okopanja

Mission editor scripting can do this, but it will not work in multiplayer.

Yes, but they fought with that livery on, so actually more relevant.

Don't forgot SRJ "pepsi" paint scheme...

Where can we read more about it/this view?

Taken for the meme...

Have you ever tried to give an AI a task more complex than a single function?

Was about to suggest this. If you locate the story of Iljo Arizanov in 29 section, you will notice that he observed an aircraft still illuminated by the sun. I would estimate thatbthe distance must have been at least 37nm, since this was the time the AIM-120 was launched by Rico. One thing to note the dots should actually appear at different ranges dynamically. E.g. an airliner might be not visibile at ranges as close as 20km, but with glint this is several times longer. I was driving along one of the air traffic coridors yrsterday and was trying to judge the distances when at head of contrail I can actually spot the airplane.

We are all reading 64 of pages like this. I am pretty sure both ED and us are sick of it. Clearly this is about a personal preference, so why not allow people being seen to opt in/out? E.g. something like this: 1. I agree to be shown as 1 pixel or 2 pixel on HD display? So basically this would solve the problem of ground pounders not wanting to be shown as blocks. If you do not agree to this: you can not use the option yourself. 2 . Or make this valid only for air to air jets, and leave the helis and dedicated ground pounders concealed? And hopefully this would make @SharpeXB and @Tippis both happy.

Both Perić and Radosavljeviç were flying at pretty high altitude. For low altitude performance, I refer you to interview with Mike "Dozer" Shower, with part of his interview, found in story of Nebojša Nikolić. That evening he fired 2 Amraams and 1 sparrow at Nikolic. Later he fired another Amraam at Kulačin(in preparation...) which missed. Out of 3 Amraams 1 did hit. Anyway you can comment there, since this is mostly about barrel roll.

Iljo Arizanov did not have GCI for 2 reasons: 1. Failed radio 2. Primary EWR network was down, see Dragan Ilić flight, from same airport few minutes later, he had GCI support. BTW: positions of SAMs are accurate for March 24th, including the locations of EWRs. I did this in order to check if friendly fire was likely or not. I would say Arizanov is a clean AMRAAM hit, since KUBs were kind of on the edge of range ring and, I did not manage to confirm if they fired on that day at all.

Officially none of them launched. Boro Zoraja was close to it (see his post, unfortunatly no interviews from opponents), as well as Abdul Emeti (translated, but will be published in several weeks). At the moment I am preparing flight of Ljubiša Kulačin, a follow up on Nebojša Nikolić(published). I would say that in several occasions 29s dangerously closed the gap, despite AMRAAM advantage, mostly due to AMRAAM misses at low altitudes. 6 aircraft were lost in air, with multiple friendly(or combined) fire reports. 5 were lost on ground. Aircrafts had issues with capacitors causing power supply failures. The general overhaul should have been scheduled in 1996/1997.

Nice photo, but we do not talk actually about AIM-120A, but the fact that ERs and ETs. The other guy brought them into subject when he tried to put the ER next to AIM-120A almost 1/2 decade later. From my point of view I do not mind ED modeling one.

There are pictures of R-27ER being carried in 80s in operational units, taken by the western side. R-27ER/ET is very much realistic for 80s scenario. Further more the P variant appeared in one of the manual pages for 9.12 and was removed due to being potentially sensitive.

Can not offer exact answer, but perhaps the answer can be inferred based on the pilot descriptions, and by modeling against known stats. Hence the importance of matching and correlating pilot's stories. Bottom line is: lesser diameter meant less drag but also meant smaller warhead. Shower fired after of-the-rail-pitbull amraam, sparrow, which has heavier warhead, and again fired amraam from like 4nm.

Already for some time I am translating the transcripts of interviews of 29 pilots from 1999, along matching them with corresponding the western pilots. It should be noted that motivation is to bring more attention why the Mig-29 9.12b performed so bad, by provided as much as possible of the background information. You can find them in the Mig-29A section of the forum. So far I published 4 of them and the last one is about the shortest flight and probably one that was most uneven Please read the testimonies of both pilots (white timestamps will open exact place in youtube video where they made statements), and you will get it why am I so skeptical about never missing AMRAAMs.

This is all fine and dandy, but please provide more details on your analysis and conclusion.

