Orientation of taxi/landing lights

[MikeMikeJuliet]

Hello.

 

A question: are the MiG:s taxi/landing lights supposed to be so much off-center showing light to the left?

 

I attached a screeshot to demonstrate.

 

 

Regards,

MikeMikeJuliet

[asla36]

Have this as well, no idea if it's supposed to be this way. Though for an aircraft taxiing on the right side of the taxiway it would make sense.

[MikeMikeJuliet]

Have this as well, no idea if it's supposed to be this way. Though for an aircraft taxiing on the right side of the taxiway it would make sense.

 

Sure... though aircraft are supposed to taxi on the centerline... and the lights are more important on landing. Especially in crosswind... if the wind is from the left there is a danger that half the runway stays unlit.

 

Must be a misalignment...

[Art-J]

MiG-15 did have a landing light deliberately misaligned to the left, I'm fairly sure though the -21 was "symmetrical" in this aspect.

 

However, alignment problem was reported a couple of patches ago already and I recall Novak writing that because of some code limitation it was next to impossible to adjust both lights in the module properly (can't find the post now). On the other hand I think the difference between left and right wasn't as big then as it is now, so maybe some tweaking is still possible.

[asla36]

Sure... though aircraft are supposed to taxi on the centerline... and the lights are more important on landing. Especially in crosswind... if the wind is from the left there is a danger that half the runway stays unlit.

 

Must be a misalignment...

Yes, but ya' never know the Russians... ;)

 

Most likely a glitch however.

[Tarres]

Novak told me in the Bugtracker that the "light to the left" is not a bug, it´s a feature like the landing light of the -15bis.

 

Soviet engineering.....

[Frederf]

Video of quite a lot of night ground taxi, takeoff, and landing operations for MiG-21. There a lot of interesting things to note from the video if it is looked at very carefully.

 

1. Asymmetry in landing lights. If right light is toed in or simply toed out less is unclear).

2. Very wide angle of taxi lights (see which airframe rib in gear bay the light pattern reaches, different left/right. Entire gear door inside is illuminated by right light)

3. Yellowish color of light, not #FFFFFF

4. Main gear inspection lights look, aimed, and act as "combat covert" taxi lights. They point forward instead of downward and quite powerful.

5. Lights come on with bulb retracted and take 1-2 seconds to motor to position.

 

It makes sense that the manual tells pilots to look left during flare to judge height in flare because lights are biased in that direction.

 

shows order and timing of "gear inspection" lights turning off on retraction. The nose gear first. The lights turning off on the first motion of retraction. Edited June 12, 2017 by Frederf

[MikeMikeJuliet]

Fair enough. I suspected an issue here since the taxi lights practically leave the right side completely dark. But if that is the way it was originally designed, then I'll roll with it.

[asla36]

Like I said, ya' never know the Russians... ;)

[Iberian]

Landing at night might be harder to see with the long nose. So I assume the light to the side its so that the pilot can have better depth perception by seeing the runway around his side lighted.

[Ce_Zeta]

Like I said, ya' never know the Russians... ;)

The general designer was in fact, Armenian, not Russian. ;)

[mongol-29]

If you switch to external view, you can see that this module nose landing gear always turned slightly to the left, this is some bug of the module, no need to invent extra)))

[asla36]

The general designer was in fact, Armenian, not Russian. ;)

Artem Mikoyan was indeed born in modern-day Armenia, at the time, a province of the Russian empire. But most known for his work in the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, for the Soviets.

 

It's unimaginable in which conditions they had to work in their heyday, pretty much as slave labor. Luckily by the time the aircraft we are talking about came out, the conditions had improved immensely.

[Ce_Zeta]

Artem Mikoyan was indeed born in modern-day Armenia, at the time, a province of the Russian empire. But most known for his work in the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, for the Soviets.

 

It's unimaginable in which conditions they had to work in their heyday, pretty much as slave labor. Luckily by the time the aircraft we are talking about came out, the conditions had improved immensely.

And? :book:

The point here is, please don' t mix Russia with the Soviet Union. A lot of Americans still think that Russia is communist and Putin, a communist leader :megalol: And of course Soviet Union was formed by different ethnic groups, Artem was armenian ethnic.

 

We must be straight. If you know it (I don't doubt it 'cause you are from a Baltic State) please stick to the true. :thumbup: 'cause surely you will be ofended if somebody call you Russian.

 

Yeap, I read the book 'Rockets and People' of Boris Chertok (free epub at NASA website, I strongly recommend it) and it's incredible the conditions and of course his achievements. Chertok was lucky, but all his colleagues dead from Cancer or heart strokes (due to the huge stress) in the 70s-80s...Very sad.

[asla36]

We must be straight. If you know it (I don't doubt it 'cause you are from a Baltic State) please stick to the true. :thumbup: 'cause surely you will be ofended if somebody call you Russian.

Well, if someone would call me Russian they would have a 1 in 4 chance of being correct. Estonia has a 25% Russian population, mostly due to us being one of the wealthiest regions directly in the Soviet Union. Same applies to the other Baltic states. For example the border city of Narva speaks almost entirely Russian, with people using Estonian words for slang. Just to be clear, I am according to the 3 to 1 odds, Estonian. But that's enough off-topic chatter about my homeland.

 

But to be honest, you actually were the first to bring my attention to the fact that he was Armenian. Then looked it up and the man became even more interesting. Also, the Russian documentaries I saw conveniently left that bit out... So sorry.

[Buzzles]

That's great guys, but I dunno what it really has to do with if there's a bug with the DCS Mig 21's light being offset.

 

Anyone got an actual RL manual handy to reference?

[asla36]

That's great guys, but I dunno what it really has to do with if there's a bug with the DCS Mig 21's light being offset.

 

Anyone got an actual RL manual handy to reference?

Yup, that has nothing to do with the current topic.

 

Closest i could find, will keep looking! http://airspot.ru/book/file/229/mig21um.pdf

[Dehuman]

Also, the Russian documentaries I saw conveniently left that bit out... So sorry.

 

Really? It's mentioned several times in various Wings of Russia episodes, or at least in the English dubbed versions. (someday I'll have learnt Russian enough to watch it in Russian)

[asla36]

Really? It's mentioned several times in various Wings of Russia episodes, or at least in the English dubbed versions. (someday I'll have learnt Russian enough to watch it in Russian)

Then i must have forgot that, will have to re-watch them. Another excuse to spend hours watching awesome documentaries!

 

Has anyone had better luck getting an original MiG-21bis manual? I could only find ones that are, like the one above, for the wrong variant.

[Art-J]

Well, you've got the Russian ones (amongst others), linked to here:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=138880

[asla36]

Well, you've got the Russian ones (amongst others), linked to here:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=138880

Nice, thanks!