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Note, the F86 Sabre was not in service when the Korean war started. Front line jet fighters for the USA before the Sabre arrived in Korea where the Lockheed P80 Shooting Star and the Republic F84 Thunder jet. When the Mig15 appeared in the skies and began to take a toll on the B29 bombers the Sabre squadrons were brought it to meet the new threat.
Even though the F-86 had a better kill ratio than the MiG-15, it's still debatable as to which airplane was a better fighter. The 324th Air Division, under then-Colonel and ""Great Patriotic War" ace Ivan Kozrhdub, had an impressive record, though they didn't actually tangle with the F-86s that much.
I am proud to be an American citizen and I love everything about the F86 Sabre. I do have a preference to cannon armament over heavy machine guns. In that respect I give a slight edge to the Mig 15: 0ne 37mm and two 23mm cannon! That's a lot of firepower.
There's an interesting story from the MiG-15's service during the 1956 Suez War. An Egyptian MiG-15 came over to strafe the British Paratroopers that had seized Gamil airfield. The strafing run missed but a spent shell casing from the MiG-15's 37mm cannon fell on top of one of the British Paratroopers and killed him; making him the only British serviceman killed by an Egyptian air attack during the war.
The first German jet profiled the Me. P1101 had variable wing geometry, i.e. a swing wing and was copied pretty much exactly by Bell Aircraft as the X-5, to test wing variability.
@@jollyjakelovell4787 folding wing concepts aren’t that much of a leap from flaps. The idea of changing the aerofoil shape has been around since the Wright Bros.
So, my favorite stories about Lt Kum-sok's defection was how many things went perfectly in order for him to succeed instead of being shot out of the sky. First, was his initial run for the border... after taking off, he pulled the Han Solo ("I have a few tricks of my own") move of flying just slightly to the left... it worked... and they didn't notice he'd disappeared until it was too late. It also helped that there weren't any planes close enough to give him chase. Secondly was the fact that the radar at Kimpo airbase (where he landed) had been temporarily shut down that morning for routine maintenance... had the radar been up and running, he would have been spotted early and shot down. Then there was the fact that Kum-sok was completely unfamiliar with the landing pattern at Kimpo, and he got it completely backwards (he landed in the direction from which planes normally take off, and even nearly hit one, Captain Dave William, after touching down, with William noting as he veered out of the way, *_"It's a goddamned MiG!!")..._* had he landed in the correct direction, he would have been spotted and blasted out of the sky by the anti-aircraft that had been set up at the landing end of the runway. From wheels up until he touched down, his flight had lasted only 17 minutes. After landing, No taxied his MiG into a free parking spot between two Sabre jets, got out of his MiG and began tearing up a picture of Kim Il-sung that was placed in the cockpits of every North Korean aircraft. He then raised his arms up in order to surrender to the shocked airbase security guards who were now encircling him from every direction. After his debrief, and being asked what he was going to do with all that money, No asked, _"What money?"..._ he had no idea there was a reward (as none of the pilots were allowed to listen to Armed Forces radio and North Korea had done an excellent job picking up those flyers). According to what I've read, No actually was paid the $100,000... however, he noted that, even if he or any of the other North Korean pilots had heard of Operation Moolah, or read the flyers, it would have been meaningless to them since they wouldn't have understood how much money $100,000 was. No stated that it would have been more effective had the U.S. simply offered the defectors a good job and a home in the United States, which was all he had ever wanted.
Aside the mig15, the later version mig17 was also pretty good too, so good that even though "outdated" during the Vietnam War, mig17 still able to contend & knock out a fair number of the more technologically advanced f4 phantoms.
The MiG-15, however, had one big problem: the plane became dangerously unstable above Mach 0.92 (a couple of Russian pilots found out the hard way during operational sorties during the Korean War). The MiG bureau didn't solve it until the MiG-17, but that plane arrived too late for the War.
Was that a problem faced by the F-86 aswell? The main thing I recall about both jets was that both were prone to compressability, which was more likely than in earlier models since both were more capable of reaching high subsonic speeds relatively easily.
@@nater9447 Actually not. Because of the F-86's "all moving" horizontal rear stabilizer and general aerodynamic design, that mitigated the effects of shock waves as you approached teh speed of sound. In fact, even by 1949 during test flights the F-86A could break the sound barrier in dive.
Some of those problems weren't really solved. They added more, larger fences on the wings to help with lateral stability and made the airbrakes automatically deploy to prevent the plane from exceeding mach 0.92, even with the new afterburner on the MiG-17, but the plane still didn't have power boosted controls, and therefore was still difficult to handle at higher speeds. The MiG-15 also had a nasty stalling characteristic that was "unrecoverable". No Kum-sok, who defected with his MiG-15, soon after the war, eventually briefed Chuck Yeager on the MiG's flight characteristics. Naturally, Yeager put the MiG through its paces and managed to recover from that spinning stall... just barely.
@@Sacto1654 Indeed, there are some who claim that George Welsh actually exceeded Mach 1 in a dive a few hours before Chuck Yeager did it in the X-1. No instrumentation on the F-86A he was flying, so no way to determine the fact, except that some people hanging out at Pancho Barnes' place claim to have heard twin sonic booms before the ones that came from the X-1. I'll still go with Yeager's flight!
@@conroypaw This tendency, AFAIK, is something called "Deep Stall," where the high horizontal Stabilizer winds up in the dirty air coming off the stalling wings, meaning it no longer has any pitch authority, so effectively you have zero control over the airframe. The F-86 elevator was much lower, meaning that by the time you got the main wing to stall, you still had clean air flowing over the tail, helping the aircraft nose down, and recover much easier.
Exactly a month ago, I went to a local air force museum to look at some planes and one of them was a MiG-15UTI. Truly an advance aircraft compared to the piston engine aircraft right beside it
it's vice versa actually - it's the MiG that had control issues at the highest speeds because of insufficient wing rigidity, this is widely known fact. She got it wrong @ 2:18
The F-86 had a higher Mach number, so it could safely go supersonic while the MiG-15 could not. This gave Sabre pilot the advantage at transonic and supersonic speed.
I was in South Korea in 86, had two North Korean migs defect and land at Oscan afb. The entire country went nuts for a couple days until it was confirmed there was a defecting pilot. I believe they were both mig 17’s that went south and came inland from the Yellow Sea. Heard later about some guys would crash trying to defect because they were never given much fuel due to the high amount of defectors.
I think this video did something I used to hear during the Cold War: make Soviet equipment seem to be much better than it really was. There are several points to make. The initial MiG-15 kills were NOT made against the North American F-86 because it was considered to be too valuable to deploy to Korea. Instead, the initial jet kills were against a slightly older US aircraft - the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star. It was slower, less maneuverable and with a clunkier engine than either the MiG-15 or F-86. As soon as it got reports of the MiG-15’s deployment, the US Air Force sent F-86A’s to Korea. The advantages of the MiG-15 were heavier guns and lighter construction than its major opponent. The former meant that if it could get a shot off, it was likely to cause a lot of damage. The lightness meant that it had better performance than the F-86 at the highest altitudes, where it could turn better and climb higher than the F-86. The latter was actually more important as this allowed the MiG-15 to break off combat at will. The advantages of the F-86 were sturdier construction, guns less likely to jam, more ergonomic cockpit design, radar gunsight, and better trained pilots. In addition, the MiG-15 had wicked stall performance (meaning that the plane would suddenly stop flying and start tumbling instead). The US knew by eavesdropping on the MiGs that Russian pilots were in North Korea, and American pilots knew too. In shooting down one of the MiGs, one old pilot I met told me he noticed the enemy pilot had blond hair. The reason it was kept secret was because the US didn’t want a direct confrontation with the USSR, which President Truman knew could go nuclear. There’s lots of controversy about the American kill-to-loss ration in Korea. Because the enemy’s losses couldn’t be examined directly, it looked like the F-86s were doing quite well. Scholarship since then has brought the victory ratio down to 2 or 3 to one. There’s also a report of a Russian pilot who may have shot down as many as 25 US aircraft. The Soviets developed a special tactic to shoot down the 4-engine Boeing B-29; four MiGs would enter a dive flying line-abreast. Each would then shoot out a different engine. It was deadly, and it happened so fast that American escort fighters couldn’t interfere. The video mentions that the 2-seat MiG-15 UTI is still used as a trainer in North Korea (they can’t afford anything newer). The training version of the venerable F-80 (the T-33) also survived longer than the fighter. The last was retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 2017.
Actual ratio was 3:1 in favor of the F86 but closer to 1:1 when piloted by Soviet pilots. There is an indepth Rand corporation study about this. Also don't forget the main task of the 15 was to take out bombers while for the 86 it was to take out the 15s. It would always make more sense for the 86 to have a kill ratio advantage because of this.
Yeah, I was scratching my head wondering where they got the notion an F-86 pilot would have been surprised by an aircraft that preceded it into combat....
The Mig had a few advantages that would make it untouchable in good hands, as it could outclimb the Sabre, had a higher ceiling and a tighter turn. However, that is in good hands. The problem was that the Mig had no leading edge slats and had a nasty stall that could end into a spin, and if the spin wasn't recovered immediately (three turns maximum), it wouldn't ever be. As a result, only the most skilled pilots dared push it to the limits. Besides that, it's armament, while powerful, wasn't well suited to fight fighters. 23 and 37mm slow firing cannon is excellent to destroy bombers, big steady targets, but the agile fighters could litterally slip between shells.. The Sabre had other advantages : in a dive it could passe the sound barrier (the Mig could not as the shockwave of the wings, which also had a too thick profile, would hit the horizontal stabilizer , making it ineffective ). It also had boosted controls, especially ailerons, which allowed quicker reversals than the Mig who didn't have them. The last advantage, but not the least, it had leading edge slats which allowed tight turns while, at the same time, it's stall would be much easier to detect allowing for more carefree handling. As a result, keeping its speed high, it could be effectively used even by average pilots, which, in the end, would give them the upper hand against most opponents in a Mig. Finally, the high rate of fire of its six .50cal MGs or even the latter four 20mm cannons was much more appropriate to hit small targets like the Mig.
You're right. There were many small details that, taken together, made it an advantage over the Mig-15. Anyway, Soviet pilots did not feel that they were flying better than the F-86 Saber. After the war, they investigated why the MiG-15 did not meet the expectations of the command. When they were given the task of forcing the American Saber to land, they immediately considered the task impossible. Although the accident helped them to find one copy, which was forced to land near the beach and the tide allowed the Russians to extract this plane. Invaluable for them was the adjustment mechanism for the overload suits. The suits themselves were obtained from prisoners of war, but they had no regulator. And many other things. An additional difficulty was that the Russians were forbidden to fly over certain areas, for example by the sea, in order to keep secret that they were participating in this war. Another problem is that they did not know Korean, so after shooting down and parachute jumping on the ground, they were severely beaten by the local people. They've been sticking cheap Mao Zedong stamps on each other ever since.
Chuck Yeager's opinion of the Mig-15 after flying it was not very high. "Flying the MiG-15 is the most demanding situation I have ever faced. It's a quirky airplane that has killed a lot of its pilots." That is test pilot speak for "This F%^king POS airplane is a Widowmaker!" ie not good! He also said something about out flying one in a Sabre any day of the week, TBH I couldn't be arsed enough to look up the exact quote that I remember from his book.
I like your comment and the level of detail, no doubt you are a aviation history buff. Have you have ever seen the videos called Dog Fight? They cover the Korean war (Mig vs Sabre) very well with interviews from actual F86 pilots. Every pilot who flew the Sabre loved it however some expressed frustration with the armament, having to pump several rounds into the Mig and it kept flying. Where areas the Mig only needed a couple of hits and as one Americal pilot said," If you got hit the a Migs cannon, you probably weren't going to make it home."
