiG-25s at the time (the late 60's to early 70's were a major transition period for the Russian Air Forces) and they didn't want to send them to fly the older MiG aircraft that they might be familiar with anymore.

I do know that Russian flew MiGs (MiG-21s I think) against Isreali pilots right at the end of the 6 day war (maybe it was the War of Attrition?) but the IAF wiped the floor with them using Phantoms and Mirage IIIs.

EDIT: Oh and their were shoot downs of PLAAF MiGs during 'Nam. But I don't think the PLAAF was actively trying to intervene they were just testing our defenses and things got out of hand.

I didn't know that. I have several books on the NVAAF. According to the books, they all went to the USSR to train.

Yea they were flying MiG-21s.

Here is a link:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/j...9/operate5.htm

I remember fondly flying this mission in Jaine's IAF.


BTW the pilots who downed "Col. Tomb" believe he was really a Soviet pilot. There was also a Thud pilot who claimed he saw a NVAF F-6 FARMER being flown by a pilot with blond hair and blue eyes but I doubt it since any modern combat pilot would be wearing a helmet.

That is exactly who I'm thinking of. The NVAAF totally deny his existance. (no such pilot):hmmm:

Aye, like I said earlier, it's probably more suited to modern air warfare than the MiG-29 is.

I'm sure I read that their were Soviet pilots flying Mig-15s in the Korean war and they were a lot better than their NORK counterparts.

Here we go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_Alley

This should help.
http://www.acepilots.com/russian/rus_aces.html

A few misunderstandings so far on the subject. First and foremost is the argument that the F-14 and F-15 were designed for different roles.

F-14 -"The F-14 was designed as both and air superiority fighter and a long range interceptor" -Gruman avaition

F-15 -Air superiority fighter and interceptor.

Not a whole lot of differance if one excludes the carrier ops and range.

Another issue is the mismatched engines on the Tomcat. The TF-30 was a temporary assignment to the Tomcat that was supposed to be replaced when the Navy\Army TFX engine programe was completed in the near future.

From wikipedia-The TF30 engine left much to be desired both in power and reliability. John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, told Congress that the F-14/TF30 combination was "probably the worst engine/airframe mismatch we have had in years" and said that the TF30 was "a terrible engine",[23][25] with F-14 accidents attributed to engine failures accounting for 28% of overall losses. Cracks in the turbines were dangerous to the point that the engine bay was reinforced in case of blade failure, to help reduce damage to the rest of the aircraft. The TF30 engines were also extremely prone to compressor stalls, which could easily result in loss of control due to the wide engine spacing, which causes severe yaw oscillations and can lead to an unrecoverable flat spin. At specific altitudes, the exhaust from a launched missile could cause the engine compressor to stall. This resulted in the development of a bleed system that temporarily reduced the power of the engine and blocked the frontal intake during missile launch. The overall thrust-to-weight ratio at maximum takeoff weight is around 0.56, which does not compare favorably with the F-15A's ratio of 0.85.[28] Even so, the aircraft had an official maximum speed of Mach 2.34.[28] Internal fuel capacity is 2,400 USgal (9,100 l): 290 USgal (1,100 l) in each wing, 690 USgal (2,600 l) in a series of tanks aft of the cockpit, and a further 457 USgal (1,730 l) in two feeder tanks. It can carry two 267 USgal (1,010 l) external drop tanks under the engine intakes.[11] There is also an air-to-air refueling probe, which folds into the starboard nose. The F-14 with General Electric F110 engines had a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.73 at maximum weight and 0.88 at normal takeoff weight.[28]

So with the upated GE-F110 engine its thrust to weight ratio exceeds that of the F-15 at normal weight!

Another issue is G limits. F-14's had a set G limit of 6.5 by the navy to prolong the lifespan of their very expensive investment. Grumman listed it higher but of course with quicker airframe wear.

Hear is a cool story of an F-14 RIO called (10G face meet knee!) A humorous story and proof that the aircraft could easily meet 10+ G's

http://instapinch.com/?p=1003

And finally the sad part is that the navy wasn't supposed to retire the Tomcat's till 2014.....then 2010 and then with little warning it was pulled from opperational duty in 2006:nope:

The reason is simple. Few F-14's were uprated to the D model so allot of A's were still out there. The navy couldn't budget the F-18 superhornet and the F-14 upgrades let alone the new tomcat 21's that were about to be procured!:nope::nope:

The real reason that they were forced to the boneyard ahead of their time is that maintenance was a bitch on such a complex machine.

For example the F-14's got an average of 80 Mantainance man hours per 1 flight hour!!!

The F-18 cut that down to 20. And the bean counters notice things like that.

Why have good enough when you can have almost good enough for allot less? :har:

Those same Bean counters have canceled most of our F-22's.


And lastly. F-14's in the Iraq Iran conflict have counted 120+ Iraqi aircraft shot down and many were long range Phoenix kiils against fighters! 77 missiles were fired for about a 70% hit range. Not bad since it was first generation Phoenix missiles!!!!

No F-14's were lost:salute:

Incorrect up to 11 Tomcats may have been downed by the Iraqis, according to Iraqi claims.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0077.shtml

One was definitely shot down by their own air defenses.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_210.shtml

Some may have crashed in combat due to failure.

The truth lies somewhere in between.

http://www.iiaf.net/aircraft/jetfighters/F14/f14.html

Thanks TLAM I did not know that. The truth may never be known. Was an interesting read.:rock:

"As soon as I turned my head down and to the left to find that VSL switch, Doc rolled the aircraft right and snapped a good 10 g’s on the aircraft in getting the jet moved around to face the new threat. Which meant my head, leaning down and looking to the left side console for this idiotic little inch-high switch, instantaneously became fused with and part of my left knee."
:har::har:

For me:

F14 - To fly in
F15 - To look at
F16 - No chance, only one engine!
F18 - To see painted blue and in formation