24.03.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Nebojša Nikolić Pilot: Major Nebojša Nikolić Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18111 Time: March 24th 1999, 20:30 Take off: Airbase Batajnica Landing: Knićanin, near Titel Flight length: 3 min Nobody refused - part 2 - Nebojša Nikolić - Mig-29 pilot interview 1st video segment at 01:48 01:58 Narrator: Approximately around 20:15, at the airport of Batajnica the order arrives: “Mig-29 to scramble to confront the NATO airplanes which have already started the bombing of Yugoslavia.” 02:15 Narrator: Major Nebojša Nikolić has been ordered to take off and fly toward Bečej, where the larger formation of enemy airplanes is expected”. 02:24 Narrator: Nikolić takes off from readiness number 2, and discovers that course navigation on the airplane is not operating. 02:36 Nebojša Nikolić: As soon as I took off, before even retracting the undercarriage, I felt the explosion near the airplane shifted the whole aircraft. I corrected the shift and continued take off. 02:51 Nebojša Nikolić: I switched the radio station to the channel of the GCI squad, which I received, and attempted to establish communication with the GCI officer. 03:04 Nebojša Nikolić: I attempted 3 times, unsuccessfully. 03:09 Nebojša Nikolić: I turned the radar on immediately on take off and I saw it had malfunctioned. 03:16 Nebojša Nikolić: While climbing toward 3000m, I headed to the designated zone, which was the Bečej zone. 03:25 Nebojša Nikolić: Given the fact that they were already above Belgrade, they launched the missiles which I felt when exploding near the airplane. 04:41 Nebojša Nikolić: Each of these explosions was, due to air pressure changes, shifted the airplane left and right. I constantly corrected for the shift. 04:53 Nebojša Nikolić: I arrived at 3000m. I started to maneuver, but avoided doing this too energetically, in order to be able to constantly keep track of the lights of places toward which I have been ordered to fly 04:14 Remark: The story interrupts, and continues the stories of Major Ilić (and Iljo Arizanov). 2nd video segment at 12:12 12:12 Narrator: Nikolić has flown toward Bečej, where the larger formation of enemy aircraft was expected. He was detected (by the NATO forces) and the missiles were fired upon him. He managed to evade and continued the flight toward the zone of expectation. 12:27 Narrator: At this moment he is above Titel… 12:31 Nebojša Nikolić: One of these missiles that I felt (maybe even more which I did not feel), has caused the fire on the right side of the airplane, and the cockpit was on fire and full of smoke. 12:55 Nebojša Nikolić: I moved the flight stick and found out that the airplane was still controllable, but I could not see anything outside. 13:03 Nebojša Nikolić: I reported on the radio channel of my position, altitude, that I have been hit, I was on fire and that I had to eject. 13:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I pulled the ejection seat handle, and I ejected. 13:25 Nebojša Nikolić: The airplane has been hit with another missile after pulling the ejection handle. The canopy has separated and I followed it up. 13:38 Nebojša Nikolić: Stabilizing parachute was activated and then the main parachute followed. 13:47 Nebojša Nikolić: I was descending (falling) near the Danube and Tisa rivers junction. 13:51 Nebojša Nikolić: I was aware that this area was full of swamps and that it had a lot of water channels, so I settled in a seat harness(of parachute) awaiting the touchdown. 14:04 Nebojša Nikolić: My descent lasted about 30 seconds with a parachute, perhaps longer. At moments like this seconds are long, and you do not have time to count… 14:19 Remark: The story interrupts, and continues the stories of Major Ilić. 3rd video segment at 20:28 20:28 Narrator: Major Ilić was hit over Titel, managed to eject and landed in the Knićanin village area. 22:36 Nebojša Nikolić: The crash location of the airplane is over there, and since the crash it was on fire all the time I was in the area (He stands on the left side of the water channel, airplane is on the right). 22:48 Nebojša Nikolić: My landing location was over there, some 300m (opposite, across the channel) from the airplane. 22:57 Nebojša Nikolić: Once I landed and got myself free from the parachute, the first thing that came to mind was to lighten a cigarette (he finally smiles here) and I considered how to exit the field and to which direction. 23:13 Nebojša Nikolić: I decided to go toward Čenta, due to its vicinity to the Zrenjanin highway, where I could see vehicles passing by. 23:23 Nebojša Nikolić: As I headed towards Čenta, I arrived at a large water channel which prevented me from crossing it in order for me to reach the highway. 23:42 Nebojša Nikolić: Once I climbed on the channel embankment, I saw that near the burning plane there was a police patrol. 23:50 Nebojša Nikolić: In order to get noticed by them, I fired 2 red signal rockets, but they did not see me and left quickly. 24:02 Nebojša Nikolić: I was counting on the fact that they would report this to someone (that there was a burning plane), so I decided to return back to my jet. 24:17 Nebojša Nikolić: Arriving at a smaller water channel, I could not find the point I crossed it earlier, so I decided to wait until dawn, to make it easier for me to figure out how to get to the nearest houses. 24:34 Remark: The story is continued by villagers' reactions, not much information here, except that one of them saw the hit at 20:30. Except for their anecdotes, so I will skip the precise translation of this part. They were searching for a pilot, observed missiles under wings and cannon, and got dispersed by police, which took the parachute from one of them. Based on this account, this is already some time later… 4th video segment at 26:53 26:53 Narrator: Nikolić was hit around 20:30. The rescue helicopter arrived for him 5 hours later at around 01:30 in the morning. 27:07 Nebojša Nikolić: Around that time I heard the helicopter sound, I looked up and recognized the silhouette of Gazelle (SA-341). It landed just next to my burning airplane. 27:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I quickly grabbed the grass near the water channel and set it on fire. After taking off again, the helicopter crew noticed the fire I had started and landed near me. 27:30 Nebojša Nikolić: From there we flew directly to Batajnica airbase. 27:38 Remark: The story interrupts here with story of Major Predrag Milutinović 5th video segment at 50:10 50:10 Nebojša Nikolić: I realized that one of those missiles will be for me, being 3 or 7 fired (at me), one will be for me. 50:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I felt a kind of helplessness, despite my strong will to defend my country, to defend everyone. 