Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum - History, Design, Performance & Dissection

Yep

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They needed to make the F/A-18 into something that could continue to be upgraded and meet the modern day requirements that the Legacy Hornet failed to. Since they were essentially shutting down any attempt at making a brand new aircraft they pawned the new aircraft off as an improvement to something that already existed. As such…

The entire aircraft was made larger, fitting larger engines, and even leaving 17 cubic feet of free space for additional hardware it may need down the road. It gave them room to grow.

The larger LERX and fuselage modifications allow it to perform all of the same duties as the legacy hornet while carrying an additional two pylons and solving the issues of “bringback” that the legacy struggled with. It can bring back nearly 9000 pounds of fuel, ordnance, etc instead of dropping it in the sea or flying around just to burn off weight.

You can actually learn a lot about the Super Hornet from the navy.mil archive

In designing Super Hornet, low observable technology was blended with state-of-the-art defensive electronic countermeasures, reduced areas of vulnerability, and high precision technology air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons.

One of the ways they did this was by modifying the air intakes to give a partial S-curve and radar blocker in the intake. The point of reducing the RCS isn’t to make it stealth, but to give it the advantage of being able to spot smaller fighters FIRST.

Sit down, next slide.

That was a byproduct sweety. The larger LERX and highly curved fuselage negate the idea it was all in effort only to reduce radar cross section.

It was simply a byproduct that slightly reduced the FCS which does not matter anyway as the Aircraft operates with a ton of crap hanging from the wings.

DEBUNKED.

If it wasn’t for the fact that it would probably mean more power creep in the game I can’t wait for the MiG-29M 9-15 to come, it’s simply a beauty

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Ok they put a s curve and radar blocker inside the intake. Something modern aircraft have… Congratulations? lol

I left for a couple hours and thats what you finally came up with?

My man is begging for some redemption.

Where are you making stuff up? These random sites you claim are too random for other users to use?

LERX has nothing to do with normal flight and lift associated.

leading-edge root extension (LERX) is a small fillet typically roughly triangular in shape, running forward from the leading edge of the wing root to a point along the fuselage. These are often called simply leading-edge extensions (LEX), although they are not the only kind. To avoid ambiguity, this article uses the term LERX.

On a modern fighter aircraft LERX induce controlled over the wing at high angles of attack, delaying the stall and consequent loss of lift. In cruising flight, the effect of the LERX is minimal. However, at high angles of attack, as often encountered in a dogfight or during takeoff and landing, the LERX generates a high-speed vortex that attaches to the top of the wing. The vortex action maintains the attachment of the airflow to the upper-wing surface well past the normal stall point at which the airflow separates from the wing surface, thus sustaining lift at very high angles.

Why would additional pylons necessitate such gigantic curved downward LERX? Why are they bombing and carryout Growler missions at high angles of attack? LOL No silly, it was simply to improve dogfight capability in high angles of attack and assist in take offs and landings which was lacking in the Legacy.

Stop wasting my time this is the Mig29 thread. Go lap ride the F-18 in the appropriate Topic.

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I did not study the Yugoslav source, and this is my miscalculation, because I was sure that it was an adaptation of the Soviet one.
If it’s not too much trouble, send me the Yugoslav leadership.

The source has at least four different thrust options for H=0 V=0

Spoiler
  1. At the very beginning of the book, this is a TWR value of 1.14.

    page 12

    confirmed on page 179
    Which gives us, with a mass of 13,000 kg, an engine thrust of 7410 kgf
  1. Next, you will see a graph of the loss coefficient in the air intakes relative

    page 46
    Which, as already mentioned
    With the air intake closed, 8300 kgf × 0.85 = 7055 kgf
    With an open air intake of 8300x0.92 = 7636 kgf
  1. Next comes the graph of altitude and speed characteristics

    page 85
    From which it follows that the thrust of the engine is 8000 kgf
  1. And finally the Zhukovsky curves, taken as a basis by the developers

    page 151
    From which it can be seen that the engine thrust is about 6800 kgf
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I had already found some discrepancies that indicate from the Yugoslav manual the MiG-29 should have higher sustained turn rates at low speeds which is interesting. I think if there are discrepancies it would aid our investigation and show the devs that the information in the practical aerodynamics manual is incorrect.

Thanks for the explanation on the discrepancies. I’ll forward the Yugoslav manual to you in DM’s.