Two of the other advantages were the 1) climate controlled cockpit and 2) the Sabre had the “flying tail”. The climate controlled cockpit was important because the cockpit would not fog up, causing further restrictions to visibility. One Sabre pilot was sharp-eyed enough to spot that problem with a mig he got into a dogfight with. He was then able to report that back to his CO and intelligence, who quickly trained that fact out to other pilots. The mig that was spotted with an icing up canopy didn’t make it back to base that day, the Sabre pilot exploited the weakness and was able to shoot him down. The flyable tail was important because it gave the Sabre much better handling at higher speeds, which likely prevented a lot of cratering by American pilots.
The Soviets committed MiG-15s to the Korean War in August 1950. The US responded by deploying F-86s to Korea in December 1950. The MiG was superior to USAF prop-driven fighters and to the straight-wing F-80; the swept wing MiG and F-86 were very similar in performance, except for the MiG's unique 37 mm cannon, and the MiG had a 1000 foot higher rate of climb and maximum operating altitude. It was the MiG's superiority to USAF planes such as the P-51 that led to the deployment of F-80s and F-86s. On the USN side, the straight-wing F9F was committed to the Korean War by July 1950, and had shot down a prop-powered Yak-9 (a very capable WW2-vintage Soviet fighter).
Contrary to an implication from the start of the video, F-86 pilots were not surprised to see MiG-15s in the sky. The reason that F-86 squadrons were sent to Korea was to counter the MiG-15s that were already operating there. The MiG-15 had about equal turning capability as the F-86, and was superior in ceiling, acceleration, and service ceiling, but the F-86A could out-dive the MiG-15 because it could safely go supersonic while the MiG could not. New models of the Sabre were quickly developed. The F-86-E got the all-flying tail, which gave it a maneuverability advantage over the MiG-15. The F-86F got a stronger engine, eliminating much of the MiG-15's advantages in acceleration and service ceiling. In the late part of the Korean War, F-86 pilots had the advantage. They had an airplane about as good as the MiG-15 and they had better training and more combat experience than the Chinese and North Korean pilots they were facing.
Tom Collins and Chuck Yeager the American pilots who tested No Kum-Sok's MiG-15 both said its alleged superiority was greatly over exaggerated. The two planes, the Sabre and the MiG were about equal with whichever of the two planes pilot's experience and ability being the determining factor for victory. Those first generation jet fighters including those like the Ouragan, Tunnan, F-84 or even the Pulqui II, and of course The MiG and the F-86 are all the best looking airplanes ever built.
I feel so sorry for the people who miss out on your videos. You deserve much more than what you have right now, TJ! Your hard work and persistence, all these things you've done for us all, it's wonderful. Keep going, and reach for the skies!
A good video. The MiG -15 for its role as a bomber intercepter it was armed with a 37 mm cannon with 40 rounds and two 23 mm with 80 rounds each. In accounts of pilots who fought the MiG 15 in was reported that the pilots often looked European or Russian. About its' devolpment there was no mention of espionage. To this day close sociaties often resort to espionage both military and commercial against in the free world. It is a major problem. Close sociaties hinder new ideas.
What caught the Americans by surprise was NOT F86 Sabre vs Mig 15. It was F7 Corsair and P51 Mustang vs Mig 15. It literally made prop driven planes obsolete. The F86 was the Allied answer to the Mig 15.
Excellent video! I fly for a small cargo airline based in Memphis that paints the vertical fin/rudder of our planes purple, and I had a 63 hour layover this weekend in Tucson. I went to the Pima Air and Space museum on Sunday and I was utterly blown away! They have two MIG 15's there, one outside that is in average condition and one inside that is pristine. The great thing about this museum is that the airplanes that are outside? You can walk right up and touch them, they don't care. As to the MIG 15 itself, this thing was scary. Russian engineers didn't understand high speed aerodynamics when this was being designed, and as a result these had a nasty tendency to fly into the ground at extreme speed. When these airplanes reach transonic speeds, a shock wave forms above the wings and the horizontal stabilizer. The problem is that as the plane accelerates, this shock wave on the horizontal stabilizer will travel rearward and park itself over the hinge of the elevator....Basically locking it in place. The speeds that are necessary for this phenomenon to take place are only reachable in a dive in this airplane, so many pilots were killed during dives that they simply could not pull out of, no matter how hard they pulled on the yoke. American engineers knew a solution to this and it is something that you see on every airliner to this day: A trimmable horizontal stabilizer. Chuck Yeager went to Russia and was actually asked by Russians how Americans were dealing with this problem; He wisely stated that they had no idea, even though he knew we had solved it and exactly how it had been done. It took the Soviets several years to finally figure it out....
My friend you should do the same thing with the Mig’s ultimate rival: the F-86 Sabre. However, more importantly, I think it’s time we finally hear some unknown facts about the most advanced aircraft of WWII: the Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe.
Good video- a couple of points- some of my $.02 worth, some historical "story's" Russians were not as far behind the West aeronautically as most assume. By the end of WW2 they were building world class piston fighters such as the Yak-3 and Lavochkin -7 Where they were behind without a shadow of a doubt was in jet turbines- they had detoured into dead ends such as motorjets and rocket power. Supposedly the engine deal was settled by a wager over drinks and a game of billiards- and unbeknownst to the Brits, Artem Mikoyan was known to be a bit of a "pool shark" It was asserted at the time that it would take the Soviets 5 years at least to reverse engineer the Nene.... It was also claimed that while they were reverse engineering the Nene- they were having issues making the turbine hot end- couldn't determine the material used. So they sent over a team of engineers with a NKVD "minder" to talk to Rolls Royce about it, while the engineers toured the production line- the "minder" was grinding chips from the lathes into the soles of his shoes
I find claim that yak-3 and la-7 comparable to western designs laughable based on their performance in Korea and Taiwan straight fights. They where in many case backwards- lacking basic features and giving appearance of competency. As a proof of how many features they lacked let me remind you that greatest soviet pilot of WWII refused to fly any russian plane after he got a taste of p-39, which itself wasn't that good but it had enough of comfort, management and ergonomic features to make all russians fighters look as unfit to fly.
Somme clarifications if I may: 3:03: Regarding WWII, the Soviet technology was not at the same level as its Western counterpart, no doubt about it, but it's not fair to say that they were a nation that was "so far behind". The Yak 3 and 7 were equivalent to the German Bf109 which was not as advanced as the last US fighters like the P51 but used by the Luftwaffe until the end, since it was still a very decent aircraft. In the same way the Soviets developped the T34 tank which was surpassed only by the German Tiger and was far superior to the American Sherman. The Americans focused on quantity instead of quality but the result was a bad tank. Regarding rifles, what the Soviets had was at the same level as the West: the US M1 rifle for example was light but not very efficient. On another hand they were late in jet technology ... but so were the Americans. 8:20: there are indeed similarities with the TA183 and they have probably been inspired by this design. However, note that the same cause producing the same effects, you can see a "comparable similarity" with the F86 Sabre. The same assumption was made with the Concorde and the Tu144 but in the end it was not that clear since there was only one aerodynamic solution for such an aircraft. Anyway, should they have copied the Concorde, they didn't do it very well, to say the least ... the Tu144 never worked properly and was so dangerous that they used it a little bit as a freighter and very soon the aircraft was grounded. Even the Bell X1 was more than inspired by a British design. Reciprocal influences, that's the way it works ... 11:49: you say that "the Chinese, contrary to North Koreans, had some true "jet-capable pilots". Then it is said that this was because there were trained during WWII by the Americans ... on piston engine fighters. Not consistent. 14:37: "heavy bombers in many ways won the war". This is highly discussed and questionned by historians. In Germany, despite the bombings they never ran out of weapons and ammunition, Dresden was razed so what? The idea being that too much suffering on the civilian side would lead to a kind of revolution that would stop the war. This didn't happen and by the way, punishing the civilians with the hope to trigger a revolution has never worked. In Japan, to some extent the Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki stopped the war but not the other bombings. However it's right to say that the threat in the early 50s was US bombers carrying nuclear bombs, hence the primary mission of the Mig15. They had to prtevent any of them to reach their target. 19:20: Operation Moolah. That's true, using this peculiar American minset according to which you can buy anybody, it's just a matter a price. This doesn't work all the time and indeed the Korean pilot who eventually defected was not even aware of the offer ... By the way do you know that a Sabre had been also taken by the Russians who succeeded in forcing a F86 to crashland in an area not controlled by the UN forces? Their idea was to understand why American pilots were so good and they found something they didn't have: the gun sight which was able to take into account trajectory corrections based on the accelerations and allowing the pilots to get a better shot. I presume they copied it but, as you mentionned, the war was close to an end.
I disagree with your comparison of the M4 Sherman and the T-34. The T-34 had a bigger gun, that is certain. But the Sherman was not a "bad tank." It was designed to be used in exploitation, so it had good mobility, good reliability, and was easy to repair. It was not originally intended to fight other tanks. In U.S. Army doctrine, which turned out to be flawed, killing enemy tanks was the job of tank destroyers. When models of the Sherman with the 76.2mm main gun appeared (and the British modified some of their Shermans with their 17-pounder gun), it became more of a match with the German Pzkpfw V. In terms of quality control, the Sherman was a much, much better-built tank than the T-34, which was slapped together under very difficult and crude manufacturing conditions. The Sherman was also built to be deployable to theaters of war all over the globe, and to be logistically supportable over those vast distances. The Sherman was also adaptable to multiple roles. It was light enough to go over most bridges in Europe, whereas many German tanks, particularly the Tiger, were too heavy. Because of all its many strengths, some analysts consider the Sherman the best all-round tank of WWII, albeit usually not the best in single tank v. single tank combat.
The Mig 15 was on the scene prior to the F86 and was the better of the Northrop F-89, Grumman F9F,, Lockheed P80 & F94 and Republic F84 all before the F86 became operational in Korea. When it did it made a match for the Mig but you still didn't want to follow one in the vertical because 40,000 ft belonged to the Mig. As aircraft performance usually goes much depended on the altitude and the tactics. Soviet airmen took part in Korea and their directives have traditionally been from rigid ground control which at the time were supposed to be in Chinese and likely had a monotone "dialect" unintelligible to themselves as well as anyone else until they'd start cursing in Russian. . They claim, and don't share records of unrealistic kill ratios and we take advantage of the dearth of any such records on their part to claim unrealistic kill ratios . Fighter pilots are like politicians whose claims deserve vetting.. Insofar as I can see from the cheap seats that seems universal.
Actually, the Communist Chinese pilots were mostly trained by surrendered Janperese pilots such as Hayashi Yaichiro "林弥一郎" in Manchuria, he was called "The founder of PLA air force"
You recently did a video on the polish 303 squadron of the RAF. I think a terrific option for the next documentary should be of the Flying Tigers. It’s an outstanding story no matter which way you look at it.
Pepelyaev Evgenij wrote the book MIGs versus Sabres. He's a Soviet pilot who flew in Korea. A very interesting book that describes the activities of two squads that flew over Korea. One of these groups was given a special task to force the Saber to land in order to obtain technology. A forced landing was successful and technicians were dispatched. Lots of interesting information. What did the Russians envy the American pilots? For example, emergency services. The downed American pilot had full support and personal equipment for such accidents, while to the Russian pilots their commander said: if you fall into the water, you have two hands to swim. Original title: Пепеляев Евгений - «Миги» против «Сейбров»
I've also read that Russian's given a tour of RR jet engine factory had special sticky soles on their shoes so they could steal swarf lying on the floors thus telling them the materials being used in the engine.
This video brings up a very interesting question or possible study, TJ.......how did countries (Germany for instance) manage to train fighter pilots with a full-scale war waging?? In other words, as Germany circa 1943-45 was desperately trying to replace and train new pilots, weren't these air cadets getting rudely interrupted by experienced allied fighter pilots making easy targets of them and shooting them down?? Jim C.
