Before Finland got the F-18s, I used to watch these Mig-21s dogfight over a lake (Onkivesi) at my grandma's place. Going super sonic, you'd look in one direction, then catch something in the corner of your eye going low over the lake. It looks awesome in real life imo. Not as cool as the Mig-25, but still it has that brutal Soviet look.
My rubber garden is also in the flight path of a fighter OCU/airbase of IAF, used to see MiG-21s over the skies in the 1990s and early 2000s now it is Su-30MKI Flankers.
I've been waiting for this. I flew for a few years in Vietnam not too long ago and loved to watch the Vietnamese airforce 21s doing their circuits and bumps. The speed they need over the threshold was something to behold. One of my old Captain's was a Russian trained 21 pilot, he would just shudder when recounting his antics!
Labels were on for some of those first person shots as when you are learning a new aircraft it is a WISE DECISION to reduce as much difficulty as possible. I am not training my mind or eye sight to spot targets. I am training to use the weapon systems accurately. After you learn these things and are alright with it, THEN it's OK to turn them off.
Shame most servers don't let you use labels. Seems unfair as in real life pilots have 20/20 vision, while we are usually stuck with 1080p. It's like a semi blind pilot going to war. Just doesn't work very well.
Cant beleive i watched this video on your channel 9 years ago. This is still one of my most favorite planes. Its the only true hotrod of the fighter jet generations.
Great video, and good use of satire to confirm some of my initial thoughts about the mig-21, and some good dogfight footage. Leatherneck did an awesome job on the cockpit. About the landings: I've talked to someone who owns a mig-21 and he described landing much like you demonstrated......line it up, trust the instruments and pray for the best. You basically have to look out your 10 and 2 o'clock down low to judge the decent rate just before touching down.
It's probably the best module because the MiG 21 is just such a fun plane to fly. It's challenging enough to hold your attention, capable enough to be somewhat useful and is fast and fun to fly. It's simple but hard to master, because its a mach 2 capable 50s design it really feels direct and like you are actually flying something.
Ralfi, I gotta say, you have outdone yourself with this video. Informative, entertaining, wonderful music selection and great sense of humour! Needless to say, I can't wait for your future videos!
I'm really hoping for other Vietnam War era aircraft to come out for DCS in the future. I read that there are plans for the A-4M and for one reason or another hoping for an A-6 entry. Great review by the way.
Fantastic video! I really wasn't interested in this aircraft even with all the hype surrounding it, this video and the fun flying you show in it has completely changed my view on this bird!
Your comments about the flight model are exactly what I experienced the first time I flew this last night. XD. I actually had butterfiles in my stomach, which is weird because this is a sim. The aircraft felt like it was about to do something I wasn't planning on at any second, but it never did. Not an easy aircraft to fly well, at least for me. I really enjoyed this.
Cool video, very interesting to watch although I don't play DCS. Finding out the nuts and bolts of military equipment is always interesting, even if said nuts and bolts come from a sim rather than the real thing. Maybe the mig 21 would be more fun to dogfight in if there was a similar quality F-4 module for DCS.
Would be awesome to get the F-4. None of the 3rd party developers seem to eager to make it though. I do think the F-4 would be superior. It's BVR aim-7's will probably destroy most mig-21's before they get close.
gkooistra91 Military planners were saying the same thing around that time and ended being very wrong. The Phantom didn't have good BVR target verification capabilities so that would probably play out the same way in DCS.
Eboreg2 Not really just that. The missiles would chase the Sun or just go stupid right away. That was the biggest problem. But if they met head to head, the MIG would go down. I tried fighting vs an F-4 in the 21 and it was hopeless. We both just kept turning and turning, nothing came of it. He was on me the whole time. That and his two engines gave him serious power to outclimb me every time. It was just unfair...
ralfidude I guess if we really want to put equal counterparts to the MiG-21 in DCS, we could always look forward to Mirages. Still, I'm thinking that we could probably set up some Vietnam-era missions where the 21s were mainly used in a form of guerrilla warfare.
gkooistra91 Those missiles were useless. In Vietnam AIM-7E Sparrow achieved 12 - 15% kill probability and AIM-9E Sidewinder achieved only 8 - 10%. An F-4 carried 4x AIM-7 and 4x AIM-9, on average you'd have to fire ALL your missiles to get a single kill. Later models fixed most of the issues but the Vietnam war was long since over, AIM-9L in British use in the Falklands achieved 70 - 90% kill probabilities.
SpaceKraken, it is an old bug of the flight model in 1,2 version of DCS.
10 лет назад
Just noticed in the official trailer the Fishbed shuts down a Viper, and after your review, I'm up to the challenge! Can't wait to buy it via Steam when available! :)
Wow, I haven't played anything remotely close to a realistic simulator for a while (I'm talking x-plane on a mac like 15+ years ago, way too complex for a young teen). While I'm immensely interested in some of these older jet's, it gets tiring to seek blurry lo-res documentaries in languages that I don't understand just to get a better idea of what the planes were all about. Thanks for putting these videos up and editing them for maximum entertainment, and in bite size chunks too. For many of us without the time (or skill) to invest in learning these old jets, this might be as close as we'll ever come to being in the cockpit. Sub'ed.
Very nice review Ralfi. I'll be getting the 21 as soon as possible. I know it's never going to be as much sheer unadulterated fun as the Hog, but I'm going to fly it and pretend I've got a BAC Lightning. :) Looking forward to your next S&Gs vid. Fly safe.
