The MIG Mystery
By OLIVER STEWART IF the truth has been told about its air performance, the MIG is the world's best fighter; if the truth has been told about air-battle losses, it is the world's worst fighter. In one breath it is said that 500 MIGs have been shot down and that the ratio of victories is eleven to one in favour of the United Nations, and in the next breath it is said that the MIG completely out-performs the Sabre and that the United Nations authorities are offering money to any Communist pilot who delivers an undamaged MIG to them. (The amount of 100,000 dollars is presumably judged sufficient to induce the pilot to brave the threat of an American film star that she will grant him a "date" for dinner.) In the House of Commons the Under-Secretary of State for Air has said that it would not be in the public interest to disclose facts about the MIG. But if the authorities themselves know the facts, there is no reason to offer money for them. And, with respect to the Minister. I would add that the important facts are obvious.
The MIG is built to accord with the advice given long ago to aircraft-designers by William Stout in the poetic phrase: " Simplicate and add more lightness." It is simple and it is light. By comparison the North American Sabre used by the United Nations is complicated and heavy. By comparison new British fighters are heavy, although their wing-loading is less than that of the MIG. About the MIG's engine there is even less doubt than about the airframe. We are reminded repeatedly that it derives from the Rolls-Royce Nene sold to Russia. It has, in fact, the same overall diameter as the Nene, 125.7 centimetres, and its design and performance can be inferred from the development work done on the Nene, notably by the French licence-holders, Hispano Suiza. The Nene is a centrifugal flow turbojet, with double-sided impeller, and, in its original form, it gave 2,270 kilograms (5,000 lb.) thrust at a weight of 800 kilograms. The Tay is a higher- powered development of the Nene. The engine has been fitted with re-heat.
British manufacturers are in process of abandoning centri- fugal flow engines like the Nene in favour of axial. The Rolls-Royce Avon, the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire and the Bristol Olympus are all axial flow engines. An attraction of the axial flow unit is that it is of smaller diameter for the same power. Presenting less frontal area, it causes less drag. The . two-spool" Olympus, for instance, gives twice the thrust of the Nene, and weighs twice as much, but has a diameter of only 102 centimetres. But axial flow engines are more comphcated, more difficult and expensive to produce, somewhat more sensitive to stones or other things swallowed by the air-intake and Probably more difficult to maintain than centrifugal engines.
So the picture of the MIG 15 engine and airframe paints itself without official aid. The aircraft is simple and light in weight; readily produced in quantity, easily maintained in the field. The implications are extremely interesting, because the Russians are not the only people to concentrate upon simplicity and lightness in their fighters. The Japanese used a similar formula during the war. Much more important, Mr. W. E. W. Petter, who designed the Canberra bomber, is now vigorously advocating simplicity and lightness, and has designed a new fighter, called the Folland Gnat, which con- centrates upon light weight and simplicity and should be able to out-perform most heavy and complicated fighters. . There would, therefore, be nothing extraordinary about the opinion expressed by a Royal Air Force officer, in an article officially circulated to all newspapers by the Air Ministry, that the MIG has better acceleration, climbs faster and has a higher ceiling than the United Nations fighters in service in Korea. Nor would there be any reason to call in question his further statement that the MIGs almost always outnumber United Nations machines, and that they have the tactical advantage of operating near their own bases, whereas United Nations aircraft must work far from their bases.
It is not possible, however, for serious students of air-wai simultaneously to give credence to the claim made by the same officer in the same article, and with the same Air Ministry authority, that the loss-rate is eleven to one in favour of the United Nations. The two sets of statements are incongruous Differences in gunnery cannot make the two sides match The Sabre gun-sights may be much better than those of the MIG. The gyro sight with radar ranging should give United Nations pilots a gunnery advantage. But their heavy machine guns must have a shorter effective range than the MIG's cannon. And in combat the pilot who can outclimb his opponent can obtain and hold the tactical initiative. The conclusion is either that the MIG's qualities have beer massively overestimated or that enemy losses have been inaccurately assessed. There is urgent need for fuller and franker discussion of the whole subject because of the tendency, already noted, of some eminent British aircraft-designers to favour greater lightness and simplicity in military and naval aircraft. The Service authorities are opposed to this view. The Ministry of Supply has placed no order for the Gnat. The official opinion is thai air-crew members must be supplied with every aid science can suggest and engineering can provide. So the specialists each with his own pet set of gadgets, have a glorious time with every new design. They load it down with wires and pipes; they instal electronics, hydraulics and pneumatics; they put in refrigerators, heaters and humidifiers; they , introduce involved interlocking devices and ten thousand ingenuities. forgetting the injunction of the distinguished American motor- car manufacturer: "What you don't fit don't give no trouble.' The modern fighter, as we understand it in the West, is a complex of intricate plumbing and inextricably entangled wiring.
Perhaps the MIG goes too far in the opposite direction It contains fewer safety devices, and therefore involves its pilot in what the modern jargon calls "unacceptable hazards.' But if manned fighters are to continue in existence, some check must eventually be applied to the increases in weighi and complication. On the evidence so far available all thai can be concluded is that, if the battle-loss figures are correct weight and complication are worth while; but, if the M1G performance figures are correct, simplicity and lightness should be sought.
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