The enjoyed the fact that the war was not waging in their own country! Until 1945, at which time the training became very difficult and quality of Luftwaffe pilots experienced the same problems! (This is why USAAF Kills went up so much in 1945!)
I used to see docs like this fine example on the History Channel. Nowadays a channel for people interested in auctioned storageboxes, golddiggers, etc. Glad we have Yt.
My understanding is that the MiG 15 had a higher service ceiling, higher rate of climb and was more maneuverable, but it was NOT faster in top speed. The Sabre had a full moving tail which allowed it to exceed Mach 1 in a dive CONTROLLABLY, whereas the MiG had a conventional elevator which could have caused loss of control at higher transonic speeds. It also had stability issues which made it less stable as a gun platform and it was possible to force the MiG into an unrecoverable spin if it went into an accelerated stall, making it more difficult to fly the MiG to its limits. As for the Brits selling the Rolls Royce Nene engine to the USSR, it seems like one of the most naive, foolish things ever. As Lenin was supposed to have said, "When it comes time to hang the capitalist West, they will sell us the rope." The Messerschmidt Jet fighter actually looks more like the Yak-29.
That Messerschmitt prototype more closely resembles the MiG-9, which was less than successful. In particular, note where the exhaust exited the plane. In the MiG-9 it created thermal problems for the tail section of the plane.
The F-86 pilots were not surprised by the appearance of the Mig-15. The Mig-15 was in theatre before the first F-86's were deployed. So UN pilots were already well aware of its presence and capabilities. One of the main advantages that the Sabrejet had over its adversary was its computing, radar ranging gunsight, as well as its flying tail, which gave it more control at high speed. So if there was any surprise, it was probably accounted to the communist airmen, as attested to by them scurrying back across the Yalu when Sabres appeared, as well as the high kill ratio the Sabre attained.
I'll share two additional facts about the MIG-15 that most people don't know. Number one, the reason it had a 37mm cannon in addition to two 23mm machine guns. So it could shoot down the B-29. The Soviets were terrified of Enola Gay (B-29) dropping the atom bomb on Japan. So they commissioned general designer Artyom Mikoyan to design an aircraft that can intercept the B-29 at any altitude. This is one of the reasons the MIG-15 could climb to 50,000 feet unrestricted. The other fact is about the purchase of Rolls-Royce jet engines from Britain. The story goes when Artyom Mikoyan the general designer and the Soviet delegation visited the UK to negotiate the purchase of the jet engine. Artyom Mikoyan made a bet with a Rolls-Royce executive over the billiard game. The bet was if Aryom Mikoyan wins a game of billiard against the executive the Rolls-Royce will sell them 15 units. So that is exactly what happened: Artyom Mikoyan won the game and the Soviets got 15 units of Rolls-Royce jet engines. Once the engine arrived in Russia, the Russians copied the engine and the rest was history.
The design of the MIG-15 evolved from earlier Soviet jet aircraft. One of the first Soviet jets was the Yakovlev Yak-15. This jet had the Soviet copy of the German Junkers Jumo 004 engine. The Yak-15 looked nearly identical to the Messerschmitt P.1101 you mentioned in the video.
A few things ... The Mig-15 and F-86 were comparable aircraft. Neither was "better" than the other, they just had different relative strengths and weaknesses. One thing about the Mig's armament - was that it was designed to kill bombers - and was thus heavier than the armament of the Sabre which was designed to kill fighters. The Sabre had a much higher volume of fire while the Mig had a possibly greater weight of fire. Thus - shooting cannon at slow moving, un-maneuverable bombers worked as they were easier to hit. Shooting at a fighter plane that was highly maneuverable - was much harder to get a hit - so - a larger number of bullets being spewed out - increased those chances. The Mig's first encountered older American Jet's like the P-80 and P-84 as the Sabres were all in Europe. As mentioned - the greatest factor in the success of these aircraft - was the pilots and their experience. Here - the US had much more experienced air men. The Americans were always aware that the Russians were flying some of the Mig's opposing them. They were monitoring the communications of the aircraft on both sides and recording it. The Russians had been taught to communicate in either Chinese or Korean - but - in the heat and excitement of combat - they fell back on their Russian - and the Americans had it all recorded. The Americans however did not want to increase tensions with the Soviets so they kept their recordings of Russian fighter pilots secret. Many years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union - all this came out and there are documentaries interviewing these Russian Pilots - who all BTW - thought they were winning. As to where the aircraft designers learned what they learned - one thing to keep in mind was that all the worlds aviation engineers were learning from each other and what other nations were doing - including the Americans and the British. The Russians did in fact have very good aircraft designers as can be seen in their WWII aircraft. Here - one of the reasons the Germans were so much better in the air than the Soviets was - as on the ground - the presence of radios. The Russians could and did build air frames and tank chassis that were very good but they had difficulties with electronics and optics. The end result of that was that communications between different Russian Aircraft and Ground Vehicles was much more limited than it was for the Americans, British and Germans. If a Russian saw an enemy coming up behind a comrade's vehicle, air or ground - he might not be able to warn his comrade of the danger. For tanks - the British and Americans had good optics to use in targeting an enemy and the optics of the Germans were excellent. The poor optics of the Russians - meant that they were less likely to get a hit as quickly. .
The test flights of the Mig-15 were conducted at Okinawa (not in the USA) and the reason Col. Yeager said it was dangerous was very little was known about the aircraft, the weather during the tests was poor and it was done in a very short schedule. The "owners" of this stolen aircraft wanted it returned and it was returned AFTER it had been through a tear down examination with all the parts thrown into crates for shipment.
One of the most important things in the design of super sonic flight. It was an English RAF fighter development project finding out that it is best to make the ruder + elevators sinvle- piece units a discovery used here in t US on our own 1st super sonic X2, piloted by Chuck Yeager.
Check out the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Arizona and their beautiful Mig-15 here! (You can even take a cockpit tour!) www.azcaf.org/ facebook.com/cafairbasearizona/ th-cam.com/channels/ajbMdqv165JZRKjs60E46g.html
The Focke-Wulf Ta 183 was designed by Hans Multhopp, who worked for Kurt Tank. Tank took the designs to Argentina after the war, altered them, and developed the disastrous Pulqui II for Peron. Unlike the Mig-15 it had a very high wing, which led to deadly stalling during slow landings.
Fun Fact: The Rolls-Royce engine the Soviets bought from the British were bought when the latter lost a game of billiards to the Soviets. Imagine such a thing being decided by billiards. Boggles the mind.
Reminds me of that anonymous idiot who rang a forward command post (on open telephone lines), on the night before the 1st July 1916 "Somme" attack... saying, "Good luck with tomorrow morning's assault" (naturally, it was intercepted by the Germans) By lunchtime, they'd lost 59,000 men, of which 19,986 (night on 20k), would be killed, stone-dead. Some phone call.....
I know the brits were upset that the US didn’t share their nuclear secrets with Britain as they had agreed. But given the way Labour handled the jet engine fiasco, it seems the decision was correct.
German aerospace design and research in the form of the P1101 and Ta183 is the basis for the US F86 Sabre, Soviet MiG15, SAAB Tunnan and British Hawker Hunter, not to mention the Argentine Puma, which was directly designed by none other than Kurt Tank himself.The F86 Sabre also initially relied on a US licence built British Nene engine.
The (originally straight-wing) XP-86 was a modification of the Navy's FJ1, which had a G.E.-developed J35 axial-flow turbojet. It was developed alongside the Whittle (British)-based J-33 centrifugal-flow engine. The XP-86 used a J-35-C-3 engine. It was not a license-built Rolls-Royce Nene. Production versions of the F-86 used various models of the J-47 engine, which was a development of the J35. The license-built Nene was the Pratt & Whitney J42, which powered the Grumman F9F Panther.
The Mig15 is by far the greatest 1st generation jet fighter ever built. The simplistic common sense design features the tough frame and easy maintainence. Gave it an advantage in battle setting the standard for generations of future fighter aircraft helping America, France,Britain and Sweden develop their own great fighter's.
Indeed few early PVA jet capable pilots were ex-KMT pilots trained by Americans，most of PVA jet capable pilots were newly trained pilots with USSR offered training assistance.
Both the F86 and the MiG15, drew inspiration heavily from german designs. The jet engine was a german invention and german aeronautical engineers found that wing sweep would increase speed as you approach mach 1. The F86 and the MiG15 are very, very similar, but not identical. They were both so similar because both Russia and the United States stole aeronautical information from german engineers. As the video says the ta153 is similar to the MiG15 but also the F86. After the war, Kurt Tank went to Argentina and finished designing it there. Then the Argentine government began producing it.
The jet engine was a British invention, although other countries had engineers working along similar lines. RAF officer Frank Whittle is considered to be the inventor of the turbojet engine. His engine was the basis of the G.E. J31 turbojet that powered the U.S. P-59, the first American jet. Even with two of those engines, the P-59 was underpowered and slower than the USAAF's existing piston-engine fighters.
@@RANDALLBRIGGS Technically speaking, the Germans didn't invent the jet engine. What I meant to say was they were the first to make and use jet engines in an operational fighter (Me262).
You make it sound as if the MiG-15 was leaps and bounds ahead if the Sabre. The Sabre had a 5.6-1 kill ratio over the MiG, and a 1.4-1 ratio when facing experienced wwii Soviet pilots.
TBF it's the old caretakers there at the CAF in Mesa that kept saying it was super superior, our intrepid narrator and channel host likely took what they said to him for granted.
This is not accurate, but is commonly said anyways for some reason. Most F-86 pilots believed they were outmatched until the final year of the Korean War. - "Early variants of the F-86 could not out-turn MiG-15s, but they could out-dive them. The MiG-15 was superior to early F-86 models in ceiling, acceleration, rate of climb, and zoom. With the introduction of the F-86F in 1953, however, the two aircraft were more closely matched, with many combat-experienced pilots claiming a marginal superiority for the F-86F. "
Again, its really quite easy to find in moderate research. Nearly everyone at the time, F-86 pilots included, believed the Mig-15 was better until the final year of the Korean War. Some info - *Early variants of the F-86 could not out-turn MiG-15s, but they could out-dive them. The MiG-15 was superior to early F-86 models in ceiling, acceleration, rate of climb, and zoom. With the introduction of the F-86F in 1953, however, the two aircraft were more closely matched, with many combat-experienced pilots claiming a marginal superiority for the F-86F.*
There is a great deal of debate. But essentially, overclaiming occurred in the heaps. No aircraft was really that successful when flown against comparable aircraft with competent pilots in my opinion. A little more info on a different perspective - *The status of many claimed air-to-air victories in the Korean War has been increasingly debated as more data becomes available, showing that instances of over-claiming abounded on both sides. The research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson claimed an F-86 kill ratio closer to 2:1.[50] A recent RAND report made reference to "recent scholarship" of F-86 v MiG-15 combat over Korea and concluded that the actual kill:loss ratio for the F-86 was 1.8:1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3:1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots.[43] However, this ratio did not count the number of aircraft of other types (including the B-29, A-26, F-80, F-82, F-84 and Gloster Meteor) shot down by MiG-15 pilots.* I'm not saying any numbers are perfect, but what I do know is that early over Korea, the Mig-15 was the dominating aircraft of the skies. This would be the case until the last half of the war or so. I have read this from a good number of sources.
Armistice 1953 is not the end of a war but a suspension of hostilities for a specified time. The Korean War technically is on going but in armistice. There was no surrender and no terms of surrender by either side.
TJ3 is once again missing the big air story of the Korean War. The new US Air Force destroyed about 40,000 good ground support propeller fighter bombers just after WW2, as the dimwit generals decided to go with an all jet force. (In 1947 the US Air Force separated from the US Army) The 1st and 2nd generation jets were next to useless in ground attack mode. The result was the deaths of thousands of US infantry due to lack of good ground support aircraft. The US could have had thousands of P-47s, P-51s, P-38s, f-4 Corsairs, F-6 Hellcats, B-25s, B-26s, but most of those planes were now just aluminum ingots.