50:25 Nebojša Nikolić: I knew there were more of them and that they came with the task to shoot down whatever flew toward them. My task was to shoot down the NATO pact. 50:40 Remark: The story interrupts with Boro Zoraja conclusion. 6th video segment at 54:13 54:13 Nebojša Nikolić: It does not matter what weapon you defend with. What matters is what you defend. 54:21 Nebojša Nikolić: We did not have the right means to do it properly, our airplanes were near the end, malfunctioning. 54:27 Nebojša Nikolić: We had insufficient flight hours. 54:36 Nebojša Nikolić: Despite all of that, I would have done exactly the same. 54:43 Remark: The story interrupts and continues with Major Abdul Emeti. Aircrew Interview: Interview with Mike "Dozer" Shower on the F-15C Eagle 7th video segment at 17:25 17:29 Mike Young: And then, while you were having the best in Lakenheath (F-15 NATO base) in 1999 you had a pretty eventful evening, didn't you? 17:36 Mike Young: Could you share this with us? 17:38 Mike Shower: Yeah, they had that whole, you know, we should avoid the politics and all the stuff about the campaign of Operation Allied Force, because there was a lot going on at that part of the world but… 17:47 Mike Shower: ... You know now nobody wants to see a war once it has passed up there was bad things happening anyways. 17:54 Mike Shower: Regardless, our leaders put us there, right… I mean NATO and in the US we got involved, so at the end of the day we just went and did it. 18:03 Mike Shower: You know, we did what we were told to do basically and you know. So we were deployed at in Italy, which was a really cool deployment minus the war part of it, because you know hadn't been to Italy before and the food was good. 18:14 Mike Shower: We lived near beach in a hotel and it was just… It was a really cool set up and the folks were really friendly, so I enjoyed that. 18:21 Mike Shower: So... yeah, March 24, 1999, that was the first day of Operation Allied Force when the aircraft got involved. 18:29 Mike Shower: I'm sure there were ground things happening that we didn't know about. 18:32 Mike Shower: Aircraft got involved and I was fortunate enough, being the weapons officer still. 18:37 Mike Shower: I've would just hand it off to a brand new weapons officer, he just got there, he didn't know the squadron so you know of course I'm planning and everything, kind of from that perspective and... 18:44 Mike Shower: We had two, four f-15s up north going into Serbia. We had 4 down south and we had 2 big strike packages so we had two pushes if you will that very first night you know, in from the north and south side, times 2 so... 19:01 Mike Shower: But they were separated by a number of hours and there was a lot of kind of surreal things because I've been in Iraq a lot and every once in a while they toss surface-to-air missiles on that but not a big deal right... 19:11 Mike Shower: And this is a little different. This is like a real country that was intact, its infrastructure was there. 19:15 Mike Shower: The Serbs are not known... they know how to fight and they're good fighters. 19:19 Mike Shower: Their equipment was just you know not as up to par as ours was or the mass enough that we had to our control. 19:25 Mike Shower: So I don't take anything away from the Serbs because I said they're.... They're tough. (If) they had the same equipment you know or more things to their advantage, it would've been a heck of a lot harder to fight for sure, you know… 19:35 Mike Shower: Plus you know I give them kudos they're defending their country right. I mean we would have done the same thing if we had to. We're attacking their country. 19:41 Mike Shower: Right or wrong, whatever, but you've got it, they are protecting their country. That's what they're supposed to do. I would have done the same thing. 19:47 Mike Shower: So we had specifically for where I was I was down south, or up north I had a 4 F-15s, 4 F-16CJ's was shooting the harm missiles back at the surface to air missiles, playing that little game. 19:59 Mike Shower: And we had 2 B-2s that were coming in all the way from the United States and they were flying from the north south side of the country all the way across it to the north... 20:05 Mike Shower: And we were kind of, you know, the southern portion of that strike package of aluminum jets, was gonna kind of hand off the B-2s halfway across the country to us and then protect them there... 20:15 Mike Shower: And then we had 10 F-117! They were still flying so that was our strike package up north. 20:19 Mike Shower: We were the stealth package. 20:20 Mike Young: Wow! 10! That's a lot! 20:20 Mike Shower: Except for the... Yeah it was! 20:24 Mike Shower: Other than 8 F-15s and F-16s tollbook , since we were the "Chum" where they can see us and shoot at us where they can't see the other guys, that's part of the theory. 20:31 Mike Shower: So we pushed in from Hungary and went south towards Belgrade and that's where most of our targets were at. And... 20:39 Mike Shower: We were out in front of everybody because that is the F-15s job and we kind of got to the very first CAP which is just north of Belgrade and we had four of us, who were split apart. It was all nighttime, so it's dark... 20:49 Mike Shower: And we're in a trail formation so you know 3 to 5 mile trail is kind of what we did back in the day. Don't do that anymore but we used to. 20:56 Mike Shower: We didn't have datalink, we didn't have NVGs, we didn't have any of the fancy tools that you have now for all this stuff to make them much easier to employ that way. 21:03 Mike Shower: And so... We got to the very south edge of our CAP or combat air patrol we came, did our first spin and as I turned around and that. 21:12 Mike Shower: You know F-16s are getting close, F-117s are right behind and we don't know that other than you know they're getting close timing wise. 21:17 Mike Shower: And I saw the first little blip on the radar and it was out Batajnica, which was their Mig-29 base, out of Belgrade. 21:17 Remark: Slight correction of the name of the place: Janica => Batajnica. 21:26 Mike Shower: And so locked it up and it was 150 knots you know 59 feet, you know just taking off. 21:26 Remark: 150 knots is 277.8 km/h. 59 feet is 17.98 meters. 21:30 Mike Shower: I'm sure and I know was their pilots you know their Mig-29 is alert scrambling as soon as they knew we were coming... 21:35 Mike Shower: So those guys are hopping in their jets and fire up for take off and... 21:40 Mike Shower: He turned around about 35 miles and I kind of track him down the scope for a bit. 21:40 Remark: 35 nautical miles is 64.82 km. 21:44 Mike Shower: I lock him, you know at the appropriate range say 25-ish miles or so and... 21:44 Remark: 25 nautical miles is 46.3 km. 21:48 Mike Shower: ... start working the electronic ID because there's a number of things we had to fulfill to say that he was a hostile, somebody that we could shoot at... And... 21:56 Mike Shower: I did all that. And we've got a lot closer. We were probably about 14-15 miles apart. Finally got the ID, called out on the radio. I took the first shot which was AIM-120... 