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F-16 or MiG-29: What are fighter jets capable of?

2023-02-23 18:12:52Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA LUKAS STOCK
F-16 or MiG-29: What are fighter jets capable of?
What are fighter jets capable of doing?

Ukraine is looking for F-16 or MiG-29 fighter jets. How fighter jets work, why they are important and why special training is required when flying a fighter jet.

When climbing, the pressure exerted on the body is many times greater than the force of gravity. Only good body training and wearing special pants that exert pressure on the blood of the legs will help you maintain consciousness. Man rarely travels at a speed of 900 km per hour.

"The speed takes your breath away." This is what the former pilot of the German Air Force, Joachim Vergin, says when he shows what one feels when flying a fighter plane.

What you feel can be compared to the feeling you get when riding a roller coaster, but it's not exactly like that, because the forces of the plane are twice as strong. In addition, multiple weapon systems must be activated during an air battle. To fight, to avoid, to defend. In serious cases the fight is to the death, and aircraft often fly at the speed of sound.

High pressure motor

Discussions are currently underway on whether to meet Ukraine's requirements for fighter jets such as the F-16 or MiG-29. For the first time fighter planes were used in Europe in the Second World War. With the jet engine that fighter jets have, they flew at much higher speeds than the propeller planes that had been used up to that time.

The jet engine works like this: at the front, air is sucked in by the engine and compressed to achieve high pressure. The fuel is sprayed into the compressed air and the spark is set. Thus the air comes out with "very high pressure" from the engine, explains dr. Robert Kluge, aviation expert at the German Technical Museum. This air exerts pressure on the resistance provided by the runway or the surrounding air and thus gives the aircraft speed.

Air strikes

Fighter jets can shoot down targets both in the air and on the ground. To carry out air combat, the aircraft can be equipped with air-to-air missiles, which are fired during the flight, also hitting a target in flight. To attack targets on the ground, the aircraft is equipped with air-to-ground missiles or drops simple bombs, which fall on the ground by applying the "laws of physics" for free fall, says Leonhard Houben, historian and freelance fellow at the History Museum. Military, in Berlin Gatow.

Strategic reflections

Before a fighter plane is built the question must be asked, will it fight another plane in the air? And can this aircraft be protected by other fighter jets? Or will it be used to effectively combat ground targets?

Such strategic considerations are reflected in fighter aircraft technology: Should the new aircraft be light and maneuverable to participate in combat, or should it be equipped with large fuel tanks to fly long distances?

The MiG-29 aircraft, which are now being discussed to send to Ukraine, were created with a specific purpose: To protect the borders of the Warsaw Pact countries from NATO aircraft.

Such aircraft, so-called interceptor aircraft, were put into operation in 1983. They take off quickly and arrive at their destination. Due to the way it is built, the MiG-29 is very maneuverable during air combat, it is even able to stay vertically in the air on its own wings for a short time. However, at first MiG-29 aircraft were refueled to fly short distances in order to save weight.

F-16: Mass-produced multitalent

Most modern fighter jets combine multiple capabilities. According to Houben, it is economical to build multi-purpose fighter jets because they can be mass-produced in a certain series.

The F-16 is one such multi-talented, mass-produced aircraft. They were developed in the 1970s in the US, to be sold to partner countries as inexpensive multi-purpose aircraft. F-16s are fighter jets and make up the largest number of aircraft still in service in the world. These aircraft are still manufactured in the USA and are constantly being improved.

Houben says that "the F-16, which was built 20 years ago, has the same capabilities as Russian planes that were built maybe three or four years ago." This is mainly due to the fact that in the 1990s the development of fighter aircraft technology in Russia slowed down and many talents emigrated and left Russia.

More weapon system than weapon

In addition to the technique, the weaponry is also crucial for a combat aircraft. Without armament, the fighter jet is "just a carbine, like a fire engine without the ladder," says Robert Kluge of the German Technical Museum. Like other experts, he is sure that if fighter jets are sent to Ukraine now, they will be equipped with modern weapons.

Ukraine can use these planes to secure its airspace. Because unlike land-based missiles, which are fired from air systems that are based on the ground, fighter jets are very mobile, are able to cover a large area and are able to shoot with modern air-to-air missiles, mobile targets that are located in the air.

Leonhard Houben thinks that it is not possible that there will be air battles between Russian and Ukrainian warplanes, like those that take place in Hollywood movies. Fighter jets today would fight more with missiles that are outside their range.

As with battle tanks, it is often the case that whoever fires first and hits the target wins. Modern air-to-air missiles, when hit once, approach the target and are activated just before the collision with the radar, to which they appear in the line of sight. Then it is often too late to avoid. This is not about fast maneuvers, machine gun fire and Hollywood.

Pilot training takes years

However, the fighter pilot must be able to continue fighting even after hitting all the missiles. This means they must possess multiple skills to function in extreme conditions. For this reason, pilots are not trained today for tomorrow. For German Eurofighter pilots, training takes five to six years and costs five million euros per pilot.

Former pilot Joachim Vergin says that on the first flight with a fighter jet, one of the engines went out. Although he was afraid, thanks to extensive training he knew what to do, so he did not lose his composure and landed the plane safely.

However, often a pilot only learns to fly a certain type of aircraft and learning another aircraft is expensive. When Vergin switched from Phantom fighters to Tornadoes, the training took seven months.

All experts see at this point a great challenge for Ukrainian pilots. All manuals, all buttons of NATO fighter jets are in English. Therefore it is not easy when the pilot only knows the Cyrillic script. Additionally, all data is in miles and feet, not meters and kilometers. Pilots from countries of the former Soviet Union used to learn to fly with metric data.

The myth of fighter jets

Fighter jets in war are much more than the sum of their technical capabilities. This is what Robert Kluge says when he talks about the plane as a "myth", because unlike man, the plane also moves in the third dimension.

A fighter jet can also be seen as a symbol, which strengthens the morale of the army. They are also considered an important chess piece in the strategy of a war of words: just having them is enough to make the enemy think twice./ DW


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