Today, Russian and American historians such as Cookie Sewall and Diego Zampinni admit that on 10/01/1955, not 10/08, there was the first kill of a jet by another jet. An F-80 Shooting Star patrol engaged three MiG-15s and veteran First Lieutenant Semyon Fyodorovich Khominich spotted 10 F-80F aircraft. Khomonich turned left, leaving the sun behind in combat formation. As a result of their attack, an F-80 was shot down. He opened fire at 800 meters, and stopped firing at less than 200 meters. Coming out of his attack, the lieutenant struggled to gain altitude. Major Bordun with the rest of the team attacked four F-80s that were trying to attack Khominich. The Americans went to the others without success, and finally abandoned the fight..."
What you left out about the British engine was that the Soviets didn't honor the contract for technical support of the engine. Soviet engineers had no idea of the special alloy used in the engine. Therefore they had their engineer wear special soft spongy soul shoes and visit the engine plant of RR and walk around the milling machines producing the turbine blades. They got all the material needed for a copy of the alloy then.
Kurt Tank's Ta-183 was actually built and flown, only not in Germany during the ear. After the war, Kurt Tank applied to the British to work for them, but they declined. He heard from and old friend, that Argentina was looking for an aircraft designer to upgrade their Air Force. Once there, he told President Juan Peron that he had a jet fighter design that just needed building. This was the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II, which was the Ta-183 in the flesh, (well, sheet metal). It didn't fly until 1950, but it did fly.
On a single engine DC-6 in '61 Lan Chile Panama - Miami run when pair of MIG 15s perched off wingtips. On left side at only 10, I gave Cuban (Ruskie) Pilot smart salute & he saluted back. He & Wingman were inspecting #1 only engine runnin' & 3 dead Comrades. Guess we didn't look like CIA, so things cool until they must have gotten shootdown orders as wingman shot up, over, & behind us, so my new buddy did same sitting in front of Wingman bangin' on cockpit and radio'n at warp speed. Finally orders rescinded as Wingman returned to right wingtip & buddy returned to left. We were low & slow over Cuba, but once clear Pilot gave smart salute, I returned it, and they zoomed off having frightened intruder away. We struggled over landing light gantries, gear down, 2 seconds later alit on threshhold popping up to stop on runway foote, & Capt announcing, "Welcome to Miami"! Those MIGs had looked pretty impressive to us, but the lead Pilot had respect for fellow aviators overcoming loss of 3 engines and still tryin' to deliver a load of passengers to their destination. Could have ended up quite differently....
The United States Armed Forces estimates that 5,300 of these troops went missing in North Korea. North Korea estimates there are close to 20,000 U.S. Troops remains still in North Korea.
Disappointed you berate the British for supplying the Soviets with a Nene; when it was them who got your first operational jets into the air with the generous provision of the Goblin.
I don't believe that the U.S. used the De Havilland Goblin in any production aircraft. It powered the never-produced XF15C and was to have been the powerplant of the P-80. It did power the XP-80, but the G.E. J33 (an outgrowth of Frank Whittle's W.1) powered the production versions.
I was disappointed that the video did not share the flying characteristics of the Mig 15, especially the weak points. I am more curious about that than the rest of the video.
There is a huge fact you could have added to this list. All the maintenance on the aircraft was designed to be done with a minimal amount of tools ball-peen hammer,flat blade screw driver and a pair of pliers.
In his autobiography "He-1000" Ernst Heinkel claims that after the war, when Germany was forbidden from building aircraft, he former designer Siegfried Gunther was quite desperate for work. As I recall, Heinkel considered him to be the finest aerodynamicist in Europe and he had a young family who he was struggling to feed. Heinkel tried to find opportunities for Gunther but was unsuccessful. One day according to Heinkel, a friendly gentleman offered Gunther the perfect job and he accepted. Heinkel claims he moved to the USSR where he worked as an aerodynamicist on the MiG 15 project.
From everything I have read and heard, the F-86 was generally a better plane. Although the six .50 Cal Brownings mounted in the Sabre were showing their shortcomings by the Korean War, the radar ranging gun sight was just one example of technological superiority over the Mig. But as Yeager pointed out in his book and probably in numerous interviews, and as quoted here, it came down to the pilot's skill and experience. Of course, having aircraft that were on par with each other as a starting point certainly helps.
One note....the F86 WAS not in Theater when the MiG 15 arrived on the scene in November of 1950. It made dog meat out of the F80 and F82 fighters that were there. The F86 was rushes in with the -A model in late Dec 50, they matched it but until the -F model was introducwd inn1953 it out performed it. It must be noted that the mixed 15 were not all flung by North Korean pilots. Not at all. They were flown by Soviet Honchos who had vast World War II experience and it was those pilots that took the Americans on and surprised them. A secret that was kept from the American public for over 60 years.
EVERYBODY knows about the Rolls-Royce Nene engine, which propelled an entire generation of Soviet aircraft. Inspiration from the Ta 183 is possible, but I fail to see the supposed resemblance. Soviet pilots in Korea is hardly a secret, nor is US training of Chinese pilots. You don't stick a 37mm onto a fighter, unless you expect it to attack something VERY big. Many export customers will hang onto an airframe as long as it works, the MiG 15 is hardly an exception.
Check your facts about only American B-17, B-24 and B-29 doing the bombing, did you forget the heavy bombers flown by the RAF and other Allies? Also, the Mig-15 preceded the F-86 to Korea.
The prime hurdle that the RR Nene turbojet took care of in the initial Soviet jet fighter program was common to almost all builders of warplanes. Never attempt to try sorting out the various early flaws that will show up in a radically new high performance aircraft design and a radically new engine design at the same time on the same one of a kind, crash prone, machine if you value your sanity... As far as the British were concerned, the Nene was a dead end simplistic technology design with little value and no future. If the Soviets wanted to buy some and were willing to pay in gold, "Hey, why not", said a semi bankrupt British government. The fact that Soviet design bureaus had spent decades secretly getting old obsolete stuff from the west and then carefully reworking/ redesigning some of it to negate its minor and even major flaws, thus coming up with much sturdier, more powerful, military related products of their own, apparently never crossed their minds.
To listen to the narration lend-lease and the WWII heavy bombing campaign were exclusively American programs. -The majority of aircraft used by the Soviet Union in WWII were modern Soviet designs. -Technically, the Soviets had no need to reverse engineer the BMW 003. As spoils of war, they put their hands on the engines, its blueprints, as well as several German engineers plus two of the plants where they were made. -The resemblance of the MiG15 to the Ta183 is overstated. The high tailplane design, for example, was a feature of previous MiG designs, like the MiG9 -Stating that the MiG15 was a combination of influences and designs from various designers both domestic and abroad is a truism. It applies to every aircraft ever made.
As far as I know the "Brits" were badgered to release the engine tech' to the USA. At the same time there was pressure to release that same information to Russia near the wars end. Frank Whittle developed the engine whilst in the employ of the RAF and was deemed to be a public servant. He died a poor man without receiving any royalties for his ground breaking designs. My uncle worked with him.
The English wanted the manufacturing capacity the USA had to offer and shared it to that end. Frank Whittle got a 100,000 pound reward for his work on the jet engine. That was back when $5 = i pound and so it was much better than you indicate and if he had patent rights he would have had to court to defend them because Ohain had done work in Germany that was in some ways more advanced. Frank Whittle spent most of his life working in the USA and I was at an air show in about 1990 where he was the guest of honor. I think that the biggest grip he had was that when the engine went to production it was taken over by R-R and they tried to forget he had ever had anything to do with it. (Also why he went to the states where he was more valued.)
The British gave the U.S. an example of Whittle's Power Jets W.1 engine, along with the technical drawings of the larger W.2/23 which G.E. built as the J31. The British sold 25 examples of the more-powerful Rolls Royce Nene engine to the Soviets in 1946-47. The Soviets reverse-engineered it, then enlarged what they got into the Klimov VK-1, which powered the MiG-15. Pratt& Whitney license-built the Rolls Royce Nene as the J42. The only U.S. fighter to be powered by the J42 was the F9F Panther, I believe. The British also gave the U.S. the first two De Havilland Goblin engines, and that engine powered the XP-80, but not the production P-80s.
It was part of the Allies agreement that WW2 technology that would be shared so there is no 'Foolish" about it, WE unlike our American Allies, who we also GAVE the jet engine technology to, the P80 had the Rolls Royce engine, actually abided by this agreement.
The British Labour party used to sing The Red Flag & believe in many things which the Communists believed including government ownership of pretty much everything, so sale of the engines was probably a 'no brainer' to them!
the anthem of Britain's Labour Party, a socialist song with words written in 1889 by James Connell (1852-1929) and sung to the tune of the German song ‘O Tannenbaum’. Sung at every Labour Party conference, sadly not a socialist party these days…
@@Aubury also the tune of a well known 'Rugby Song' entitled 'We'll keep the Red Flag Flying There'; with the memorable line "I've got the Foreman's job at last". So I believe.
Wait till you get to the part where the US Army, British Army and US Marine Corp. got to “meet” the Chinese Army near the China border and were defeated and routed retreating all the way back down into South Korea…
Thanks again to Masterworks for making this video possible! Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: masterworks.art/TJ3History
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22:11 what if I was flying a f22 raptor
Don’t forget the mig 9, which definitely was inspired off the designs of the Germans aircrafts, and was continued upon by the mig 15.
@@chrismcfarland1730 you know how to operate one? Like at all?
Yea
I know this is a serious video but the North Korean pilot name is HILARIOUS 😂‼️
Your right..lol😂 good lord is that funny 🤣
Haaaahaaaaahaaaaa
Ur a bonehead
😂😂😂
It caught me off guard 😂
Note, the F86 Sabre was not in service when the Korean war started.
Front line jet fighters for the USA before the Sabre arrived in Korea where the Lockheed P80 Shooting Star and the Republic F84 Thunder jet.
When the Mig15 appeared in the skies and began to take a toll on the B29 bombers the Sabre squadrons were brought it to meet the new threat.
Just a slight correction. The F-86 entered service in 1949, but it was not introduced into the Korean War until December 1950.
Even though the F-86 had a better kill ratio than the MiG-15, it's still debatable as to which airplane was a better fighter. The 324th Air Division, under then-Colonel and ""Great Patriotic War" ace Ivan Kozrhdub, had an impressive record, though they didn't actually tangle with the F-86s that much.
I am proud to be an American citizen and I love everything about the F86 Sabre. I do have a preference to cannon armament over heavy machine guns. In that respect I give a slight edge to the Mig 15: 0ne 37mm and two 23mm cannon! That's a lot of firepower.
There's an interesting story from the MiG-15's service during the 1956 Suez War. An Egyptian MiG-15 came over to strafe the British Paratroopers that had seized Gamil airfield. The strafing run missed but a spent shell casing from the MiG-15's 37mm cannon fell on top of one of the British Paratroopers and killed him; making him the only British serviceman killed by an Egyptian air attack during the war.
The F-86 and Mig-15 are fairly similar in appearance. German innovation likely influenced both
The first German jet profiled the Me. P1101 had variable wing geometry, i.e. a swing wing and was copied pretty much exactly by Bell Aircraft as the X-5, to test wing variability.
Yes.
Weren’t Russia our allies in 1946. And skint
Britain 🇬🇧trusted the USA 🇺🇸 and Russia 🇷🇺 in 1946
@@jollyjakelovell4787 folding wing concepts aren’t that much of a leap from flaps. The idea of changing the aerofoil shape has been around since the Wright Bros.
