The Most Dominating Aircraft Ever?

[TCO]

The Migs have poor quality control and reliability and sensors and weapons. They have decent power...which is what kids and amateur wargamers evaluate.

[Wraith]

--" Yeah, like in Iraq in Yougoslavia, like in Afghanistan. Allways need allies. True sighn of great power."

Serb, I just want to say welcome to the Off Topic Forum. It's nice for us poor stereotyped Americans to have someone disgustingly nationlistic from another country around.

I just had to comment because I found your above comments so amusing. I mean, if we went unilateral we'd get so much political crap thrown at us we'd have to get more shovels. As things stand, we're still being accused of being unilateralist. If you're taking coalition building as a sign of weakness, well, let's just say I've learned a lot about you in this thread.

Anyway, back to the topic. Why has no-one mentioned the A-10 yet? You have to admire an aircraft designed around a Really Big Gun (tm).

Wraith
"This calls for a subtle blend of psychology and extreme violence."
-- ("The Young Ones")

[Serb]

Originally posted by GP
The Migs have poor quality control and reliability and sensors and weapons. They have decent power...which is what kids and amateur wargamers evaluate.

The American wargames?
Wargames are really brilliant source of knowledge. Tell me, is it because of those games you seriously believe that Alexander was Romulan, Ottoman or something? Now I see how you study history in America- playing wargames which evaluate Migs as bad planes, and seeing Hollywood movies that claims that Americans saved everyone’s asses.

[Chris 62]

Aircraft vary from era to era, so it's hard to say what is the "best".

In the first world war, as mentioned, the early Fokker single wing was the "fokker scourge" that ruled the skies.
The allies countered with the Camel, the germans countered that with Albatross (this is the machine that Richtofoffen got the majority of his kills in, not the more famous DR-1 triplane.), the allies countered with the Spad 13 and SE-5, the Germans with the Fokker DR-7, and the final allied answer was the Bristol Brisfit, a two-seater that dominated the sky in october-november 1918.

Hard to say during the twenties, but in the 30s, the first plane to come out ahead was a Polish design, the PZL-7C.
This was quickly overtaken by a Russian design, the I-16 Rata,
and bt 1939, two types vied for supremessy, the Spitfire MkI and the BF-109E.

The battle of Britain showed the Spit to have a slight combat edge (tests flown with captured 109s revealed it's weaknesses).

About the Zero:
When first encountered, it was unstopable, because of poor allied tactics, not through superior design.
The Model 21 Zero-sen lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, pilot armor, and many had radios removed to increase range (a major tactical error), slow firing 20mm cannons and rifle caliber Mgs.
It could out turn and outclimb any allied fighter, but the era of WWI dogfights were over.
Many underestimate the P-40C and F4F-4 Wildcat, both were faster at dive speed, more stable and robust, had pilot armor and better guns (the US 50cal was one of the finest weapons of all time), in fact, over the western desert in Africa, German pilots reported that P-40Cs could turn inside a BF-109F!

Once allied pilots stoped trying to dogfight, and instead went to high speed passes, Zeros started to take grevious losses.

Germany countered with the highly effective FW-190A in 1941, the USA with the P-47 Thunderbolt (another underated a/c) in early 43, in the pacific, the F4U Corsairs (introduced to combat in 43) and P-38 lightnings as well as F6F Hellcats dominated Japan till Japan in early 45 introduces the excellent Ki-84 Frank.
In Russia, the La-5, and later La-7 (both superior to the more numerous Yaks) had one air-superiority over the German aircraft.
The USA's P-51 C+D Mustangs (with british designed Merlin engine) dominated all aeras till the war's end.
German jets like the ME-262 never got more then 30 in the air at one time, and only became operational in early 45, never made a real impact, nor did Britain's Meteor fighter.

Moving into the Korean war, Russia's Mig-15 was the best a/c in 1950, totally outclassing the USA's F-80 shooting star and F9F Panther.
The USA rushed the F-86 Sabre to the area, and it was able to dominate the Migs, so badly that Migs would only engage over North korea, so that the werkage would fall behind their lines!

In the late 50s the Russians began to produce the Mig-21, a small and elegant dogfighter, the USA introduced the big and fast F4 Phanthom, both types being highly successful.

I'll let others describe the jet era, this post is long enough!

[Chris 62]

Serb, stop being an Ass.

It's alright to admire Russian equipment, but it performed poorly in every war with western equipment since the 1950s.

You only look foolish with this, and before you get angry, I interviewed several Russian pilots in 1991, they confirmed most emphactically that their Russian supplied designs were inferior.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Wraith
Serb, I just want to say welcome to the Off Topic Forum. It's nice for us poor stereotyped Americans to have someone disgustingly nationlistic from another country around.