21:56 Remark: 14-15 nautical miles is 25.93 - 27.78 km. 22:07 Mike Shower: ... and then followed it up very shortly after, cuz it was active. We're so close, it was active off the rail. 22:11 Mike Shower: We switched over to AIM-7 because we had 2 AIM-7s, 4 AIM-120s. 22:15 Mike Shower: And AIM-7s got a big warhead, you hope it really does, you know, takes care of the problem if it's still, the aircraft still working. 22:21 Mike Shower: And... plus I always wanted to shoot one. So they're one of those kind of things as well. 22:26 Mike Shower: Okay I can shoot as many as I want here, because it’s combat and we also had a philosophy of typically always shoot 2. 22:31 Mike Shower: Because missiles miss! They are not (hit)iles, they are missiles, right. They miss a lot. In our peak it's like sixty percent or so. You know whatever X number of missiles aren't gonna hit. 22:42 Mike Shower: Something's not gonna work, the enemy's going to maneuver, is gonna get jammed or chaffed or whatever. So you always try to shoot a couple to up the probability of a kill. 22:49 Mike Shower: I did that! And off they went... And staring at Belgrade in the background, pretty cool because it's a VFR night so crystal clear. 22:49 Remark: VFR stands for Visual Flight Rules (flying is not impaired by the weather). 22:54 Mike Shower: Lights of the city in the background and I'm just watching the missiles go and they get to about 5-6 miles and the aircraft is breaking into the beam on me... 22:54 Remark: 5-6 nautical miles is 9.26 - 11.11 km. 23:03 Mike Shower: And I watched the first missile time out about the time the second one times out I don't see a fireball. 23:08 Mike Shower: Oh-Ohooo switch over back to an AMMRAM shoot a third one. 23:11 Mike Shower: And now I'm diving down towards him and he's kind of you know in a corner to me turning. 23:17 Mike Shower: When that last missile comes off at about five-ish miles he breaks out of the beam, starts to kind of merge head to head. 23:24 Mike Shower: And we were about a mile and a half - two (1.5-2) miles apart the missile which I'm just watching the motor I can see it burn, so I don't know... 23:24 Remark: 1.5-2 nautical miles is 2.78 - 3.7 km. 23:29 Mike Shower: I can't see him with the eyeballs. I am just watching the missile so I'm looking outside. 23:33 Mike Shower: The missile motor from that little orange goes to a big fireball. 23:36 Mike Shower: And so my god... I say, I call splash on the radio and kind of watch it spiral you know down towards the ground. 23:40 Mike Shower: You never know what happens to pilot. You find out after you know all the things are over. 23:46 Mike Shower: They had picked him up and he survived. 23:49 Mike Shower: And I believe only one pilot that was down down died and they told us based on, you know, what they had for intelligence assets gathering information, that the only one that actually died was, I believe, one of them died during the ejection... 24:03 Mike Shower: ... in that 2 vs 2 date-time couple days later that we had and one… And/Or one of them might have died because they believe one of their own aircraft was shot down by a surface to air missile. 24:11 Mike Young: Right, yeah... 24:12 Mike Shower: So I even have the interview from the guy that I shot down from the Ser...Yugoslav press is kind of funny because all the time we matched. 24:20 Remark: He explains how he made another CAP turn afterwards end encountered another Mig-29, but his story will stop at this moment. His story will continue in story about Ljubiša Kulačin. Rescue mission - Aleksa Milanović, Gazelle pilot 8th video segment at 47:57 47:57 Miodrag Marić: How did you rescue him? 48:01 Aleksa Milanović: Let me tell you, one of my responsibilities was to help the colleagues if they needed it. 48:04 Aleksa Milanović: By the way, that first day was very chaotic, interrupted with alerts. 48:08 Aleksa Milanović: I personally was assigned the task down toward Kuršumlija, to the south, but it was cancelled and I found myself the search and rescue service for that evening. 48:19 Aleksa Milanović: The story the "Keša" told us, this attack on Batajnica, Buca was also there, it was a light show. 48:19 Remark: Keša is a nickname of Nebojša Nikolić. Buca is the nickname of Slobodan Pejić. 48:26 Aleksa Milanović: It was a light show... 48:32 Miodrag Marić: "Star Wars", they were targeting you? 48:36 Aleksa Milanović: Maybe, "Star Wars" or "War of the Worlds", whatever... 48:38 Aleksa Milanović: I believe I have seen "Keša" taking off. 48:41 Aleksa Milanović: When he taxied from 7th, I only saw the spot light and he disappeared in the dark. 48:48 Aleksa Milanović: The tomahawks started to hit the hangers one by one. 48:52 Aleksa Milanović: All this happens in some sort of confusion, we did not have the correct information. 49:00 Aleksa Milanović: We watched the TV and during News: "The missile attacks happened in Kosovo". 49:00 Remark: For pilots to find out that the war started from the TV news, does not paint a good picture of the command. 49:05 Aleksa Milanović: That was the first information on the war. 49:07 Aleksa Milanović: And then the events started to occur... 49:11 Aleksa Milanović: After 3 attacks on Airbase Batajnica, I have received the order from Operation Center: "Do you have a helicopter ready?". I replied "I believe I do". It was in the dark just like the rest of the things... 49:22 Aleksa Milanović: "We received the information that our pilot ejected in area Čenta - Zrenjanin". Keša likely reported the area like that. 49:29 Aleksa Milanović: "He should be picked up." I replied "OK". 49:33 Aleksa Milanović: The AKL was functioning somewhere in some hole. 49:39 Remark: AKL = Aerodromska kontrola Letenja. English: CTR = Control Zone 49:37 Aleksa Milanović: I announced the take off to them, so they can eventually pass the information to "those nearby". 49:37 Remark: He means the PVO (Air Defense) units. 49:43 Miodrag Marić: So to avoid friendly fire? 49:46 Aleksa Milanović: That's right! 49:47 Aleksa Milanović: To prevent further circus acts. 49:49 Aleksa Milanović: We took off just like in American movies, you know Vietnam, Apocalypse... Fire is everywhere, smokes... 49:57 Aleksa Milanović: I flew toward Inđija, and then I received over the radio: "You have been detected, land immediately!" 50:03 Aleksa Milanović: Again darkness everywhere, we land near Inđija. 50:06 Aleksa Milanović: A younger colleague was with me. Even if we find him, the single person can not provide help properly. 