So, my favorite stories about Lt Kum-sok's defection was how many things went perfectly in order for him to succeed instead of being shot out of the sky. First, was his initial run for the border... after taking off, he pulled the Han Solo ("I have a few tricks of my own") move of flying just slightly to the left... it worked... and they didn't notice he'd disappeared until it was too late. It also helped that there weren't any planes close enough to give him chase. Secondly was the fact that the radar at Kimpo airbase (where he landed) had been temporarily shut down that morning for routine maintenance... had the radar been up and running, he would have been spotted early and shot down. Then there was the fact that Kum-sok was completely unfamiliar with the landing pattern at Kimpo, and he got it completely backwards (he landed in the direction from which planes normally take off, and even nearly hit one, Captain Dave William, after touching down, with William noting as he veered out of the way, *_"It's a goddamned MiG!!")..._* had he landed in the correct direction, he would have been spotted and blasted out of the sky by the anti-aircraft that had been set up at the landing end of the runway. From wheels up until he touched down, his flight had lasted only 17 minutes.
After landing, No taxied his MiG into a free parking spot between two Sabre jets, got out of his MiG and began tearing up a picture of Kim Il-sung that was placed in the cockpits of every North Korean aircraft. He then raised his arms up in order to surrender to the shocked airbase security guards who were now encircling him from every direction. After his debrief, and being asked what he was going to do with all that money, No asked, _"What money?"..._ he had no idea there was a reward (as none of the pilots were allowed to listen to Armed Forces radio and North Korea had done an excellent job picking up those flyers). According to what I've read, No actually was paid the $100,000... however, he noted that, even if he or any of the other North Korean pilots had heard of Operation Moolah, or read the flyers, it would have been meaningless to them since they wouldn't have understood how much money $100,000 was. No stated that it would have been more effective had the U.S. simply offered the defectors a good job and a home in the United States, which was all he had ever wanted.
this was a fascinating read! Thank you. Its incredible how circumstances can work out despite the nearly impossible margin of error
😂😂😂❤s
Aside the mig15, the later version mig17 was also pretty good too, so good that even though "outdated" during the Vietnam War, mig17 still able to contend & knock out a fair number of the more technologically advanced f4 phantoms.
The MiG-15, however, had one big problem: the plane became dangerously unstable above Mach 0.92 (a couple of Russian pilots found out the hard way during operational sorties during the Korean War). The MiG bureau didn't solve it until the MiG-17, but that plane arrived too late for the War.
Was that a problem faced by the F-86 aswell? The main thing I recall about both jets was that both were prone to compressability, which was more likely than in earlier models since both were more capable of reaching high subsonic speeds relatively easily.
@@nater9447 Actually not. Because of the F-86's "all moving" horizontal rear stabilizer and general aerodynamic design, that mitigated the effects of shock waves as you approached teh speed of sound. In fact, even by 1949 during test flights the F-86A could break the sound barrier in dive.
Some of those problems weren't really solved. They added more, larger fences on the wings to help with lateral stability and made the airbrakes automatically deploy to prevent the plane from exceeding mach 0.92, even with the new afterburner on the MiG-17, but the plane still didn't have power boosted controls, and therefore was still difficult to handle at higher speeds.
The MiG-15 also had a nasty stalling characteristic that was "unrecoverable". No Kum-sok, who defected with his MiG-15, soon after the war, eventually briefed Chuck Yeager on the MiG's flight characteristics. Naturally, Yeager put the MiG through its paces and managed to recover from that spinning stall... just barely.
@@Sacto1654 Indeed, there are some who claim that George Welsh actually exceeded Mach 1 in a dive a few hours before Chuck Yeager did it in the X-1. No instrumentation on the F-86A he was flying, so no way to determine the fact, except that some people hanging out at Pancho Barnes' place claim to have heard twin sonic booms before the ones that came from the X-1. I'll still go with Yeager's flight!
@@conroypaw This tendency, AFAIK, is something called "Deep Stall," where the high horizontal Stabilizer winds up in the dirty air coming off the stalling wings, meaning it no longer has any pitch authority, so effectively you have zero control over the airframe.
The F-86 elevator was much lower, meaning that by the time you got the main wing to stall, you still had clean air flowing over the tail, helping the aircraft nose down, and recover much easier.
It's amazing how you guys went from crashes, gun kills to tell stories some of us might not have ever heard thank you.
Exactly a month ago, I went to a local air force museum to look at some planes and one of them was a MiG-15UTI. Truly an advance aircraft compared to the piston engine aircraft right beside it
The F-86 was sent to Korea in response to the MiG-15. I don't believe the MiG is more stable at high speed than the F-86.
F-86 is somewhat better then mig. But mig came first and decimated F-84, F-80 and others already obsolete aircrafts.
it's vice versa actually - it's the MiG that had control issues at the highest speeds because of insufficient wing rigidity, this is widely known fact. She got it wrong @ 2:18
The F-86 had a higher Mach number, so it could safely go supersonic while the MiG-15 could not. This gave Sabre pilot the advantage at transonic and supersonic speed.
Slip stream fins where added to prevent it going supersonic while sabre was doing supersonic during high speed dives on the regular.
I was in South Korea in 86, had two North Korean migs defect and land at Oscan afb. The entire country went nuts for a couple days until it was confirmed there was a defecting pilot. I believe they were both mig 17’s that went south and came inland from the Yellow Sea. Heard later about some guys would crash trying to defect because they were never given much fuel due to the high amount of defectors.
I think this video did something I used to hear during the Cold War: make Soviet equipment seem to be much better than it really was. There are several points to make. The initial MiG-15 kills were NOT made against the North American F-86 because it was considered to be too valuable to deploy to Korea. Instead, the initial jet kills were against a slightly older US aircraft - the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star. It was slower, less maneuverable and with a clunkier engine than either the MiG-15 or F-86. As soon as it got reports of the MiG-15’s deployment, the US Air Force sent F-86A’s to Korea. The advantages of the MiG-15 were heavier guns and lighter construction than its major opponent. The former meant that if it could get a shot off, it was likely to cause a lot of damage. The lightness meant that it had better performance than the F-86 at the highest altitudes, where it could turn better and climb higher than the F-86. The latter was actually more important as this allowed the MiG-15 to break off combat at will. The advantages of the F-86 were sturdier construction, guns less likely to jam, more ergonomic cockpit design, radar gunsight, and better trained pilots. In addition, the MiG-15 had wicked stall performance (meaning that the plane would suddenly stop flying and start tumbling instead). The US knew by eavesdropping on the MiGs that Russian pilots were in North Korea, and American pilots knew too. In shooting down one of the MiGs, one old pilot I met told me he noticed the enemy pilot had blond hair. The reason it was kept secret was because the US didn’t want a direct confrontation with the USSR, which President Truman knew could go nuclear. There’s lots of controversy about the American kill-to-loss ration in Korea. Because the enemy’s losses couldn’t be examined directly, it looked like the F-86s were doing quite well. Scholarship since then has brought the victory ratio down to 2 or 3 to one. There’s also a report of a Russian pilot who may have shot down as many as 25 US aircraft. The Soviets developed a special tactic to shoot down the 4-engine Boeing B-29; four MiGs would enter a dive flying line-abreast. Each would then shoot out a different engine. It was deadly, and it happened so fast that American escort fighters couldn’t interfere. The video mentions that the 2-seat MiG-15 UTI is still used as a trainer in North Korea (they can’t afford anything newer). The training version of the venerable F-80 (the T-33) also survived longer than the fighter. The last was retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 2017.
Actual ratio was 3:1 in favor of the F86 but closer to 1:1 when piloted by Soviet pilots. There is an indepth Rand corporation study about this. Also don't forget the main task of the 15 was to take out bombers while for the 86 it was to take out the 15s. It would always make more sense for the 86 to have a kill ratio advantage because of this.
Good info, Georgette!
The MIG 15 was introduced to the Korean conflict before the F-86.
Thank you, I figured someone had brought that up by now.
Yeah, I was scratching my head wondering where they got the notion an F-86 pilot would have been surprised by an aircraft that preceded it into combat....
The Mig had a few advantages that would make it untouchable in good hands, as it could outclimb the Sabre, had a higher ceiling and a tighter turn.
However, that is in good hands. The problem was that the Mig had no leading edge slats and had a nasty stall that could end into a spin, and if the spin wasn't recovered immediately (three turns maximum), it wouldn't ever be. As a result, only the most skilled pilots dared push it to the limits. Besides that, it's armament, while powerful, wasn't well suited to fight fighters. 23 and 37mm slow firing cannon is excellent to destroy bombers, big steady targets, but the agile fighters could litterally slip between shells..
The Sabre had other advantages : in a dive it could passe the sound barrier (the Mig could not as the shockwave of the wings, which also had a too thick profile, would hit the horizontal stabilizer , making it ineffective ). It also had boosted controls, especially ailerons, which allowed quicker reversals than the Mig who didn't have them. The last advantage, but not the least, it had leading edge slats which allowed tight turns while, at the same time, it's stall would be much easier to detect allowing for more carefree handling. As a result, keeping its speed high, it could be effectively used even by average pilots, which, in the end, would give them the upper hand against most opponents in a Mig. Finally, the high rate of fire of its six .50cal MGs or even the latter four 20mm cannons was much more appropriate to hit small targets like the Mig.
You're right. There were many small details that, taken together, made it an advantage over the Mig-15. Anyway, Soviet pilots did not feel that they were flying better than the F-86 Saber. After the war, they investigated why the MiG-15 did not meet the expectations of the command. When they were given the task of forcing the American Saber to land, they immediately considered the task impossible. Although the accident helped them to find one copy, which was forced to land near the beach and the tide allowed the Russians to extract this plane. Invaluable for them was the adjustment mechanism for the overload suits. The suits themselves were obtained from prisoners of war, but they had no regulator. And many other things. An additional difficulty was that the Russians were forbidden to fly over certain areas, for example by the sea, in order to keep secret that they were participating in this war. Another problem is that they did not know Korean, so after shooting down and parachute jumping on the ground, they were severely beaten by the local people. They've been sticking cheap Mao Zedong stamps on each other ever since.
Chuck Yeager's opinion of the Mig-15 after flying it was not very high. "Flying the MiG-15 is the most demanding situation I have ever faced. It's a quirky airplane that has killed a lot of its pilots." That is test pilot speak for "This F%^king POS airplane is a Widowmaker!" ie not good! He also said something about out flying one in a Sabre any day of the week, TBH I couldn't be arsed enough to look up the exact quote that I remember from his book.
I like your comment and the level of detail, no doubt you are a aviation history buff.
Have you have ever seen the videos called Dog Fight? They cover the Korean war (Mig vs Sabre) very well with interviews from actual F86 pilots.
Every pilot who flew the Sabre loved it however some expressed frustration with the armament, having to pump several rounds into the Mig and it kept flying.
Where areas the Mig only needed a couple of hits and as one Americal pilot said," If you got hit the a Migs cannon, you probably weren't going to make it home."
Two of the other advantages were the 1) climate controlled cockpit and 2) the Sabre had the “flying tail”. The climate controlled cockpit was important because the cockpit would not fog up, causing further restrictions to visibility. One Sabre pilot was sharp-eyed enough to spot that problem with a mig he got into a dogfight with. He was then able to report that back to his CO and intelligence, who quickly trained that fact out to other pilots. The mig that was spotted with an icing up canopy didn’t make it back to base that day, the Sabre pilot exploited the weakness and was able to shoot him down. The flyable tail was important because it gave the Sabre much better handling at higher speeds, which likely prevented a lot of cratering by American pilots.
One of the Sabres most important advantages over the Mig was a radar gunsight which could calculate lead on the target.
The Soviets committed MiG-15s to the Korean War in August 1950. The US responded by deploying F-86s to Korea in December 1950. The MiG was superior to USAF prop-driven fighters and to the straight-wing F-80; the swept wing MiG and F-86 were very similar in performance, except for the MiG's unique 37 mm cannon, and the MiG had a 1000 foot higher rate of climb and maximum operating altitude. It was the MiG's superiority to USAF planes such as the P-51 that led to the deployment of F-80s and F-86s. On the USN side, the straight-wing F9F was committed to the Korean War by July 1950, and had shot down a prop-powered Yak-9 (a very capable WW2-vintage Soviet fighter).
