WAR MACHINES: What do F-16, MiG-29 fighter jets do?

LUKAS STOCK

During sharp turns, you are flattened into the seat by a force many times stronger than gravity. You only maintain consciousness if you are in peak physical condition and wear special pants that squeeze the blood out of your legs. You rarely fly below 900 kilometers per hour. “The acceleration is breathtaking.” That’s how former German Air Force pilot Joachim Vergin described the feeling of flying a fighter jet.

One might compare it to riding a roller coaster, but not really: The power in a jet is twice as strong. And during combat, you have to operate a large number of weapon systems simultaneously: Fighting, evading, defending. In an extreme situation, such as an air raid, everything is a matter of life and death, often at the speed of sound.

The first time fighter jets, such as F-16s and MiG-29s, were used was at the end of the last major war in Eu- rope: World War II. With their turbo- jet engine, jets fly much faster than propeller-driven aircraft, which had been used up to that point.

Jet engines suck air into the front of the motor, where it is compressed. Fuel is sprayed into the highly com- pressed air and ignited. This forces the air out of the engine “very powerfully,” said Robert Kluge, an aviation expert at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. As the air is accelerated in the process, a thrust is created that pushes the aircraft forward. Fighter jets can attack targets in the air as well as on the ground. For aerial combat, a jet can be equipped with air-to-air missiles that can be fired in flight to destroy a target that is also flying.

To strike targets on the ground, a jet can use air-to-ground missiles or drop simple free-fall bombs that fall to the ground according to the laws of physics, said Leonhard Houben, a historian at the Berlin-Gatow Military History Museum.

When building fighter jets, compromises must be made. Questions to consider include whether a jet is likely to fight other aircraft in the air and whether those aircraft are other fighter jets that can fight back. Or should the jet only be able to effectively engage ground targets?

Such strategic considerations are then reflected in a fighter jet’s technology: Should the aircraft be built to be rather light and manoeuvrable for air combat, or equipped with large fuel tanks for long-range missions? The MiG-29 was designed to take to the air for a very specific purpose: To protect the borders of Warsaw Pact countries against NATO aircraft. Thus, this so-called interceptor, which entered service in 1983, can take off very quickly and reach its destination. Due to its design, the MiG-29 is extremely manoeuvrable in air combat. It can even stand vertically in the air on its own for short periods of time.

However, the jet was initially equipped with only short-range fuel to save weight.

The majority of modern fighter jets combine a variety of capabilities. Houben said it is more economical to build so-called multi-purpose warplanes because they can be mass-produced in just one batch that can then be used for a variety of missions. The F-16 is one such mass-produced multi-purpose aircraft. It was explicitly developed in the US in the 1970s for export to partner nations as a low-cost, general-purpose jet. The F-16 is the fighter jet with the largest world- wide production run that is still in service. To this day, the jet is still produced in the US and is being continually improved.