You are right, it was very fast and I think its underpowered in WT there and very hard to visually detect.
However, by all accounts I ever read maneuverability was very poor. Very low lift in the wings. Very slender fuselage with no lifting attributes. It is by all accounts more of a interceptor than a fighter. Even Mikoyan deemed it more interceptor than anything.
Look at it. It’s purely designed to intercept. Which was the predominant design focus of the Soviet Union at the time.
If it was so lethal why did Mikoyan and the world immediately cast it to the side when the Mig29 came about? Why has not a single nation decided to upgrade it and maintain it?
@The_Generic_Guy A bit off topic but if you want to read about the MiG-23’s whereabouts today, Syria still continues to upgrade and operate the fighter. Such a sad thing that the politics of the Soviet union (outlawing all single engine fighters) ended the reign of terror the MiG-23 was giving American teen series fighters.
The MiG-23 will forever go down in history as an underdog, who always punched above his weight class. More on the MiG-23ML’s 2:1 K/D on Tomcats in the MiG-23 thread;
@The_Generic_Guy bro, the Mig23 was such a failure the Soviet Union completely washed their hands with it in 1985 and decided to modernize the Mig-21 instead.
Yes, and it’s also a great fighter. Especially the Bison.
A small country? Which?
Which country do you think lacks the ingenuity to maintain a dirt cheap Mig23s? Literally farmers out in Texas own them. One just crashed his recently.
You think India chose the Bison because it’s simple? Or because it was always the superior platform over the Mig23?
Your going completely off topic and not even relevant to the point dude said.
He said single engines fighters were outlawed in the Soviet Union due to some imaginary politics and law. That is not true whatsoever.
The RUSSIANS abandoned the Mig23 and stuck with the Mig21 (single engine fighter) and upgraded them throughout the 90s and sold them abroad. There is nothing more to discuss about it. At least in the Flanker thread.
russians not really use mig21 anymore since mig29 and SU27 coming, you can see that russian only use mig29/SU27/Mig25 improved now, the only reason that russian make some upgraded mig21 just because mig21 is so good that it still can been used for a long time if it been upgraded for those old mig21 owners
mig21 is good, but you cant say that mig23 is a bad plane just because it wasnt been used anymore
The maintenance for the MiG-23 was not the issue, the lack of available parts became a problem. Same issue Iran has with the F-14 but they’ve found ways around the issues. Doesn’t make the F-14 an awful fighter just because parts aren’t available NOW.
The fact that the MiG-23ML scored 2:1 against the F-14 in a realistic peer to peer combat zone IRL goes to show how great the aircraft was.
India used the MiG-23, especially the MiG-27 variants of which they finally retired them in 2019. They kept them in service in spite of buying MiG-29s, Mirage 2000s, Su-27s, etc… Goes to show it was such a good aircraft that with small alterations they were able to make it a great air to air or air to ground platform. Not quite a 4th gen fighter, but certainly ahead of it’s third generation peers.
India also got the full technology transfer and licensing to produce parts for their MiG-21 variants and this ability for them to easily modify and produce parts for them has a large part to do with why they opted to upgrade them instead. They can actually keep them operational and replace parts. The airframe service life isn’t an issue because new assemblies can be built.
The MiG-23 remained in service with the Russian Airforce after the dissolution of the USSR. The MiG-21 did not. They gave the MiG-21s they had left to successor states like it was candy to repay debts and kept tight their MiG-23s for a reason. When the Soviet Airforce made cut backs they withdrew any remaining single engine fighter aircraft from service. That’s not to say they didn’t offer upgrade programs for both, they did… but by the time the 90s came around no one was interested in 3rd generation fighters or upgrades unless they had a number of them already. Even so, China offered cheaper upgrades.
Anyhow this is all really off topic, I’ll be willing to discuss it more in the MiG-23 thread.