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Funny, here he is pretty much saying your conclusions are false.

Then he flips flops positions.

He already found… Now taking credit… did not want to say anything before. But declared the Fulcrum fixed and perfect the entire time? Interesting.

So now he believes the Mig29 is underperforming?

Well, I am glad he no longer thinks it’s a perfect model and should not be touched. GOOD!

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German manual and Soviet practical aerodynamics manaul both agree so I dont see how the findings in the Yugoslav manual somehow magically overpower 2 other manuals that do agree with eachother

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how much it differs from the other manuals?

More than 2000 messages have been sent since I last read this xdd

How is the performance of the smt now, has improve enough to make it competent? Or is still a brick compared with all the others 12.0 -12.3 jets?

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Its heavy, but it can do a nice one circle in a pinch. FM should get some love, but the F-16 gets way more out of the x1.5 that Gaijin has in RB than the -29

All in all, just stay fast and missile away

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The F-16 isn’t getting more from x1.5 G limitations, the issue isn’t the sustained turn rates. It’s the instant turn capability that it has currently which is excessive due to the unrealistic AoA it can handle. It’s not so evident in mouse aim as it is in full real but it is performing maneuvers it was never remotely aerodynamically capable of doing (high roll / yaw at high G loading and AoA >20 degrees).

The MiG-29 as far as that is concerned is fine. The AoA is correct and the sustained turn rates match the known charts.

Wow, if the -29 is correct that is wild. I always considered it better

The -16 is over performing due to the lack of G limitations, iirc the -16 could do 26deg instant. Not sure what it is in game, but in RB is quite snappy

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In a vacuum the F-16 can do 26 degrees instant without much instability for 1G conditions. For 7G+ it was limited to 20 degrees AoA to avoid adverse yaw that would result in sudden and rapid departure conditions. AoA > 20 degrees for the F-16 should be coupled with severe instability if they don’t want to implement the FLCS.

It honestly should be similar to the MiG-23MLA / MLD in terms of high alpha capacity (no more than ~30 degrees). Instead in full real it’s doing all kinds of yaw and roll maneuvers at 40+ degrees AoA with no signs of wing rock, adverse yaw, etc… maybe stalling if you hold it long enough but that’s it.

Its a little better. But the SMT is currently the same for the most part. Large caliber flares and highspeed handling are its strong suit currently.

The radar is only better because it has different modes and ranges. it’s not stronger (field strength) than the N019 or more precise currently imo and others.

@BBCRF is working on the FM and is aware of the Zhuks lack of precision and field strength

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Do you have the MLD flight manual? Can you please share. What is the alpha the MLD can pull in all subsonic, transonic and supersonic regimes?

It will still never rate as long as an F-16. I doubt the MLD can ever pull the same alpha in high Mach flight without losing control. It has a notoriously poor lift in wings and practically zero in fuselage as well. The Mig23 platform is a very dangerous aircraft that killed many pilots. American too. It’s a blotch on record of Mikoyan. Some do not even call it a fighter, but an interceptor.

A design that was totally swept under the rug which all Arab states utterly despised as well. Mikoyan really focused on the Mig29 because of the horrid performance of the Flogger and what it did the Mikoyan’s reputation on the world stage. I can see why you chose the name.

The MLD program was nothing more than cheap alternative numbers boost due to the lack of competent fighter in the Soviet Union while production the Mig29 kicked in.

Once the Mig29 deliveries began and was widely available they immediately ceased all MLD production and shifted all Mikoyan plants over to the superior in every way Fulcrum.

Thats not accurate

According to the Blk 50 manual A8-31 the F-16 at sea level can do 24.1deg per sec at 8G, at mach .52

at 25,000ft you can still hit 15.6deg per sec at 8G

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I’m talking about available AoA, which isn’t a jab necessarily. The F-16 was not optimized for high alpha, it was optimized for sustained energy. It’s better than the MiG-23 series at that for that very reason. It’s actually slower in acceleration and speed though, and the early F-16s have no BVR ordnance capability.

Oh, and yes I have the MiG-23MLA manual with the MLD addition that’s been floating around now.

It can, but that is below 20 degrees AoA, more likely around 10 degrees AoA. Anything above 0.5 mach requires little AoA for the F-16. Most sustained turn fighting is pushing single digit AoA numbers unless at very low speeds.