Mig 15 : always a solid history with great graphics thank you!.
Fantastic in-depth history of an iconic plane.
Would love to see you do more of these for other MiG aircraft
Contrary to an implication from the start of the video, F-86 pilots were not surprised to see MiG-15s in the sky. The reason that F-86 squadrons were sent to Korea was to counter the MiG-15s that were already operating there. The MiG-15 had about equal turning capability as the F-86, and was superior in ceiling, acceleration, and service ceiling, but the F-86A could out-dive the MiG-15 because it could safely go supersonic while the MiG could not. New models of the Sabre were quickly developed. The F-86-E got the all-flying tail, which gave it a maneuverability advantage over the MiG-15. The F-86F got a stronger engine, eliminating much of the MiG-15's advantages in acceleration and service ceiling. In the late part of the Korean War, F-86 pilots had the advantage. They had an airplane about as good as the MiG-15 and they had better training and more combat experience than the Chinese and North Korean pilots they were facing.
This channel has become my go to military aviation history channel. Great work 👏 👍 👌
Thank you!
@@TJ3 you are most welcome . Thank you for providing such amazing content.
I learned a lot in this video. And the story of the defector getting into the us with this college tuition paid us heart warming.
Tom Collins and Chuck Yeager the American pilots who tested No Kum-Sok's MiG-15 both said its alleged superiority was greatly over exaggerated.
The two planes, the Sabre and the MiG were about equal with whichever of the two planes pilot's experience and ability being the determining factor for victory.
Those first generation jet fighters including those like the Ouragan, Tunnan, F-84 or even the Pulqui II, and of course The MiG and the F-86 are all the best looking airplanes ever built.
I feel so sorry for the people who miss out on your videos. You deserve much more than what you have right now, TJ! Your hard work and persistence, all these things you've done for us all, it's wonderful. Keep going, and reach for the skies!
A good video. The MiG -15 for its role as a bomber intercepter it was armed with a 37 mm cannon with 40 rounds and two 23 mm with 80 rounds each. In accounts of pilots who fought the MiG 15 in was reported that the pilots often looked European or Russian. About its' devolpment there was no mention of espionage. To this day close sociaties often resort to espionage both military and commercial against in the free world. It is a major problem. Close sociaties hinder new ideas.
Man, your videos are great.! I luv the way you combine CGI and historical footage as well researched material. Keep it up.
Thanks!
Kurt Tank came to Argentina ,after the war and designed the Pulqui 1 and 2.Five were built and flown.The Mig is pracically identical with it
What caught the Americans by surprise was NOT F86 Sabre vs Mig 15. It was F7 Corsair and P51 Mustang vs Mig 15. It literally made prop driven planes obsolete. The F86 was the Allied answer to the Mig 15.
Excellent video! I fly for a small cargo airline based in Memphis that paints the vertical fin/rudder of our planes purple, and I had a 63 hour layover this weekend in Tucson. I went to the Pima Air and Space museum on Sunday and I was utterly blown away! They have two MIG 15's there, one outside that is in average condition and one inside that is pristine. The great thing about this museum is that the airplanes that are outside? You can walk right up and touch them, they don't care.
As to the MIG 15 itself, this thing was scary. Russian engineers didn't understand high speed aerodynamics when this was being designed, and as a result these had a nasty tendency to fly into the ground at extreme speed. When these airplanes reach transonic speeds, a shock wave forms above the wings and the horizontal stabilizer. The problem is that as the plane accelerates, this shock wave on the horizontal stabilizer will travel rearward and park itself over the hinge of the elevator....Basically locking it in place. The speeds that are necessary for this phenomenon to take place are only reachable in a dive in this airplane, so many pilots were killed during dives that they simply could not pull out of, no matter how hard they pulled on the yoke.
American engineers knew a solution to this and it is something that you see on every airliner to this day: A trimmable horizontal stabilizer. Chuck Yeager went to Russia and was actually asked by Russians how Americans were dealing with this problem; He wisely stated that they had no idea, even though he knew we had solved it and exactly how it had been done. It took the Soviets several years to finally figure it out....
My friend you should do the same thing with the Mig’s ultimate rival: the F-86 Sabre. However, more importantly, I think it’s time we finally hear some unknown facts about the most advanced aircraft of WWII: the Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe.
Good video- a couple of points- some of my $.02 worth, some historical "story's"
Russians were not as far behind the West aeronautically as most assume. By the end of WW2 they were building world class piston fighters such as the Yak-3 and Lavochkin -7
Where they were behind without a shadow of a doubt was in jet turbines- they had detoured into dead ends such as motorjets and rocket power.
Supposedly the engine deal was settled by a wager over drinks and a game of billiards- and unbeknownst to the Brits, Artem Mikoyan was known to be a bit of a "pool shark" It was asserted at the time that it would take the Soviets 5 years at least to reverse engineer the Nene....
It was also claimed that while they were reverse engineering the Nene- they were having issues making the turbine hot end- couldn't determine the material used. So they sent over a team of engineers with a NKVD "minder" to talk to Rolls Royce about it, while the engineers toured the production line- the "minder" was grinding chips from the lathes into the soles of his shoes
I find claim that yak-3 and la-7 comparable to western designs laughable based on their performance in Korea and Taiwan straight fights. They where in many case backwards- lacking basic features and giving appearance of competency. As a proof of how many features they lacked let me remind you that greatest soviet pilot of WWII refused to fly any russian plane after he got a taste of p-39, which itself wasn't that good but it had enough of comfort, management and ergonomic features to make all russians fighters look as unfit to fly.
Somme clarifications if I may:
3:03: Regarding WWII, the Soviet technology was not at the same level as its Western counterpart, no doubt about it, but it's not fair to say that they were a nation that was "so far behind". The Yak 3 and 7 were equivalent to the German Bf109 which was not as advanced as the last US fighters like the P51 but used by the Luftwaffe until the end, since it was still a very decent aircraft.
In the same way the Soviets developped the T34 tank which was surpassed only by the German Tiger and was far superior to the American Sherman. The Americans focused on quantity instead of quality but the result was a bad tank. Regarding rifles, what the Soviets had was at the same level as the West: the US M1 rifle for example was light but not very efficient. On another hand they were late in jet technology ... but so were the Americans.
8:20: there are indeed similarities with the TA183 and they have probably been inspired by this design. However, note that the same cause producing the same effects, you can see a "comparable similarity" with the F86 Sabre. The same assumption was made with the Concorde and the Tu144 but in the end it was not that clear since there was only one aerodynamic solution for such an aircraft. Anyway, should they have copied the Concorde, they didn't do it very well, to say the least ... the Tu144 never worked properly and was so dangerous that they used it a little bit as a freighter and very soon the aircraft was grounded. Even the Bell X1 was more than inspired by a British design. Reciprocal influences, that's the way it works ...
11:49: you say that "the Chinese, contrary to North Koreans, had some true "jet-capable pilots". Then it is said that this was because there were trained during WWII by the Americans ... on piston engine fighters. Not consistent.
14:37: "heavy bombers in many ways won the war". This is highly discussed and questionned by historians. In Germany, despite the bombings they never ran out of weapons and ammunition, Dresden was razed so what? The idea being that too much suffering on the civilian side would lead to a kind of revolution that would stop the war. This didn't happen and by the way, punishing the civilians with the hope to trigger a revolution has never worked. In Japan, to some extent the Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki stopped the war but not the other bombings. However it's right to say that the threat in the early 50s was US bombers carrying nuclear bombs, hence the primary mission of the Mig15. They had to prtevent any of them to reach their target.
19:20: Operation Moolah. That's true, using this peculiar American minset according to which you can buy anybody, it's just a matter a price. This doesn't work all the time and indeed the Korean pilot who eventually defected was not even aware of the offer ...
By the way do you know that a Sabre had been also taken by the Russians who succeeded in forcing a F86 to crashland in an area not controlled by the UN forces? Their idea was to understand why American pilots were so good and they found something they didn't have: the gun sight which was able to take into account trajectory corrections based on the accelerations and allowing the pilots to get a better shot. I presume they copied it but, as you mentionned, the war was close to an end.
I disagree with your comparison of the M4 Sherman and the T-34. The T-34 had a bigger gun, that is certain. But the Sherman was not a "bad tank." It was designed to be used in exploitation, so it had good mobility, good reliability, and was easy to repair. It was not originally intended to fight other tanks. In U.S. Army doctrine, which turned out to be flawed, killing enemy tanks was the job of tank destroyers. When models of the Sherman with the 76.2mm main gun appeared (and the British modified some of their Shermans with their 17-pounder gun), it became more of a match with the German Pzkpfw V. In terms of quality control, the Sherman was a much, much better-built tank than the T-34, which was slapped together under very difficult and crude manufacturing conditions. The Sherman was also built to be deployable to theaters of war all over the globe, and to be logistically supportable over those vast distances. The Sherman was also adaptable to multiple roles. It was light enough to go over most bridges in Europe, whereas many German tanks, particularly the Tiger, were too heavy. Because of all its many strengths, some analysts consider the Sherman the best all-round tank of WWII, albeit usually not the best in single tank v. single tank combat.
The Mig 15 was on the scene prior to the F86 and was the better of the Northrop F-89, Grumman F9F,, Lockheed P80 & F94 and Republic F84 all before the F86 became operational in Korea. When it did it made a match for the Mig but you still didn't want to follow one in the vertical because 40,000 ft belonged to the Mig. As aircraft performance usually goes much depended on the altitude and the tactics. Soviet airmen took part in Korea and their directives have traditionally been from rigid ground control which at the time were supposed to be in Chinese and likely had a monotone "dialect" unintelligible to themselves as well as anyone else until they'd start cursing in Russian.
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They claim, and don't share records of unrealistic kill ratios and we take advantage of the dearth of any such records on their part to claim unrealistic kill ratios . Fighter pilots are like politicians whose claims deserve vetting.. Insofar as I can see from the cheap seats that seems universal.
Actually, the Communist Chinese pilots were mostly trained by
surrendered Janperese pilots such as Hayashi Yaichiro "林弥一郎" in Manchuria, he was called "The founder of PLA air force"
You recently did a video on the polish 303 squadron of the RAF. I think a terrific option for the next documentary should be of the Flying Tigers. It’s an outstanding story no matter which way you look at it.
At 10:52 you can see me flying with the East German roundels on accident lol. Great video TJ, glad I could help fly for it.
Pepelyaev Evgenij wrote the book MIGs versus Sabres. He's a Soviet pilot who flew in Korea. A very interesting book that describes the activities of two squads that flew over Korea. One of these groups was given a special task to force the Saber to land in order to obtain technology. A forced landing was successful and technicians were dispatched. Lots of interesting information. What did the Russians envy the American pilots? For example, emergency services. The downed American pilot had full support and personal equipment for such accidents, while to the Russian pilots their commander said: if you fall into the water, you have two hands to swim.
Original title: Пепеляев Евгений - «Миги» против «Сейбров»
I've also read that Russian's given a tour of RR jet engine factory had special sticky soles on their shoes so they could steal swarf lying on the floors thus telling them the materials being used in the engine.
This video brings up a very interesting question or possible study, TJ.......how did countries (Germany for instance) manage to train fighter pilots with a full-scale war waging?? In other words, as Germany circa 1943-45 was desperately trying to replace and train new pilots, weren't these air cadets getting rudely interrupted by experienced allied fighter pilots making easy targets of them and shooting them down?? Jim C.
The enjoyed the fact that the war was not waging in their own country! Until 1945, at which time the training became very difficult and quality of Luftwaffe pilots experienced the same problems! (This is why USAAF Kills went up so much in 1945!)
