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> Did the Russians struggle just as much? It will be hard to get reliable numbers from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, this seems to be an attempt

> Did the Russians struggle just as much? It will be hard to get reliable numbers from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, this seems to be an attempt to list the known incidents of just one (out of 6) "Jagdfliegergeschwader" in the East German airforce: https://home.snafu.de/veith/verluste1.htm https://home.snafu.de/veith/verluste1.htm, after 1966 most crashes are Mig-21. Here's the list of airplane types and numbers in the East German airforce (all in all East Germany operated 567 Mig-21, more than any other type): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Luftfahrzeugen_der_Nationalen_Volksarmee https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Luftfahrzeugen_der_N... The Indian air force apparently lost over half of their Mig-21 built between 1966 and 1984 to crashes, but maybe because of poor maintenance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21).

alxlaz 2y ago
Make of it what you will, but Mig-21s used to be nicknamed "flying coffins" in some places behind the Iron Curtain. They were notoriously unsafe.
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  Yes, but was the Mig-21 better, worse or roughly the same as the F-104? That's surprisingly hard to figure out because crashes in socialist countries were usually swept under the rug.
  - alxlaz 2y ago
    Oh, I know. I took the "did the Russians struggle just as much?" question qualitatively, as in, yes, the Mig-21 was also notoriously unsafe and the Russians struggled with it, too. Their track records would be very difficult to compare even if detailed operational history were available. Figures from some external operators are comparable. For instance, slightly less than half of the CF-104s operated by the Canadian Air Force ended up in some accident or another, slightly more than half of the Indian Air Force's Mig-21s were lost in crashes. I'm specifically mentioning the Canadian Air Force's experience because their CF-104s flew longer hours than just about any other F-104 variant. However, that's almost twice as bad as the figures Federal Germany got (just south of 300 out of their 900-something aircraft). Thing is, Mig-21s were definitely flown to smithereens (hence the relevance of the CF-104s operational history, because CF-104s were also flown to smithereens). Money was tight beyond the Iron Curtain so most airplanes stayed in service forever, planned economy (even in the carefully-regulated defense industry) frequently resulted in supply shortages so maintenance was difficult, maintenance wasn't always top-notch due to personnel and supply management issues, so it's not always easy to say which side of the neglect border each incident was. It's hard to decouple these things from the design, too, maintenance complexity is itself a design trade-off. The F-117 has a better safety track record than the Mig-21, but if they'd been handed a squadron of F-117s, the vast majority of the Mig-21's (former) operators would've ran them into the ground in a matter of weeks.

alxlaz 2y ago

Make of it what you will, but Mig-21s used to be nicknamed "flying coffins" in some places behind the Iron Curtain. They were notoriously unsafe.

flohofwoe 2y ago
Yes, but was the Mig-21 better, worse or roughly the same as the F-104? That's surprisingly hard to figure out because crashes in socialist countries were usually swept under the rug.
- alxlaz 2y ago
  Oh, I know. I took the "did the Russians struggle just as much?" question qualitatively, as in, yes, the Mig-21 was also notoriously unsafe and the Russians struggled with it, too. Their track records would be very difficult to compare even if detailed operational history were available. Figures from some external operators are comparable. For instance, slightly less than half of the CF-104s operated by the Canadian Air Force ended up in some accident or another, slightly more than half of the Indian Air Force's Mig-21s were lost in crashes. I'm specifically mentioning the Canadian Air Force's experience because their CF-104s flew longer hours than just about any other F-104 variant. However, that's almost twice as bad as the figures Federal Germany got (just south of 300 out of their 900-something aircraft). Thing is, Mig-21s were definitely flown to smithereens (hence the relevance of the CF-104s operational history, because CF-104s were also flown to smithereens). Money was tight beyond the Iron Curtain so most airplanes stayed in service forever, planned economy (even in the carefully-regulated defense industry) frequently resulted in supply shortages so maintenance was difficult, maintenance wasn't always top-notch due to personnel and supply management issues, so it's not always easy to say which side of the neglect border each incident was. It's hard to decouple these things from the design, too, maintenance complexity is itself a design trade-off. The F-117 has a better safety track record than the Mig-21, but if they'd been handed a squadron of F-117s, the vast majority of the Mig-21's (former) operators would've ran them into the ground in a matter of weeks.