Saturday, July 15, 2017

MiG-21.

This is coolbert:

Indian Air Marshal Matheswaran an acknowledged authority his observations and comments on the Soviet era warplane MiG-21 most interesting. Thanks to the Internet web site Hush-Kit.

"Flying fighting in the MiG-21: In conversation with Air Marshal Matheswaran"

"Small, fast and wickedly agile, the Soviet-designed MiG-21 was an extremely potent warplane. For two decades it formed the backbone of the Indian fighter force. We spoke to Air Marshal M Matheswaran (retd) about what it was like to fly and fight in the MiG-21."

In particular consider this exchange:

Q: "Did the MiG-21 have an eccentric handling characteristics?"

A: "No"

Rather emphatic!

Further however from the wiki entry regarding the MiG-21:

"Like many aircraft designed as interceptors, the MiG-21 had a short range. This was exacerbated by the poor placement of the internal fuel tanks ahead of the center of gravity. As the internal fuel was consumed, the center of gravity would shift rearward beyond acceptable parameters. This had the effect of making the plane statically unstable to the point of being uncontrollable, resulting in an endurance of only 45 minutes in clean condition . . . Additionally, when more than half the fuel was used up, violent maneuvers prevented fuel from flowing into the engine, thereby causing it [the engine] to shut down in flight."

Who are going to believe. The Air Marshal or the wiki??

coolbert.


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