50:14 Aleksa Milanović: We landed near Inđija, we lit cigarettes, while watching the sky, we searched for the lights of airplanes and wondered if among 6 millions of stars something is flying... 50:26 Aleksa Milanović: Finally we arrived in the area of Čenta toward Zrenjanin, with a logical assumption: to search for him in dark areas. If he is in a village, our people are there... 50:34 Aleksa Milanović: It's a swampy area, if he, god forbid, landed in the swamp, he might be drowning, so we can help him if there is any chance. 50:44 Miodrag Marić: Do you have any communication with him? 50:46 Aleksa Milanović: No, we did not have any communication with him. 50:53 Aleksa Milanović: We searched the dark places, and while returning from Zrenjanin, we arrived at the triangle Tisa-Danube(Slankamen)-road. Darkness... 51:04 Aleksa Milanović: We found the airplane which was still burning. 51:07 Aleksa Milanović: We landed near the airplane... to check what was going on... We see the debris of the airplane, burning, and foam from the fire extinguisher all around. 51:17 Aleksa Milanović: Logically he must be within a circle of a few km around the airplane, if he ejected and if he is still alive. 51:22 Aleksa Milanović: And we found him nearby, he started a small fire and smoked a cigarette while standing near the channel. 51:22 Remark: He presents this as almost a joke... 51:30 Aleksa Milanović: I landed on an embankment, Keša approached us, alive and well, holding a helmet and parachute. 51:40 Aleksa Milanović: I asked him "Are you well?", he replied "Yes, I am well". I asked "Do we fly to VMA hospital?" ,he replied "No, not needed", "So where do we go then?", "Back to the airbase." 51:45 Remark: Story interrupts here as Miodrag Marić asks about organization of US rescue missions. 03:09 Remark: Instead I will continue with the conclusion of the rescue mission, which was placed in the introduction part of the interview. 03:09 Aleksa Milanović: I still remember clearly, when we returned to Batajnica, at some time well after midnight. 03:14 Aleksa Milanović: It was a time when we reported each one of us to his own commander, that we were alive and successfully completed the mission. 03:23 Aleksa Milanović: I look at Keša, and a thought - a comparison comes to my mind... 03:29 Aleksa Milanović: He's so burnt behind the neck, so burnt in front, on his eyelashes and eyebrows, his camouflage flight jacket, so, not to say shabby. 03:44 Aleksa Milanović: A box of cigars, a "Blue Best", is sticking out of his pocket, which I also did smoke at the time. That was the standard for us, normally. 03:54 Aleksa Milanović: I think to myself, "On one side: NATO pact, on other Keša, like the one in Cervantes, when the one with the pitchfork goes to fight with the armored man." 03:54 Remark: He refers to the novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, and the scene where Don Quixote fights with the penitents. On one side Don Quixote, with the sword, and on the other penitent with forked prop. 04:10 Remark: He introduces himself as Aleksa Milanović, retired as colonel in 2005, and that he was a pilot of Gazelle helicopter. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Slight differences and personal speculations Nebojša Nikolić stated that enemy airplanes were already above the city of Belgrade during his take off. Mike Shower had just started tracking Nikolić's MiG-29, while at the same time Nikolić is counting misses from the enemy missiles, effectively avoiding them by flying north. This slight discrepancy, indicates possible presence of other enemy airplanes capable of launching air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles on Nikolić. One such group could certainly be 10 F-117 which made an ingress from the East along the border with Romania, and according to the published NATO video⁶, one of them did hit the hangar at Batajnica airbase. Another group could be 4x F-16CJs which were tasked with SEAD missions, but also carried AMRAAM air-to-air missiles (e.g. the one shot down on May 2nd, 1999 had 2 x AIM-120⁷). It should be noted that practically all S-125 missile batteries were not active: aside from 2 at firing positions south of the city, the remaining 6 were in transport configuration and ready to move. The 2 batteries at their firing positions, even if active, could not engage due to the orders not to fire at azimuths that would endanger the city. Meanwhile VOJIN (EWR) has reported a much larger number of targets to the North, which was likely protective jamming, covering the ingress of the large F-117 group. Cruise missiles had taken out nearly all 4 active EWR radars belonging to the primary radar network. My personal conclusion is that conditions allowed for the presence of non-stealth aircrafts above the city at the time of Nikolić's take off. Personal memory While investigating the events by hearing the accounts of different people, sometimes you can find yourself crossing paths with your own memories. One such personal memory was brought back to the surface when considering the story differences of two pilots and trying to reconcile them with information from other sources. On March 24th, the author of this post was himself on the ground some 25-30 km away from the Batajnica air base. Already during the day, our regular activities were interrupted multiple times with combat alerts starting already around 08:45 in the morning. The last alert we received was around 19:30 in the evening. After we had our dinner, we moved to our allocated dispersion location and awaited further instructions. The sky was crystal clear, and I still remember being very unhappy about that. The city lights were bright as if there was no war going on. Around 20:00 we could already hear remote detonations. Few minutes later a low flying missile passed over us, coming from the East and direction of the city. It was heading toward the direction of the railway marshaling yards in Železnik. Some 30-60 seconds later, we saw a bright flash reflecting from the ground into the sky, which was followed up by the loud sound of an explosion some time later. We judged that it fell in the direction of Jakovo, where we knew there was some PVO base (3rd missile battery of 250th missile brigade, as it turned out later⁸). It is sometimes difficult to judge the significance of events, but the research of this event brought this memory back to me. Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. Aircrew Interview with Mike "Dozer" Shower on the F-15C Eagle , link. 3. Piloti ( SFRJ/SRJ/SCG ) o Nato agresiji 1999 god..., link. 4. Ratni dnevnik 1999, link. 5. NATO Briefings, link. 6. NATO Briefings Video - 26 March 1999 - Batajnica Hanger, link. 7. Pad noćnog sokola (2nd edition) - Slaviša Golubović, link. 8. Zoltan Dani's lecture on the downing of the F-117A aircraft, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and english corrections

