Quote:
Originally Posted by Real Dodger
I would disagree. While on paper the 35 might seem a good dogfighter, you have to remember that all russian military systems are very much hyped up. Remember the Mig 25? It led to the creation of the F-15/F-14 because we thought we (the US) were far behind. When a defector flew a Mig 25 to Japan and we evaluated it, it turned out that is was probably inferior to the f-4. Israeli F-15 pilots regularly thrashed MIG 29's over Syria.
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Victor Belenko gave a classified briefing about life in Russia, its military, and aircraft capabilities to the F-4 aircrews where I was stationed in 1977. He had obviously been prepped very well by his handlers, but it was still a very interesting briefing.
Most of that "thrashing" is a result of better trained and superior pilots than to great aircraft capability differences.