Well you are a little late, I was there for a wile already.

I just had to comment because I found your above comments so amusing. I mean, if we went unilateral we'd get so much political crap thrown at us we'd have to get more shovels. As things stand, we're still being accused of being unilateralist. If you're taking coalition building as a sign of weakness, well, let's just say I've learned a lot about you in this thread.

It is not a sign of weakness. I suppose you gain a couple of lessons after Vietnam.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Serb, stop being an Ass.

It's alright to admire Russian equipment, but it performed poorly in every war with western equipment since the 1950s.

You only look foolish with this, and before you get angry, I interviewed several Russian pilots in 1991, they confirmed most emphactically that their Russian supplied designs were inferior.

Why should I become angry? Actully I have a lot of fun.
Btw, where did you do interviewed Russian pilots, in Russia or in USA? I just can’t imagine a Russian pilot who can say so. May be they were an immigrants who was in lack of money and told you a lot of bullsh!t stories you wanted to hear.
Well, anyway it’s night here. I must go to sleep. May be tomorrow if I’ll be lucky I’ll come here with real Russian pilot who knows more about fighters then I am.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Serb

The American wargames?
Wargames are really brilliant source of knowledge. Tell me, is it because of those games you seriously believe that Alexander was Romulan, Ottoman or something? Now I see how you study history in America- playing wargames which evaluate Migs as bad planes, and seeing Hollywood movies that claims that Americans saved everyone’s asses.

Hey dude-fish!! The ROMulan thing is a joke and a little bit too subtle for you. Talk to Paiktis. He will explain to his little orthodox brother (you).

Actual wargames are indeed a great source of knowledge. For instance, Admiral Nimitz said that all aspects of the WWII pacific campaign (including Pearl Harbor attack) had been wargamed except for 1. Abomb. 2. Kamikazis

By wargamers, I'm referrring to Civ2 and Axis and Allies players.

[Serb]

Hey, relax. What if my post was a joke too?

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Serb

Why should I become angry? Actully I have a lot of fun.
Btw, where did you do interviewed Russian pilots, in Russia or in USA? I just can’t imagine a Russian pilot who can say so. May be they were an immigrants who was in lack of money and told you a lot of bullsh!t stories you wanted to hear.
Well, anyway it’s night here. I must go to sleep. May be tomorrow if I’ll be lucky I’ll come here with real Russian pilot who knows more about fighters then I am.

Active duty frontal aviation pilots at Polynarov air station, near Murmansk.

[Serb]

How much you've paid them for interview? And I'm curious, in 1991 was it already allowed for active duty frontal aviation pilots to gave interviews? Are you sure was not tricked by cadets?
That's all I'm going to bed.

[Chris 62]

Your rapidly moving to my stupid son of a b1tch catigory.
How old are you, 7 or 8?

Since you like fun and games, Russian equipment is still first class junk, and only a loser would support it.

Sleep tight.

[Case]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse

Well I have heard the dive speed described by Australian pilots of the time as the "only" advantage the P40 had in dog fights with zero's. It was used in desperation. The zero outperformed the P40 in virtually every other way.

*must dig myself out of the hole*

There were two kinds of P-40's: those with superchargers, and those without them.
The ones without the superchargers (ie the ones flown generally flown by the RAAF) were Zero bait. The ones with the superchargers could generally get out of trouble.

Basically, my point is that because the Zero struggled to deal with contemory American aircraft, it can hardly be called 'dominant'. It was a good plane, but nothing all that special.

[SlowwHand]

For it's time, the P-51 Mustang.

[faded glory]

hre I pulled this link up about the performance of the mighty, Ruskie trained Iraqi airforce.

Rar.....

http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/hurley.html

The IQAF's tactics generally seemed confused, and its pilots displayed poor situational awareness by frequently allowing coalition fighters to close to within a few miles before taking defensive action.48 Iraqi MiG-29 pilots in particular "appeared not to know how to fly,"49 as demonstrated by an early engagement in which a MiG-29 pilot shot down his wingman and then flew his own aircraft into the ground some 30 seconds later. Iraqi MiG-29 pilots reportedly flew with the air-intercept radar button taped down to lock onto the first aircraft detected and continually depressed the trigger to fire their weapons as soon as they acquired a target.50 Apparently, all Iraqi fighter pilots practiced these techniques, for when they managed to lock onto coalition aircraft, they launched their missiles at extreme ranges and missed every time.51

Attempts to engage coalition aircraft, however unsuccessful, were unusual; once in the

And let me say. I knew about this incident years ago.....