Why the Soviet answer to the F-16 failed - MiG 29 story

1988. Two state-of-the-art Soviet fighters are flying in formation, entering British airspace. But they're not seen as enemies, but greeted as friends, with no ill-intentions. They're here to put on one of the greatest airshows the world has ever seen. As the pilots performed in front of the world audience, everybody was left with the same questions on their lips. Has the Soviet Air Force finally gained the technological upper hand over the West? And is the future of air warfare going to be decided by the Soviet Union? This is the story of perhaps one of the greatest fighter jets ever built, just at the wrong time, at the wrong place. Oh, and don't forget that we have an online merch store. Every week, new items. The Vietnam War and subsequent Israeli-Arab wars flipped the table for the Soviets. On one hand, there was the great performance of the MiG-21s in Vietnam against the technologically superior F-4s. But on the other side was the subpar, oh who am I kidding, the actually terrible performance against Israelis flying the same jets. Scrambling for answers to this situation, the Soviets built a new training center called the 1521 in the Air Base Mary, dubbed the Soviet Top Gun Program. And the other was the development of a slew of fourth generation fighters. But in classic rock-paper-scissors fashion, the situation quickly reversed. Just as the Americans were afraid of the Soviet MiG-25s, so now were the Soviets when they found out about the FX program and the next generation of fighters in the United States. Their response was a program calling for a light and heavy fighter which could share design features but perform different missions. This would be called the LPFI or Advanced Light Frontline Fighter project, and MiG was animate to build another legend. After Viktor Belenko defected in 1976 and revealed to the West the facade under which the MiG-25 was hiding and gave them all of the latest electronics, Mikoyan and Gulevich had a very difficult task at hand. All design philosophy up to this point was thrown away and they needed to build this new jet from scratch. As per usual, when you've been around this channel for a while, the requirements issued by the Soviet government for this new fighter were extremely ambitious. The new fighter had to fly it over Mach 2, present extraordinary maneuverability for dogfighting, which was still very important as the Soviets had learned from the Israelis and experiences in Vietnam, but also have the ability to use BVR capabilities that would counter the new US missiles like the AIM-7 and their powerful radars. The Klimov Bureau was tasked with developing the new RD-33 engines and MiG decided to go for a two-engine option to give the aircraft enough power even though it was classified as a light fighter. Each engine provided some 8,300kg force, when dividing with the weight of the aircraft they actually got the thrust to weight ratio greater than 1, which would make it critical for its agility in dogfights. But they didn't stop there, this aircraft design implemented LERX or wing extensions where they would go all the way to the canopy and hump behind the cockpit to house extra fuel and electronics. Two vertical stabilizers would allow for better control and maneuverability and the engines were then separated into two gondolas on the underside of the fuselage to increase survivability and ease maintenance and replacement. And thus what we know as the MiG-29 was born. The MiG-29 was not just an elegant airframe with good aerodynamics, this time the Soviets wanted to pay more attention to what was under the hood as well. And trust me, this stuff is cool. It would have a new infrared search and track system called COLS which was mounted in front of the canopy and would allow the pilot to track in real time and fire infrared guided missiles on the enemy jets without using the radar. Along with IRST, this was something that America would adopt only some 20 years later. Bye bye Maverick. The MiG-29 was a true dogfight beast, however just as the Americans were wrong about the F-4, so were the Soviets with the MiG-29. And here's my controversial statement, the MiG-29 was never a bad jet, it was just never properly developed for its role. Hence Phazotron, the company developing the N-019 radar, decided to go with an old castle grain antenna instead of a planar array based off the Sapphire-23ML. This made the radar less effective in tracking targets on longer distances and prone to jamming. It was equipped with the new R-27 missile, but the missiles themselves proved to be extremely unreliable, but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. The Soviets, still burning with rage from the defection of one of their best pilots a few years earlier, took great measures not to leak anything to the West. They even went as far as to have the engineers at the factory work in such shifts to avoid outdoor testing when American spy satellites flew over Moscow. Alas again, one man destroyed it all. Phazotron engineer Adolf Tolkachev sold the CIA information about the all-new Soviet electronics and missiles, including the radar for the MiG-29 and Su-27. For greed or peaceful glory, we don't know as he was captured and shot in 1986. Stuck in a rut and needed to fix these flaws, the Soviets quickly redeveloped a modernization to the MiG-29A called the MiG-29 Izdeliye 913 or MiG-29S. Radar was updated and additional jamming equipment was added to the large hump behind the pilot and the range was also extended by some 100km due to more fuel capacity. The 913 was equipped with air-to-ground weaponry as well and had the capability to carry nuclear bombs. So we arrive at the Farnborough Airshow in 1988 and the first presentation of the new fighter to the world. The Soviets already understood that the future of air warfare will require multi-role aircraft and not dedicated fighters, and so they started developing a new MiG-29M variant along with the carrier-based MiG-29K. However, they simply came at the wrong time after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. And with the Soviet economy dwindling as such projects were at the bottom of the priority list and were soon cancelled, leaving the 913 as the most sophisticated variant when the USSR fell apart. But then came the bad track record for this jet. The Iraqi Air Force acquired MiG-29s during the invasion of Kuwait and the USSR didn't provide them with any new R-73 missiles, and they flew old R-60s against Americans during Desert Storm. The MiGs lost all duels with F-15s and only managed to score one kill against the Tornado. Then in 1999, Yugoslav MiGs faced off against F-15s and F-16s and lost every single engagement, being blown out of the skies by new and extremely deadly AIM-RAM missiles, having no chance without working radars and the ill-fated R-27s. And here's the thing about the R-27, in simple words, it was a terrible missile. Just like the US had problems with the AIM-7 during its early development, the Soviets had a terrible missile which proved to be ineffective even during training and testing at the Mary Air Base or the so-called Soviet Top Gun School. During the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia that started in the late 90s, Ethiopian Su-27s with Russian MiG pilots faced off against Eritrean MiG-29s. Not a single Su-27 was shot down, while five MiG-29s were by much superior flankers. However, out of the 30-something launched R-27s during the conflict, only a single missile scored a hit. And then we've seen them in use in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian Air Force using MiG-29s in their updated MU-2 variant during the current war against Russia. With the help from NATO, they managed to integrate AGM-88 HAARM missiles and use it in SEAD missions, with some of them actually scoring hits on Russian AA systems in the Kherson region. They're also used extensively in fight against Russian drones, and Ukrainian pilots keep flying sorties to this day against all odds. However, in the words of the pilots themselves, the lack of proper mid-range AA missiles and the Russians using long-range R-37Ms make their mission pretty impossible in air-to-air combat. Integrating ARAM is very hard because Ukrainian MiGs are pretty old and Soviet system architecture doesn't support modern NATO missiles, proving that the aircraft really is obsolete at this point. But the saga of the MiG-29 is not over, at least not yet. It was none other than India that came to the rescue and ordered further development of the MiG-29K for their aircraft carrier in the early 2000s. Down the line, MiG developed the heavy, updated K and M-2 variants for the Indians and export, respectively, and the latest modernization of the MiG-29 is now called the MiG-35. And it's the ultimate variant of this jet, implementing fly-by-wire controls, new radar, new set of weaponry and electronics, along with targeting pods. It's completely a new jet based on the same old airframe. And if you're interested to know the story of the last Fulcrum, let me know and I'll be happy to make a video about it. In the meantime, thanks so much for watching and I hope you liked this video, so don't forget to subscribe and leave a like for more content just like this one. Thanks!