If I may guess: Chinese have returned this aircraft...

?

Three small but very important updates: while searching for more information on other flights I have determined the following based on source 3 (added as separate section in first post) 1. After heading north to Niš, Boro Zoraja has landed at Lađevci Airbase, since radio contact with Niš was not established. This additional leg has brought the flight to exactly to the 40 minutes (originally software was calculating 37 minutes). 2. This finding also resolved the ambiguity with flight date (e.g. documentary graphic shows April 7th, and source 2 gives April 6th). At the time of landing at Lađevci (23:40 April 6th) Milenković was at Ponikve, and proceeded with the relocation of pilot/maintenance crews to Lađevci. My estimate shows that they have arrived no sooner than 01:30 on April 7th, likely later. His report could have not been written before April 7th, after the relocation was completed. Each report entry starts with date and time of the report and likely this caused confusion with the date in documentary. 3. As a result of the relocation, Milenković was on April 8th flying on #18101 airplane. The flight of Milenković will be published at later time.

The fuse distance is in a nutshell defined by the amount of damage the warhead is able to inflict on the target. This value is chosen while having in mind the ability of warhead to inflict desired effect on the target. The desired affect can range from causing low/medium level of damage (basically mission kill) to high level of damage (you blast the target into tiny pieces). Typically smaller missiles bring less explosive than larger. The choice of the size depends on technological limits in ability for guidance to achieve as close distance to the target as possible. If those limitations are high enough or more devastating effect is desired, the designer will choose the missile with heavier warhead instead, which in turn means more weight, for motor fuel and with all that higher drag at the end. Also there are considerations on what kind of effect the missile is expected to have: from causing the damage, toward blasting the target into tiny pieces. For A-D missile its easy to go with more explosive and have much higher fuse distances in tenths of meters than mentioned here for amraam. While the increasing of fuse distance as suggested by default may look right, it actually rises the question of current lethality of the warhead of amraam in DCS compared to the events observed IRL. E.g. at distance of 15 meters I would expect far less damage than with distance of 9 meters. E.g. the AMRAAMs impact we see in DCS, does not quite correspond to the effect reported by IRL pilots who survived the impacts, and I am not talking here about isolated cases. For example: in 1999, only 2 pilots were killed by the impact: others survived to either to eject or land their aircraft damaged or completely undamaged. It should be noted that the standard NATO practice was to launch AMRAAMs in pairs, or complemented with a Sparrow if a range allowed. This was confirmed by both NATO and Yugoslav pilots who in many cases counted the contrails approaching them or the explosions in the vicinity of their aircraft. If we take this into account then the AIM-120 is likely over-performing in this respect in DCS, where it's more likely you will turn into the fireball than IRL. In the Mig-29a (grumble, correct would be 9.12a) section I left already 3 account, where for 2 cases we know for sure the AMRAAMs were utilized: https://forum.dcs.world/forum/1217-dcs-mig-29a-fulcrum/ In one case I could not confirm if friendly fire occurred or aircraft potentially got hit by amraam: the pilot has landed his damaged airplane at the airport. Sadly I could not confirm where exactly and against which pilot the Dutch F-16AM did score a kill against and if this was his "kill".

This is the easy one: Warsaw Pact was disbanded on July 1st 1991 Hungary got their Mig-29 in 1993 Hence Hungary was eligible for 9.12b.