I used to see docs like this fine example on the History Channel. Nowadays a channel for people interested in auctioned storageboxes, golddiggers, etc. Glad we have Yt.
My understanding is that the MiG 15 had a higher service ceiling, higher rate of climb and was more maneuverable, but it was NOT faster in top speed. The Sabre had a full moving tail which allowed it to exceed Mach 1 in a dive CONTROLLABLY, whereas the MiG had a conventional elevator which could have caused loss of control at higher transonic speeds. It also had stability issues which made it less stable as a gun platform and it was possible to force the MiG into an unrecoverable spin if it went into an accelerated stall, making it more difficult to fly the MiG to its limits.
As for the Brits selling the Rolls Royce Nene engine to the USSR, it seems like one of the most naive, foolish things ever. As Lenin was supposed to have said, "When it comes time to hang the capitalist West, they will sell us the rope."
The Messerschmidt Jet fighter actually looks more like the Yak-29.
That Messerschmitt prototype more closely resembles the MiG-9, which was less than successful. In particular, note where the exhaust exited the plane. In the MiG-9 it created thermal problems for the tail section of the plane.
The F-86 pilots were not surprised by the appearance of the Mig-15. The Mig-15 was in theatre before the first F-86's were deployed. So UN pilots were already well aware of its presence and capabilities. One of the main advantages that the Sabrejet had over its adversary was its computing, radar ranging gunsight, as well as its flying tail, which gave it more control at high speed. So if there was any surprise, it was probably accounted to the communist airmen, as attested to by them scurrying back across the Yalu when Sabres appeared, as well as the high kill ratio the Sabre attained.
The Saber was sent to Korea to fight the Mig 15 not the other way around . .
CORRECT!
I'll share two additional facts about the MIG-15 that most people don't know. Number one, the reason it had a 37mm cannon in addition to two 23mm machine guns. So it could shoot down the B-29. The Soviets were terrified of Enola Gay (B-29) dropping the atom bomb on Japan. So they commissioned general designer Artyom Mikoyan to design an aircraft that can intercept the B-29 at any altitude. This is one of the reasons the MIG-15 could climb to 50,000 feet unrestricted.
The other fact is about the purchase of Rolls-Royce jet engines from Britain. The story goes when Artyom Mikoyan the general designer and the Soviet delegation visited the UK to negotiate the purchase of the jet engine. Artyom Mikoyan made a bet with a Rolls-Royce executive over the billiard game. The bet was if Aryom Mikoyan wins a game of billiard against the executive the Rolls-Royce will sell them 15 units. So that is exactly what happened: Artyom Mikoyan won the game and the Soviets got 15 units of Rolls-Royce jet engines. Once the engine arrived in Russia, the Russians copied the engine and the rest was history.
The design of the MIG-15 evolved from earlier Soviet jet aircraft.
One of the first Soviet jets was the Yakovlev Yak-15. This jet had the Soviet copy of the German Junkers Jumo 004 engine. The Yak-15 looked nearly identical to the Messerschmitt P.1101 you mentioned in the video.
A few things ...
The Mig-15 and F-86 were comparable aircraft. Neither was "better" than the other, they just had different relative strengths and weaknesses.
One thing about the Mig's armament - was that it was designed to kill bombers - and was thus heavier than the armament of the Sabre which was designed to kill fighters. The Sabre had a much higher volume of fire while the Mig had a possibly greater weight of fire. Thus - shooting cannon at slow moving, un-maneuverable bombers worked as they were easier to hit. Shooting at a fighter plane that was highly maneuverable - was much harder to get a hit - so - a larger number of bullets being spewed out - increased those chances.
The Mig's first encountered older American Jet's like the P-80 and P-84 as the Sabres were all in Europe.
As mentioned - the greatest factor in the success of these aircraft - was the pilots and their experience. Here - the US had much more experienced air men.
The Americans were always aware that the Russians were flying some of the Mig's opposing them. They were monitoring the communications of the aircraft on both sides and recording it. The Russians had been taught to communicate in either Chinese or Korean - but - in the heat and excitement of combat - they fell back on their Russian - and the Americans had it all recorded. The Americans however did not want to increase tensions with the Soviets so they kept their recordings of Russian fighter pilots secret. Many years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union - all this came out and there are documentaries interviewing these Russian Pilots - who all BTW - thought they were winning.
As to where the aircraft designers learned what they learned - one thing to keep in mind was that all the worlds aviation engineers were learning from each other and what other nations were doing - including the Americans and the British. The Russians did in fact have very good aircraft designers as can be seen in their WWII aircraft. Here - one of the reasons the Germans were so much better in the air than the Soviets was - as on the ground - the presence of radios.
The Russians could and did build air frames and tank chassis that were very good but they had difficulties with electronics and optics. The end result of that was that communications between different Russian Aircraft and Ground Vehicles was much more limited than it was for the Americans, British and Germans. If a Russian saw an enemy coming up behind a comrade's vehicle, air or ground - he might not be able to warn his comrade of the danger.
For tanks - the British and Americans had good optics to use in targeting an enemy and the optics of the Germans were excellent. The poor optics of the Russians - meant that they were less likely to get a hit as quickly.
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The test flights of the Mig-15 were conducted at Okinawa (not in the USA) and the reason Col. Yeager said it was dangerous was very little was known about the aircraft, the weather during the tests was poor and it was done in a very short schedule. The "owners" of this stolen aircraft wanted it returned and it was returned AFTER it had been through a tear down examination with all the parts thrown into crates for shipment.
After watching for 5 mins.......... warthunder boots up for some mig 15 action lol
Also, the Soviets produced several excellent fighters and CAS planes during WW2. The WW2 USSR was not a total aviation backwater.
Also, the Soviets won the war not only because of help from USA.
One of the most important things in the design of super sonic flight. It was an English RAF fighter development project finding out that it is best to make the ruder + elevators sinvle- piece units a discovery used here in t US on our own 1st super sonic X2, piloted by Chuck Yeager.
These are very good video's. You obviously did your homework and then some researching them. Kudos to you. 😉
Check out the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Arizona and their beautiful Mig-15 here!
(You can even take a cockpit tour!)
www.azcaf.org/
facebook.com/cafairbasearizona/
th-cam.com/channels/ajbMdqv165JZRKjs60E46g.html
The Focke-Wulf Ta 183 was designed by Hans Multhopp, who worked for Kurt Tank. Tank took the designs to Argentina after the war, altered them, and developed the disastrous Pulqui II for Peron. Unlike the Mig-15 it had a very high wing, which led to deadly stalling during slow landings.
So it had same issues as mig15 during development
Wasn't the Mig-15 in Korea before the F-86?
Yeah, it was. Misinformation like that presented on this channel irritates the hell out of me.
Fun Fact: The Rolls-Royce engine the Soviets bought from the British were bought when the latter lost a game of billiards to the Soviets. Imagine such a thing being decided by billiards. Boggles the mind.
Reminds me of that anonymous idiot who rang a forward command post (on open telephone lines), on the night before the 1st July 1916 "Somme" attack... saying, "Good luck with tomorrow morning's assault"
(naturally, it was intercepted by the Germans)
By lunchtime, they'd lost 59,000 men, of which 19,986 (night on 20k), would be killed, stone-dead.
Some phone call.....
I know the brits were upset that the US didn’t share their nuclear secrets with Britain as they had agreed. But given the way Labour handled the jet engine fiasco, it seems the decision was correct.
German aerospace design and research in the form of the P1101 and Ta183 is the basis for the US F86 Sabre, Soviet MiG15, SAAB Tunnan and British Hawker Hunter, not to mention the Argentine Puma, which was directly designed by none other than Kurt Tank himself.The F86 Sabre also initially relied on a US licence built British Nene engine.
The (originally straight-wing) XP-86 was a modification of the Navy's FJ1, which had a G.E.-developed J35 axial-flow turbojet. It was developed alongside the Whittle (British)-based J-33 centrifugal-flow engine. The XP-86 used a J-35-C-3 engine. It was not a license-built Rolls-Royce Nene. Production versions of the F-86 used various models of the J-47 engine, which was a development of the J35. The license-built Nene was the Pratt & Whitney J42, which powered the Grumman F9F Panther.
@@RANDALLBRIGGS Don't believe everything you copy and paste from Wikipedia.🤣
The Mig15 is by far the greatest 1st generation jet fighter ever built. The simplistic common sense design features the tough frame and easy maintainence. Gave it an advantage in battle setting the standard for generations of future fighter aircraft helping America, France,Britain and Sweden develop their own great fighter's.
The US Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, has the "stolen" Mig on display and has free admission.
Indeed few early PVA jet capable pilots were ex-KMT pilots trained by Americans，most of PVA jet capable pilots were newly trained pilots with USSR offered training assistance.
The mig was deployed about 3 months before the F86 first landed in North Korea 🤔🤔🤔
Both the F86 and the MiG15, drew inspiration heavily from german designs. The jet engine was a german invention and german aeronautical engineers found that wing sweep would increase speed as you approach mach 1. The F86 and the MiG15 are very, very similar, but not identical. They were both so similar because both Russia and the United States stole aeronautical information from german engineers. As the video says the ta153 is similar to the MiG15 but also the F86. After the war, Kurt Tank went to Argentina and finished designing it there. Then the Argentine government began producing it.
The jet engine was a British invention, although other countries had engineers working along similar lines. RAF officer Frank Whittle is considered to be the inventor of the turbojet engine. His engine was the basis of the G.E. J31 turbojet that powered the U.S. P-59, the first American jet. Even with two of those engines, the P-59 was underpowered and slower than the USAAF's existing piston-engine fighters.
@@RANDALLBRIGGS Technically speaking, the Germans didn't invent the jet engine. What I meant to say was they were the first to make and use jet engines in an operational fighter (Me262).
You make it sound as if the MiG-15 was leaps and bounds ahead if the Sabre. The Sabre had a 5.6-1 kill ratio over the MiG, and a 1.4-1 ratio when facing experienced wwii Soviet pilots.
TBF it's the old caretakers there at the CAF in Mesa that kept saying it was super superior, our intrepid narrator and channel host likely took what they said to him for granted.
This is not accurate, but is commonly said anyways for some reason. Most F-86 pilots believed they were outmatched until the final year of the Korean War. - "Early variants of the F-86 could not out-turn MiG-15s, but they could out-dive them. The MiG-15 was superior to early F-86 models in ceiling, acceleration, rate of climb, and zoom. With the introduction of the F-86F in 1953, however, the two aircraft were more closely matched, with many combat-experienced pilots claiming a marginal superiority for the F-86F. "
Again, its really quite easy to find in moderate research. Nearly everyone at the time, F-86 pilots included, believed the Mig-15 was better until the final year of the Korean War. Some info - *Early variants of the F-86 could not out-turn MiG-15s, but they could out-dive them. The MiG-15 was superior to early F-86 models in ceiling, acceleration, rate of climb, and zoom. With the introduction of the F-86F in 1953, however, the two aircraft were more closely matched, with many combat-experienced pilots claiming a marginal superiority for the F-86F.*
@@TJ3 which part is inaccurate? No one believes the 10-1 kill ratio, but the numbers I gave are the consensus from everything I have read.
There is a great deal of debate. But essentially, overclaiming occurred in the heaps. No aircraft was really that successful when flown against comparable aircraft with competent pilots in my opinion. A little more info on a different perspective - *The status of many claimed air-to-air victories in the Korean War has been increasingly debated as more data becomes available, showing that instances of over-claiming abounded on both sides. The research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson claimed an F-86 kill ratio closer to 2:1.[50] A recent RAND report made reference to "recent scholarship" of F-86 v MiG-15 combat over Korea and concluded that the actual kill:loss ratio for the F-86 was 1.8:1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3:1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots.[43] However, this ratio did not count the number of aircraft of other types (including the B-29, A-26, F-80, F-82, F-84 and Gloster Meteor) shot down by MiG-15 pilots.* I'm not saying any numbers are perfect, but what I do know is that early over Korea, the Mig-15 was the dominating aircraft of the skies. This would be the case until the last half of the war or so. I have read this from a good number of sources.
