Word: mig
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...supersecret F-19, a plane so hard to pick up on radar that I felt sure I could swoop in and blast Gaddafi's buddies without getting shot down myself. Suddenly, I saw something that shattered my composure. High over my stubby left wing, a Soviet-built MiG-25 Foxbat fighter was headed my way. Did the enemy know I was there? Whew...
...there I was, sitting at the keyboard of an IBM PC AT, my eyes glued to the screen. Game or not, my pulse raced and my hands sweat as the MiG-25 came threateningly closer. Finally it peeled off toward Tripoli, its Soviet- trained pilot seemingly unaware of my 17-ton, coal-black aircraft a few hundred feet below. Apparently the F-19's array of detection-defeating * components, from the radar-absorbent panels on its wings to the nose cone coated with ceramics to minimize telltale infrared radiation, was working as designed. But I had also learned...
...another %*& !! MiG crossed my nose, and I lost my cool. I fired an AIM-9M Sidewinder, and the MiG disappeared in a satisfying cloud of gray- black smoke. The explosion, though, caught the attention of hostile aircraft up and down the coast. Soon the warning lights on my display panel were lighted up like a pinball machine. I was able to evade an incoming AA-10 Alamo missile by releasing a burst of radar-deflecting chaff, and I fooled an SA-10 surface-to-air missile by sending out a decoy drone. But all the electronic countermeasures in the world...
...downtown Kabul last week, a unit of Soviet and Afghan troops paraded through the streets towing a fresh supply of SS-1 Scud missiles. Elsewhere in Afghanistan the Soviets also deployed 30 MiG-27 attack aircraft and began striking at mujahedin fighters with Backfire bombers. Why the sudden buildup? In Moscow First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh announced that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan "is being suspended" because of new attacks by mujahedin rebels. Blaming the U.S. and Pakistan for continuing to give arms to the guerrillas, he hinted that the original pullout deadline...
...force remains the most backward Soviet service. When a Soviet defector flew a MiG-25 fighter to Japan in 1976, Western experts judged the craft to be little more than a crude weapons platform -- underpowered, poorly built and laced with dangerously primitive electrical wiring. Soviet jet engines still burn out early and guzzle more fuel than comparable U.S. power plants. The Soviets continue to fly 1950s-era propeller-driven Bear-H reconnaissance bombers on patrols off Alaska and the U.S.'s Eastern Seaboard. New jet fighters like the MiG-29, a downsized version of the 14-year...