Enjoyed that one. Love the DCS games. FC3, A-10C are just great. gonna get Sabre and this here. Gonna take a while to study it all....also laughed and said the same about the headshake :D Also laughed about the "3 thums up" 3 thumbs...2 plus...oh...yeah *looks down* :)
It is so much fun to watch your footages. Every single one! No matter what's the topic! Thank you. My plan is to watch them all. In doubt twice or more. There occures a problem: There is no time left to fly the own aircrafts... Don't give a shit! Where is the next footage? I'm addicted!
OMG, that's gonna be great. Dunno if you can call it a multi role fighter by design, but it sure gets used for everything. Some great videos on RU-vid of it in ground attack.
watching for the 20'ts time. i dont have the module im not intrested in harder=better view of things but how is the video made and what you do in it are just beatiful. well done!
Man flying mig-21 and listening to those tracks that you've used in this video is such a joy! Makes me wonder how people find this kind of music. Have you got more?
Very nice. I hope that Leatherneck or some other studios will make some modules that add similar and contemporary fighters to the MiG-21 such as the English Electric Lightning, F104-Starfighter or Mirage III.
About the radar, in case nobody else has said it. The F-15 uses a pulse-doppler radar. Those can sense the relative closure rate of the objects they see (taking into account the speed of the aircraft they are on). That way, they can filter out anything that looks stationary, like the ground, clouds, but also hovering choppers and other aircraft flying perpendicular to the radar (which is called beaming and its the Achilles' heel of P-D radars)
In the F-15 we get from that era, the F-15 cannot see anything moving between -50 to +50 kts. Once it enters the notch, the target should disappear from radar as it does in game, however IRL, in TWS should you fire your AMRAAM, and the missile is in flight, the computer will save the last known location when the target enters the notch, and continue to guide the missile in that direction, once you pick up the target again coming out of the notch, the missile will continue to track normally.
ralfidude It's not really the F-15's radar guiding the missile. Older missiles went dumb when they lost lock. But newer missiles with digital autopilot keep their attitude and, in some miraculous occasions, can regain lock. In TWS, if the radar loses a track, the computer will give it a moment to come back on the PREDICTED location. If it doesnt come back, the computer forgets about it, and if it comes back at a different location, it treats the target as a completely different one.
He!he!he! :D :D ...those pictures with earthquakes were a nice touch!... VERY nice! Thanks x uploading! :) Thumb up & subbed! - Have a nice day everybody! :)
back when i went to the air museum in Nevada I came across this plane with its engine beside it and came to the immediate realization that it might as well have been a supersonic go-kart with wings due to its extremely small size. Only a pubic hair longer than my car LOL.
All these years later this is still my favourite DCS aircraft, we need more coldwar servers! Once the F16 comes out im breaking up with russian bae though.
Great video,I hope you will upload some missions with it,my country(Hungary) operated this fighter for two decades so it really brings back a lot of nostalgia.
Ralfi could you please provide us with the startup guide and quick tips for dummies like on the A-10C, those vids helped me alot perfecting my knowledge on the Warthog. keep up the good work!
This looks like it would be a fun, fast as hell ground attacker, with the option to slap some AAMs on if you get bored and don't mind losing, or at the very least picking easy targets.
Having flown if for a couple days now, it's an alright ground attacker at best. It's let down by the not-so-impressive ammount of hardpoints under the wings, and it's nightmare inducing flight characteristics while low and slow. Even after doing ground runs over and over again, at any point you might stall a wing or completely lose the aircraft if you push the AOT too high. That said, the ground ordinance available is not bad, and if you don't take external fuel (which you will need more often than not) or any type of air-to-air armament, the ordinance load is adequately sized
I'd like to see what Eagle Dynamics has on the newest version of the 1950's-vintage Balalaika: The MiG-21bisSMF (Mod 97), which packs a single RD-33 turbofan and a raised cockpit with the canopy backported from the MiG-29. Still can't out-turn the USAF/Lockheed F-104 by much but is probably the best dogfighter among the first Mach 2 interceptors; a MiG-29 stick-grip retrofit would be a natural, with the long red trigger for stores (e.g., R-73MT and R-77MR AAM's, 9M114 antiarmor missiles, S-8 salvo rockets), and the short bronze trigger for the GSh-23-2 before the mainmounts.
I find these videos hilarious, ralfidude. Hearing Cleveland going "no! no! no! no! no!"made me laugh out loud! Do you happen to have a military background? Because the way you and your friends are communicating and flying in formation and such, makes me wonder sometimes. Haven't flown flight sims since the time of F-29 Retaliator (1989), Tornado (1993) and F-22 Lightning II (1996). Tried Falcon 4.0 after that, but my computer had issues with it and I couldn't bring myself to learn a manual the size of a phone book lol But it's been itching again for a while, now mucking about with DCS and I find it pretty hard.
+Tiger313NL Which module do you have? A-10C is a lot of fun once you learn the weapon systems takes about 6-8hrs to learn but worth it. F86 Sabre is a blast and very easy to get up and flying so is the P-51 and FW-190. If you want something really easy to get up and going I highly recommend Flaming Cliffs 3 addon. No animated cockpit just all controlled on the keyboard and mouse. FC3 contains about 6-8 aircrafts F-15C, A10A, SU-27, Mig 29 and so on.
