How good was the MiG-23?
There are many myths about the MiG-23, some say it was the worst aircraft ever made by the Soviet Union, however these myths, usually tend to forget facts about other aircraft, for example the F-111 was billed as a fighter, it was not a real fighter, nor even an interceptor; the F-14 for example was operational in the US navy almost the same number of years as the MiG-23 was in the Soviet Union, because as an swing wing fighter was expensive to operate.
Some say the MiG-23 was a really bad fighter, however usually is forgotten the MiG-23 was able to match the F-4E, F-5, Mirage F1, AJ-37 Viggen, so basically comparing the MiG-23 to the F-15 is like comparing the F-4 to the Su-27.
In fact Israel in 1982 did not use the F-4 or Kfir to face the MiG-23, but the Israelies used F-15s and F-16s, since the Kfir or F-4E were not better than the MiG-23.
The Pakistanies in fact were not able to Match the Israeli success with F-16s against the MiG-23MLD.
The western bias against Russian aircraft is easy to see, the F-111 was not a fighter, in fact the first ever swing wing fighter was the MiG-23, they usually say the MiG-23 was retired from service before the MiG-21, in reality that was not the case in the Soviet Union, further more F-111 was retired early.
The reality is swing wing aircraft have some troubles, first is structurally, swing wing fighters have wings that move and are not fixed, this create troubles to make them able to stand torsion or overloads because as in the case of F-111:
The wing pivot fitting (WPF) of the F-111 aircraft has experienced in-service fatigue cracking at a number of location
The location of the WPF is shown in Figure 1. It is designed to transmit wing loads to the wing carry through box, and as such it has high structural importance. The use of D6ac steel in its construction offers high strength but fairly low fracture toughness, making it sensitive to fatigue cracking, especially in areas of high stress concentration. To ensure the safety of the aircraft
Source https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/dashboard/searchResults/titleDetail/ADA379870.xhtml
“In those days, [the Navy] wanted high-altitude maneuverability,” says Tom Lawrence, a NAVAIR aerodynamics expert who evaluated this capability for the Tomcat. “If you had the wing pivots closer to the fuselage, you get a very large shift in the center of pressure” when the wing changes its angle of sweep. That could lead to the kind of instability that killed Raymond Popson in the X-5.
Designers attached the Tomcat’s wings so that the pivots were located at the most outboard position possible, at 8 feet, 11 inches from the fuselage centerline. The result: When the airplane changed shape, less of the wing was actually sweeping.
Though technology improved, the wing design remained basically the same, but Grumman replaced parts of the wing assembly with composite materials better able to handle heat and stress.
Source https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/swing-wings-9189621/
Studies shown that the effect of wing pivot location and the geometry of the forward fixed portion of the wing with regard to the manner in which the aerodynamic load distribution shifted as the wing sweep was changed. An analysis of the results suggested that if the pivot was strategically located outboard of the fuselage, the same span increase could be obtained while simultaneously reducing the shift of the center of lift with sweep. resulted from a combination of reduced geonletry shift of the rotating wing panel and a greater shift of load between that panel and the relatively larger fixed portion. This configuration, if succcssful, would solve the center-of-lift travel problem and, with its conventional arrangement of the horizontal and vertical tails at the rear of the fuselage, would avoid the additional variable-geometry complexities.
source https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19810016532/downloads/19810016532.pdf
http://www.easternorbat.com/html/hungarian_mig-23_with_grey_eng.html
The pivot on the MiG-23 was strategically located outboard of the fuselage, in the relatively larger fixed wing portion.
These facts were present in the MiG-23 as well as in the F-14 and F-111. It is common western historians only see the structural or aerodynamic troubles of MiG-23 but overlook the same troubles western swing wing aircraft had.
First was its size, it was fondly referred to as the ‘Big Fighter,’ and it was huge. One of the basic tenants of aerial combat is, ‘lose sight, lose the fight.’ Against a Tomcat that was almost impossible.
The A-model was also underpowered for maneuvering fights with an approximately 0.67:1 thrust to weight ratio. Furthermore, we had a 6.5 G limit, though there was no black box that would tell on you, so we often went well beyond 7 G. While it had massive elevators that would develop an incredible instantaneous pitch rate, the lack of ailerons and the sheer width of the plane made the roll rate sluggish
Source https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27889/confessions-of-a-navy-f-14-fleet-pilot-turned-f-5-aggressor
To understand the early MiG-23S were limited in max overload, but later variants had higher overload capability than both the F-111 and F-14.
In terms of producibility, the MiG-23 was more sucessful than both american swing aircraft, same applies to its exportability, the MiG-23 was far more successful.
So how good was the MiG-23? the answer is it was a 3rd generation fighter and it was more sucessful than the Viggen or Mirage F1, only the F-4 Phantom was comparable in terms of producibility and combat record.
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Furthermore the MiG-23 contrary to the other third generations fighters, faced much modern 4th generation fighters and regardless if F-16s were downed by MiG-23s or not as Soviet, Syrian or Iraqi reports claimed, before 1991 the MiG-23 was a threat in BVR to the early F-16.
The MiG23S Flogger A was conceived as relatively inexpensive, capable of being effectively used in small wars, solving air defense tasks and widely supplied to "fraternal" countries. The main advantages of the aircraft were to be high speed and rate of climb, long range and duration of flight. Since the conduct of maneuverable air combat was not considered a priority, the maximum operational overload was reduced to 5.0, which made it possible to make the airframe lighter. Thus, the MiG-23 during the design period was considered as a limitedly maneuverable aircraft, like the MiG-25P interceptor. This distinguished the new machine from the MiG-21, designed for a maximum operational overload of 7.0-8.5 (depending on modification), and subsequently created many problems.
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So the MiG-23 was improved from the Flogger A with a Max overload of 5Gs to the MiG-23ML with a Max overload of 8,5Gs. the MiG-23M had a Max overload of 8Gs.
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This means despite all were MiG-23 variants its capabilities were highly improved on late variants to almost match the F-16 and certainly be quiet a match for the F-14.
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So a fair analysis must be objective, in general terms, we can say in 1982 over the skies of Lebanon, the MiG-23 faced superior opponents in the F-16 and F-15 as Russians historians do admit, however the Israeli fighter aircraft flew aided by AWACS aircraft.
However the word superior does not mean the MiG-23 was utterly inferior as westerns propagandists claim or amateur historians say.
The MiG-23 flew with infrared search and track systems, further more it was armed with BVR missiles, this translated in only 6 MiG-23MFs downed if we are to believe what was admited by Syria of the 24 MiG-23 of all variants downed.
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In other conflicts the MiG-23 had better results,
We can say the MiG-23 was a pretty good aircraft, but it was a fighter designed under a philosophy of high producibility and as a third generation fighter was more or less able to resist more advanced designs, but inevitably it suffered loses as any machine of war.
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It suffered the same problems other swing wing aircraft did, but in general terms its performance was comparable to the performance displayed by the F-14, F-111 and Panavia Tornado.
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https://war-book.ru/mikoyan-gurevich-mig-23-istrebitel-sssr-rossiya/#photos-43