24.03.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Dragan Ilić Pilot: Major Dragan Ilić Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18104 Time: March 24th 1999, 20:12 Take off: Airbase Niš Landing: Airbase Niš Flight length: 17 min (minimal estimate) Interview with Major Dragan Ilić, pilot of MiG-29 1st video segment at 04:21 04:21 Narrator: Pilots assigned to combat readiness in Niš that evening were Dragan Ilić and Iljo Arizanov. Major Arizanov took off first and flew toward Kosovo and Metohija. Dragan Ilić has been vectored to the expectation zone Kuršumlija. 04:35 Dragan Ilić: After establishing the radio connection with a GCI officer, the first thing he asked me was: "Are you Blue or Red?" (Ilić makes a funny grimace and rolls his eyes over). 04:44 Dragan Ilić: "I was a bit confused, since we have already seen that the enemy attacks on mountain Jastrebac have already started”. 04:44 Remark: EWR is located at the peak of the mountain Jastrebac. 04:49 Dragan Ilić: Since I recognized that this is a younger colleague working as GCI officer, it was clear to me that strikes were ongoing and that we could proceed in the direction we were heading. 05:00 Dragan Ilić: First information and first guidance was: "Go to the Kuršumlija zone, heading 200. 05:09 Dragan Ilić: Immediately afterwards: "You have a target at bearing 180, turn to the left, target is at 75 m altitude, distance 90 km". 05:20 Dragan Ilić: During the taxing, I had a radar malfunction, and I was not sure how reliable it would be during the flight. 05:28 Dragan Ilić: We had cases, due to the state of the equipment, where despite radar malfunction indication, the radar could still work in some of the modes. 05:36 Dragan Ilić: The target he has given to me at course 180, I had on the radar screen. Most likely it was a cruise missile, since the only weapon flying at that altitude under those conditions could be a cruise missile. 05:49 Dragan Ilić: I could not switch to track mode for that target and the next target I received was at bearing 220, distance 90 km and altitude 100m. 06:03 Dragan Ilić: I could not track it, until the distance of about 30 km, when I finally got the reflection on radar, but only in the scanning mode. 06:14 Dragan Ilić: I could not establish the tracking, because the radar already gave its final verdict during taxiing. It was no wonder I could not do it. 06:28 Dragan Ilić: The third guidance was practically at the base group (of airplanes), which moved behind the cruise missiles. 06:36 Dragan Ilić: I was told: "Turn toward course 220, enemy at 10.000 m, distance 50-60 km. 06:36 Remark: Story is interrupted here. 2nd video segment at 14:19 14:24 Narrator: Major Ilić takes off from airbase Niš. The GCI officer informs him that at 10.000 m and distance of 60 km he has a group of enemy targets. 14:38 Dragan Ilić: At that moment I was at 3000 m altitude, and during climb toward 4500 m, slightly ahead of the airplane on right of the nose the explosion occurred. 14:51 Dragan Ilić: The nose part and right side of the airplane have passed completely through the fireball. 15:00 Dragan Ilić: Front glass has cracked, the complete PVD installation has failed. It provides airplane speed and altitude. 15:11 Dragan Ilić: Since it was night, the first thing I did was to use the flashlight to inspect the glass condition. 15:17 Dragan Ilić: It was cracked, but it still held together, it did not splinter. 15:22 Dragan Ilić: Once I switched to backup pitot-static installation, the instruments started working again. 15:28 Dragan Ilić: I have reported to the GCI officer, that I am aborting the mission, and that I am returning to the airbase. 15:35 Dragan Ilić: The officer has guided me toward Airbase Niš, and with a reduced speed of 450 km/h I was returning to the Airbase Niš. 15:45 Dragan Ilić: The lucky part of the whole thing was that the (explosive) device did not come directly into contact with the airplane and that I just passed through the explosion just ahead of the airplane. 15:57 Dragan Ilić: It is possible that the missile came either from ground or from air. 16:01 Dragan Ilić: It would have been necessary to inspect this in more detail, e.g to determine which kind of explosive left the traces on the airplane. 16:08 Dragan Ilić: Unfortunately this was just about the last thing "someone" would inspect during that period. 16:08 Remark: Story is interrupted here. 16:08 Remark: In book "Mig-29 - Naša priča"⁸, part of the interview of Dragan Ilić to military magazine "Vojska" states: "I had indication of the enemy missile lock. The fireball hit the airplane and the aircraft shook." 3rd video segment at 49:51 49:51 Dragan Ilić: For each kind of aggression there is a resistance strategy. 49:57 Dragan Ilić: By this kind of aggression, you have to understand that smaller air forces and small countries cannot develop a proper strategy. 50:05 Dragan Ilić: The best strategy in this case is not to be in the position we were at. 50:05 Remark: Story is interrupted here 4th video segment at 52:52 52:52 Dragan Ilić: The decision maker at that very moment, had the right to decide to scramble a single airplane, but also all of them. 53:00 Dragan Ilić: But, he did not have the right to scramble the airplane which at that moment was not fully operational. 53:00 Dragan Ilić: I will tell you now: all those were "operational". "Correct!" 53:06 Dragan Ilić: All personnel involved in the chain of maintenance of the airplane have signed, honestly and according to their own conscience, that the airplane was operational when it went into the mission. 53:17 Dragan Ilić: But, that equipment was simply not reliable, since we all knew that under real conditions and full voltage and combat use its reliability will be none. 53:27 Dragan Ilić: These 2 things should be separated. 53:31 Remark: The testimony ends here. Part of interview with Colonel Rajica Bošković, member of 126th VOJIN brigade 5th video segment at 39:48 39:48 Remark: This video contains a part of an interview of Colonel Rajica Bošković, who was the member of 126th VOJIN brigade, and was at that time behind one of the monitors in Operational Center. 39:49 Rajica Bošković: Now I will tell you about the beginning... 39:53 Rajica Bošković: They did hit us with cruise missiles... 39:57 Rajica Bošković: Those missiles we did not manage to detect, we were helped by the reconnaissance and reporting service. 39:57 Remark: The help mentioned here was likely used to warn the crews of EWRs and other units about the incoming cruise missiles. 40:04 Rajica Bošković: The active stations were destroyed at the beginning: Kačarevo near Pančevo, Kopaonik, Crni Rt and Koviona. 40:04 Remark: Radar stations are listed as part of primary radar network within source #2. 40:18 Rajica Bošković: At that moment we activated the unit at Sveti Ilija hill above the city of Vranje, equipped with the AN/TPS-70 radar, our most modern radar. 40:29 Rajica Bošković: We tracked how the aircraft attacks were conducted. 40:33 Rajica Bošković: We observed how they grouped over Albania and above (Northern) Macedonia. 40:39 Rajica Bošković: When the attacks started we activated radar at Sveti Ilija, radar at Fruška Gora, and radar at Ulcinj. 40:39 Remark: All locations are listed as part of secondary radar network within source #2. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Due to the possibility of friendly fire from ground the locations of the SAMs belonging to the PVO are also provided. Locations of the short range SAMs and AAA belonging to ARJ PVO KOV are not available at this moment. Damage report taken from book "Mig-29 - Naša priča (Our story)" Technical team from Air Force Institute "Moma Stanojlović" has arrived to the airport very soon, to assess the possibility of repair of airplane 18104, after it was damaged in the air. The team has discovered the following damage: 1. Conical cup was penetrated multiple times and the Pitot tube was broken. 2. Front glass was penetrated and broken. 3. Penetration on the right side of fuselage, below the cabin, sized 80 x 20 mm. 4. Leading edge on right side of the wing, penetration 150 mm in length. 5. First integral fuel tank on upper side of the hump, penetration size 40 x 20 mm. 6. Penetrated root of right vertical stabilizer, at actuator position, size 40 x 20 mm. 7. Penetration on exit side of the left wing, made of composite, 100 x 30 mm in size. Damages marked with 5 and 6 from upper part of the airplane are not likely to be inflicted from the missile fired from ground. Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. Operation Allied Force - Air war over Serbia 1999 - volume 1, Bojan Dimitrijević, Lt. Gen. Jovica Draganić, link. 3. Three Fingers of Death - Soviet 2K12 KUB (SA-6 Gainful) Missile System, Mike Mihajlović, Danko Borojević, Zoran Vukosavljević, link. 4. FRONTKAST ep. 29: priča pukovnika Boškovića 25 godina nakon NATO agresije, PONOS, EMOCIJE, PRKOS, link. 5. Additional documentary material: exact title of documentary is unknown, link. 6. NATO Briefings, link. 7. NATO Briefings Video, link. 8. Mig-29 - Naša priča, Danko Borojević, Dragan Ivić, Željko Ubović, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and english corrections

