{"id":48340,"date":"2014-10-21T14:12:38","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T19:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48340"},"modified":"2014-10-22T09:05:49","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T14:05:49","slug":"48340","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48340","title":{"rendered":"Scrimmage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, I heard NPR intoning with worried voice that ISIS was working on getting some captured Syrian jet fighters operational.<\/p>\n

This, the worried NPR reporters told us, would be a worrisome development in the developing war in the Levant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Syrian Air Force MIG-21.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

And I thought “well, maybe to NPR reporters.\u00a0 But I have a hunch I know one crowd who’d just loooooooove it<\/a> if ISIS were to cough up a plane or two”:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d sell my first born to engage all three\u2026 by myself,\u201d one highly experienced U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot joked. Another Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle pilot said, \u201cSend me in, coach! There\u2019s no way they get those airborne!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

A Syrian MIG-23.\u00a0 During the skirmishes with Israel over the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon in 1981, several Syrian Mig-23 pilots ejected from their planes the moment they saw that Israeli F-4s’ air-to-air radar had locked onto them.\u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n

Western, non-Israeli fighter pilots haven’t had any air-to-air combat since the first Gulf War, 20-odd years ago – and even that was rare.\u00a0\u00a0 The Iraqi air force largely buried itself in the sand (not making that up) or flew to…Syria and Iran\u00a0in 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ISIS “air force” apparently has two MIG-21s – infamous dogfighters in Vietnam, which led to the design of the\u00a0F-16, forty years ago <\/a>–\u00a0and a single MIG-23, a Cold-War-era mainstay of the Soviet air force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both were designed in an era where either planes were fighters, or bombers – not both:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not talking about aircraft that are extremely effective at delivering ordinance both in terms of equipment and training,\u201d said one U.S. Air Force official. \u201cIt\u2019s simply not worth it beyond an easily discreditable propaganda ploy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MiG-21 does not carry a huge amount of weaponry and was originally designed to fight other aircraft. Meanwhile, the MiG-23 is a much bigger and more complex jet that requires a professional pilot to operate properly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, make no mistake – they both require professional pilots.\u00a0 If not to fly them, then to survive in combat long enough to say they were in combat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are a fighter pilot or two among the regular commentariat here at SITD.\u00a0 I’ll invite their feedback…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, I heard NPR intoning with worried voice that ISIS was working on getting some captured Syrian jet fighters operational. This, the worried NPR reporters told us, would be a worrisome development in the developing war in the Levant.\u00a0 And I thought “well, maybe to NPR reporters.\u00a0 But I have a hunch I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery","category-war-and-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48340"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48347,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48340\/revisions\/48347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}