Mig21 LancerR..., How many Mig21 Lancer As are there?

Greetings everyone,

I was wondering if anyone on this forum knew how many of the updated/upgraded Mig 21 LancerR type A (ground attack variant) were still operational out of the 48 that are said to still be flying in the Romanian airforce. Also, have these ground attack variants seen action with NATO yet? I ask because I know they are supposed to be pretty good when it comes to precision munitions.

First of all, the number of 48 Lancer still operational is bogus in my opinion.
Some people posted it on wikipedia and other sites just because we will get 48 new planes to replace the Lancers.

At any one time you could have more or less aircraft available than that number.
Maybe now there are 41 operational, maybe next month there will be 54. As some are repaired and put back into service, a few get grounded for scheduled / unscheduled repairs. What I'm trying to say here is that the number of operational airframes is always a dynamic figure, even if all the planes are brand new; and even more so when we talk about airframes at the end of their useful life.

Anyway, for the sake of the discussion, let's assume there are 48 planes operational now.
20 Lancer C and 13 Lancer B still exist, none of them was stored for good (put into the grass at Bacau). So 48-20-13 = 15 Lancer A

What do you mean about "seeing action with NATO"?
Combat ops? No, and there will be none.
They are just too short ranged - by design - and plagued by mechanical problems -due to age - to be used in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Besides, very few of our pilots get enough flight hours to be considered operational, let alone combat ready.

This post has been edited by Zapacitu on October 17, 2008 10:10 am

The only operational NATO mission that Lancer has senn is Baltic air policing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Air_Policing, but they were 4 LanceR C.

You can find an order of battle of RoAF here.

http://www.milaviapress.com/orbat/romania/index.php

It says 47 LanceR A, from originat 75 upgraded to this version.

There are 2 operational bases, 71st Air Base and 86th Air Base each with 2 squadrons of 12 aircrafts ( Lancer mixed A,B,C). This means 48 Lancers, that`s why we need 48 replacements.

Also there is a conversion squadron (951) at 95th Air Base (MiG-21 LanceR A, B.).

Since the sum of aircrafts is bigger than the squadron complement (80 versus 60), it means that some 20 aircrafts are keeped in reserve as attrition replacement. Also parts available by canibalising from those retreated from the original aprox. 110 upgraded.
That`s why the date of aquisition of the replacement fighters was repeatedly postponed.

This post has been edited by Hadrian on October 17, 2008 03:38 pm

Only 71 were upgraded to Lancer A.
Initially there should have been 75 A and 10 B, later this was changed to 71 A and 14 B.

951 is equipped with Lancer A and it is operational, they participated in several exercises with NATO planes over the last couple of years.
The Lancer B conversion squadron based at Bacau is designated 205, because technically it belongs to the Boboc AB.

It should have been 25 upgrades to Lancer C. How many were in the end?

And to whom belongs the Mig-21 bis upgraded to Lancer III?

This post has been edited by Hadrian on October 18, 2008 09:50 pm

25. One of them (7017) crashed during the first flight after the upgrade, while it was still Aerostar's responsability. So they took another MF (9611) in order to replace the loss. So in total 26 were upgraded, but only 25 delivered to the air force.

To Aerostar and Elbit. They bought and upgraded it on their money.

From where did they bought it? RSR didn`t received the Bis. Rumours says because they allowed a chinese delegation to fully inspect the MF...

They bought it from "an undisclosed third party".
Almost certainly an ex-Soviet republic.

Rumors, rumors, and when I tought I've heard them all... there's a new one to me.

Back to reality, I think it was rather an issue of timing. In '75 Ro got its last batch of MFs. Then in '79-'80 the 23s started to arrive. I really do not see where Bises could have been fitted inbetween.

Sorin

Also, Czechoslovakia did not have the bis.

Yes indeed there is a rumour for everything...

And with passing of time more appear...

It would be interesting to find out from where the spares, like the engines for our Lancers come...

The Mig-29`s stopped flying after 12 years, when the original supplies depleted and the russians wouldn`t sell others.


I guess that not all is from original spares set and from canibalisation.

This post has been edited by Hadrian on October 21, 2008 09:49 pm

Yes, of course, but we should filter rumors through our own thinking and pay attention to them as much as they deserve.

Some spares came with the a/c, some at a certain time after the a/c delivery. For spares in general there is a different plan which should reflect more or less what happens during the life cycle of the a/c. From what I gather from the discussion you're driving here, I do not see the relevance of this aspect.

It's not clear to me to what supplies you're refering to here. Engines? You do not need to replace engines unless they are damaged or out of life. With RoAF's 29s the latter happened. You can't go to far with a TBO of only 350Hrs. Then you have to OH the engine and that's money out of your pocket.

Sometimes a lot of money.

And to OH the engines and keep the fleet alive you have to have spares but they run out of life one day too.

It was not that the Russians wouldn't sell, it was rather the operator found the expense not worth the value they would get.

Can't comment here, not clear to what "all" you're refering to.

Some few more comments beyond the ones above.

This discussion started on how many 21s have been eventually upgraded; then it moved it to different other topics. It would be in the benefit of a better discussion to stay within the frames of the objectives, interest, or points to clarify that that discussion started with. Otherwise, with a moving target, as I mentioned it is a bit difficult for someone else to understand where that discussion is going.

In this case, from your questions I assume you're not aware, or if you are I'd say you make some confusions between the 21 and 29 status in Ro.

For 21 there are enough resources and capabilities in Ro to be independent from the original manufacturer. For 29 that was not the case.

Sorin

This post has been edited by lancer_two_one on October 22, 2008 11:02 am

An interesting article

http://mnweekly.ru/national/20081218/55361863.html