Armistice 1953 is not the end of a war but a suspension of hostilities for a specified time. The Korean War technically is on going but in armistice. There was no surrender and no terms of surrender by either side.
TJ3 is once again missing the big air story of the Korean War.
The new US Air Force destroyed about 40,000 good ground support propeller fighter bombers just after WW2, as the dimwit generals decided to go with an all jet force. (In 1947 the US Air Force separated from the US Army)
The 1st and 2nd generation jets were next to useless in ground attack mode.
The result was the deaths of thousands of US infantry due to lack of good ground support aircraft.
The US could have had thousands of P-47s, P-51s, P-38s, f-4 Corsairs, F-6 Hellcats, B-25s, B-26s, but most of those planes were now just aluminum ingots.
Today, Russian and American historians such as Cookie Sewall and Diego Zampinni admit that
on 10/01/1955, not 10/08, there was the first kill of a jet by another jet. An F-80 Shooting Star patrol engaged three MiG-15s and veteran First Lieutenant Semyon Fyodorovich Khominich spotted 10 F-80F aircraft. Khomonich turned left, leaving the sun behind in combat formation. As a result of their attack, an F-80 was shot down. He opened fire at 800 meters, and stopped firing at less than 200 meters. Coming out of his attack, the lieutenant struggled to gain altitude. Major Bordun with the rest of the team attacked four F-80s that were trying to attack Khominich. The Americans went to the others without success, and finally abandoned the fight..."
What you left out about the British engine was that the Soviets didn't honor the contract for technical support of the engine. Soviet engineers had no idea of the special alloy used in the engine. Therefore they had their engineer wear special soft spongy soul shoes and visit the engine plant of RR and walk around the milling machines producing the turbine blades. They got all the material needed for a copy of the alloy then.
Kurt Tank's Ta-183 was actually built and flown, only not in Germany during the ear. After the war, Kurt Tank applied to the British to work for them, but they declined. He heard from and old friend, that Argentina was looking for an aircraft designer to upgrade their Air Force. Once there, he told President Juan Peron that he had a jet fighter design that just needed building. This was the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II, which was the Ta-183 in the flesh, (well, sheet metal). It didn't fly until 1950, but it did fly.
Many Germans, ex-Nazi and others, found Argentina a friendly refuge after the war.
On a single engine DC-6 in '61 Lan Chile Panama - Miami run when pair of MIG 15s perched off wingtips. On left side at only 10, I gave Cuban (Ruskie) Pilot smart salute & he saluted back. He & Wingman were inspecting #1 only engine runnin' & 3 dead Comrades. Guess we didn't look like CIA, so things cool until they must have gotten shootdown orders as wingman shot up, over, & behind us, so my new buddy did same sitting in front of Wingman bangin' on cockpit and radio'n at warp speed. Finally orders rescinded as Wingman returned to right wingtip & buddy returned to left. We were low & slow over Cuba, but once clear Pilot gave smart salute, I returned it, and they zoomed off having frightened intruder away. We struggled over landing light gantries, gear down, 2 seconds later alit on threshhold popping up to stop on runway foote, & Capt announcing, "Welcome to Miami"! Those MIGs had looked pretty impressive to us, but the lead Pilot had respect for fellow aviators overcoming loss of 3 engines and still tryin' to deliver a load of passengers to their destination. Could have ended up quite differently....
Chuck Yeager, who test flew both the F86, and MiG15, thought the Sabre was the better fighter.
Please consider doing an episode on Hanna Reitsch! German Aviatrix and Outstanding Test Pilot.
The United States Armed Forces estimates that 5,300 of these troops went missing in North Korea. North Korea estimates there are close to 20,000 U.S. Troops remains still in North Korea.
Disappointed you berate the British for supplying the Soviets with a Nene; when it was them who got your first operational jets into the air with the generous provision of the Goblin.
I do not berate them at all. I am simply presenting the history and playing off of Stalin's words.
I don't believe that the U.S. used the De Havilland Goblin in any production aircraft. It powered the never-produced XF15C and was to have been the powerplant of the P-80. It did power the XP-80, but the G.E. J33 (an outgrowth of Frank Whittle's W.1) powered the production versions.
Shooting down bombers, that makes sense why they armed it with big cannons instead of machine guns.
I was disappointed that the video did not share the flying characteristics of the Mig 15, especially the weak points. I am more curious about that than the rest of the video.
Thanks Britain!
How they repaid us for saving their asses!
There is a huge fact you could have added to this list. All the maintenance on the aircraft was designed to be done with a minimal amount of tools ball-peen hammer,flat blade screw driver and a pair of pliers.
In his autobiography "He-1000" Ernst Heinkel claims that after the war, when Germany was forbidden from building aircraft, he former designer Siegfried Gunther was quite desperate for work. As I recall, Heinkel considered him to be the finest aerodynamicist in Europe and he had a young family who he was struggling to feed. Heinkel tried to find opportunities for Gunther but was unsuccessful. One day according to Heinkel, a friendly gentleman offered Gunther the perfect job and he accepted. Heinkel claims he moved to the USSR where he worked as an aerodynamicist on the MiG 15 project.
The premise of your tale makes it seem the F-86 predated the MiG 15,
it didn’t… 3:05
From everything I have read and heard, the F-86 was generally a better plane. Although the six .50 Cal Brownings mounted in the Sabre were showing their shortcomings by the Korean War, the radar ranging gun sight was just one example of technological superiority over the Mig. But as Yeager pointed out in his book and probably in numerous interviews, and as quoted here, it came down to the pilot's skill and experience. Of course, having aircraft that were on par with each other as a starting point certainly helps.
Kurt Tank’s jet fighter post WW2 was developed in Argentina
Dude u look great in that MIG15 cockpit !!!...greetings from Lima-Perú!!!!
Thank you!
One note....the F86 WAS not in Theater when the MiG 15 arrived on the scene in November of 1950. It made dog meat out of the F80 and F82 fighters that were there. The F86 was rushes in with the -A model in late Dec 50, they matched it but until the -F model was introducwd inn1953 it out performed it. It must be noted that the mixed 15 were not all flung by North Korean pilots. Not at all. They were flown by Soviet Honchos who had vast World War II experience and it was those pilots that took the Americans on and surprised them. A secret that was kept from the American public for over 60 years.
EVERYBODY knows about the Rolls-Royce Nene engine, which propelled an entire generation of Soviet aircraft.
Inspiration from the Ta 183 is possible, but I fail to see the supposed resemblance. Soviet pilots in Korea is hardly a secret, nor is US training of Chinese pilots.
You don't stick a 37mm onto a fighter, unless you expect it to attack something VERY big.
Many export customers will hang onto an airframe as long as it works, the MiG 15 is hardly an exception.
Well damn, you say everything is stolen by the Soviets. I guess I can say you "stole the combustion engine".
guys did you know the T-34 stole parts from the M4 Sherman!!!!!!! is real fact!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!1
That is the first B-29 I have seen with markings on top of BOTH wings.
Check your facts about only American B-17, B-24 and B-29 doing the bombing, did you forget the heavy bombers flown by the RAF and other Allies?
Also, the Mig-15 preceded the F-86 to Korea.
The prime hurdle that the RR Nene turbojet took care of in the initial Soviet jet fighter program was common to almost all builders of warplanes. Never attempt to try sorting out the various early flaws that will show up in a radically new high performance aircraft design and a radically new engine design at the same time on the same one of a kind, crash prone, machine if you value your sanity... As far as the British were concerned, the Nene was a dead end simplistic technology design with little value and no future. If the Soviets wanted to buy some and were willing to pay in gold, "Hey, why not", said a semi bankrupt British government. The fact that Soviet design bureaus had spent decades secretly getting old obsolete stuff from the west and then carefully reworking/ redesigning some of it to negate its minor and even major flaws, thus coming up with much sturdier, more powerful, military related products of their own, apparently never crossed their minds.
To listen to the narration lend-lease and the WWII heavy bombing campaign were exclusively American programs.
-The majority of aircraft used by the Soviet Union in WWII were modern Soviet designs.
-Technically, the Soviets had no need to reverse engineer the BMW 003. As spoils of war, they put their hands on the engines, its blueprints, as well as several German engineers plus two of the plants where they were made.
-The resemblance of the MiG15 to the Ta183 is overstated. The high tailplane design, for example, was a feature of previous MiG designs, like the MiG9
-Stating that the MiG15 was a combination of influences and designs from various designers both domestic and abroad is a truism. It applies to every aircraft ever made.
As far as I know the "Brits" were badgered to release the engine tech' to the USA. At the same time there was pressure to release that same information to Russia near the wars end. Frank Whittle developed the engine whilst in the employ of the RAF and was deemed to be a public servant. He died a poor man without receiving any royalties for his ground breaking designs. My uncle worked with him.
The English wanted the manufacturing capacity the USA had to offer and shared it to that end. Frank Whittle got a 100,000 pound reward for his work on the jet engine. That was back when $5 = i pound and so it was much better than you indicate and if he had patent rights he would have had to court to defend them because Ohain had done work in Germany that was in some ways more advanced. Frank Whittle spent most of his life working in the USA and I was at an air show in about 1990 where he was the guest of honor. I think that the biggest grip he had was that when the engine went to production it was taken over by R-R and they tried to forget he had ever had anything to do with it. (Also why he went to the states where he was more valued.)
The British gave the U.S. an example of Whittle's Power Jets W.1 engine, along with the technical drawings of the larger W.2/23 which G.E. built as the J31. The British sold 25 examples of the more-powerful Rolls Royce Nene engine to the Soviets in 1946-47. The Soviets reverse-engineered it, then enlarged what they got into the Klimov VK-1, which powered the MiG-15. Pratt& Whitney license-built the Rolls Royce Nene as the J42. The only U.S. fighter to be powered by the J42 was the F9F Panther, I believe. The British also gave the U.S. the first two De Havilland Goblin engines, and that engine powered the XP-80, but not the production P-80s.
Bruh your on your way with your channel congrats
It was part of the Allies agreement that WW2 technology that would be shared so there is no 'Foolish" about it, WE unlike our American Allies, who we also GAVE the jet engine technology to, the P80 had the Rolls Royce engine, actually abided by this agreement.
Excellent video!
Nice vid , very rich with both technical and historical details...
Can you make a vid about the Su15 ?
The British Labour party used to sing The Red Flag & believe in many things which the Communists believed including government ownership of pretty much everything, so sale of the engines was probably a 'no brainer' to them!
the anthem of Britain's Labour Party, a socialist song with words written in 1889 by James Connell (1852-1929) and sung to the tune of the German song ‘O Tannenbaum’.
Sung at every Labour Party conference, sadly not a socialist party these days…
@@Aubury also the tune of a well known 'Rugby Song' entitled 'We'll keep the Red Flag Flying There'; with the memorable line "I've got the Foreman's job at last".
So I believe.
Yes indeed, a satirical ditty, not that Rugby players make up any sizeable part of said Labour Party, or do they ? It would explain a lot.
@@Aubury who knows, I think some were surprised by the 'coming out' of gay rugby players.
I knew some of this already, and guessed at German engineering.
But learned much from this.
F-86 Sabers were not deployed to the Korean War until the MiG-15 had already been encountered by older jets like the F-80 and the F9F.
Wait till you get to the part where the US Army, British Army and US Marine Corp. got to “meet” the Chinese Army near the China border and were defeated and routed retreating all the way back down into South Korea…
Dude, your channel is coming up. I enjoy it.
The next plane you should go over is the ME 262.