The documentary came in 2 parts officially: - Part 1: focused on 2 flights: Iljo Arizanov on 24.03.1999, and pair flight of Perić/Radosavljević. The documentary also contains the stories that are less relevant and IMHO personal and those parts I left out (e.g. missing is part of how Iljo spends his time as a pensioner). The story of the second flight will be also provided as independent translation. - Part 2: focused on 6 flights, obviously this part is shorter since it had to fit the format of a single episode for airing. Given the fact that the videos were captured on multiple locations, I assume that original plan was to have more episodes. Inside this part is already published flight of Boro Zoraja(you can find it in the "Mig-29A" section of the forum), and flights of Dragan Ilić, Nebojša Nikolić, Abdul Emeti, Predrag Milutinović and Dragan Milenković. I did make raw translation with timestamps for all of them, but need yet to correlate with additional sources. This documentary part was never fully translated. - Part 3: strictly speaking this part had different title and is focused on the Lt. Colonel Milenko Pavlović, the commander of the 204th fighter aviation regiment. He flew on May 4th alone, and unfortunately there is no direct account from the mission, but rather interviews with ground crews and his deputy. I do not plan to translate full documentary, since much about it contains interviews with his family and friends which tell more about himself than about event itself. I will focus only on the parts relevant to the flight and interviews from people who did watch the end of this flight from the ground. I am aware that some additional information by pilot who was credited with the shot down, did additional details so I do not expect everything will match. Aside from these interviews, there is a separate interview of some of them in the show of journalist Milomir Marić. E.g. some additional details are provided for some of the above flights. An example are details about Gazelle rescue mission that picked up Nebojša Nikolić (spoiler: rotorcraft pilot makes jokes on fixed wing pilot). Missing is the account of the flight of Lt Col Ljubiša Kulačin who was flying on 24.03.1999 and landed his aircraft. To my best knowledge he never gave any interview and very little is known about his flight, so if anyone is aware or has sources that I could use PM me with the information. The flight that resulted in crash landing does not count toward combat flights, since it included the relocation from Podgorica airport to Ponikve of the aircraft that was damaged on 24.03.1999 on ground at Podgorica airbase. I did find some information including the potential crash site, but at this moment there is not enough information to justify the page here. Aside from the Mig-29 pilots it should be mentioned that pilots of J-22 Orao aircraft did fly combat missions against ground targets. Their missions were never publicized and were told more in the form of rumors. Lt Col Života Đurić was the commander of the 241. fighter-bomber espadrille and has lost his life on 25.03.1999, during the attack on the target. When providing the testimonies, primary focus will be to translate them accurately and to enable others to easily locate the section and if necessary validate the translation. Additional information will be provided in form or inline remark or one of the sections below the interview. Such additions are not meant to correct the pilot interview, but rather provide more accurate information, e.g. in case if there is alternative explanation.

Fixed, it should work now.