MiG-21 modeling discussion.

[+FLOGGER23]

42 minutes ago, Svetlin said:

locally built small pod with camera, converted from a UB-16 rocket pod. That was the RFC-2 pod and shapewise it was something like this (this is just a shape, no skin):

I need details on this pod too...

[+Soulfreak]

I took together some pics / infos about recce pods on 21s:

 

[Svetlin]

Well, that is most interesting. I was not aware that other air forces also created locally and used recon pods based on the UB-16 rocket pod. I guess that was some Warsaw pact sharing of ideas and experience

[+Gepard]

18 hours ago, Svetlin said:

I do not mean to argue, but it does not seem likely that those were modifed MFs. They have the MiG-21R wing with the radio-electronic warfare wingtip pods. Also they have the MiG-21R tube installed on the right upper side of the nose with just an air pressure sensor, whereas the MiG-21MF has other sensors added on the same tube. Why would anyone downgrade by removing some useful sensors to convert a serial MiG-21MF into a MiG-21RF?

 

The small fin sensors on the pitot tube are AoA sensors of the aiming device for the gun. Since the MiG-21RF had had no gun, so they were useless, thatswhy the "clean" pitot tube. The small wing pods, you mention, are a good argument. But the wings are interchangable between MiG-21 versions. In the LSK (East German Air Force) we had exactly one MiG-21UM with the wings of the MiG-21MF (2 hardpoints each wing), while all other Sparkas had 1 hardpoint per wing.

What me makes thinking, that teh egyptian MiG-21RF are modified MiG-21MF is the engine. They had R-13F-300 engines. The guy, who made the upper photo said, that he was able, during his visit in the ukrainian repar facility in Odessa, to have a look in the engine tube and he realized, that it was a R-13, not an R-11. IIRC, i have heared, that it was nearly impossible to fit a R-13 in the fuselage of a MiG-21 of the first and second generation, because parts of the engine were located at other positions. And the MiG-21R was a plane of the second MiG-21 generation.

On the other hand the egyptians were tricky guys. Perhaps they have found a way to make the impossible possible.

It's confusing.

[+Gepard]

11 hours ago, Soulfreak said:

East German Recon pod:

 

Polish Recon Pod:

 

East German Recon Pod: CLA-87 (two or three different versions)

 

Polish Recon Pod:

 

I made some remarks to show which recon pod belongs to East Germans and which to the Polish. It could be, that the polish pods based on UB-32 pod, while the east german pods were modified UB-16.

Edited June 6, 2024 by Gepard

[Wrench]

this is a FASCINATING thread! Expecially for those of us in the West. Please keep it going!!!

[+Gepard]

I found the designation of the polish recon pod. It's "Saturn-2". It was developed in mid 1980th and was tested in 1986/87. Wheter it entered the serial production, i dont know.

An other interesting fact about the soviet standard recon pod for MiG-21 is, that it had included two flare dispenser ASO-2 with 32 flares each. I dont know, wheter it is possible to bring this feature in SF2.

[EricJ]

10 minutes ago, Gepard said:

I found the designation of the polish recon pod. It's "Saturn-2". It was developed in mid 1980th and was tested in 1986/87. Wheter it entered the serial production, i dont know.

An other interesting fact about the soviet standard recon pod for MiG-21 is, that it had included two flare dispenser ASO-2 with 32 flares each. I dont know, wheter it is possible to bring this feature in SF2.

The only special store was the bomb fuel tanks. Other than that I don't think (nor heard or seen) recon pods with flares in them as well.

[+Crusader]

Yep no function for it in SF2, and podded ECM isnt functioning for AI planes anyway.

[+FLOGGER23]

What if it's added as a Fuel Tank and given the flares function in the data.ini?

[yakarov79]

9 hours ago, Gepard said:

I found the designation of the polish recon pod. It's "Saturn-2". It was developed in mid 1980th and was tested in 1986/87. Wheter it entered the serial production, i dont know.

It was not a serial production, rather than a 'short run' Additionally you had to put the new electrical wiring in the aircraft, Some Polish Bis, R, and MF were modified. The idea was that any 21 could carry this,  as long as it had new wiring for a pod. The principle of using Saturn-2 was that after the reconnaissance run, a pilot dropped a cassette with film over the command position. Pod used diffusion treatment of silver halogen photosensitive materials. The hydrophilic film was exposed at the time of photography and then photochemical processed on board the "plane" in a pod. This shortened circulation time of image information from several hours to about 20 minutes

 

9 hours ago, Gepard said:

An other interesting fact about the soviet standard recon pod for MiG-21 is, that it had included two flare dispenser ASO-2 with 32 flares each. I dont know, wheter it is possible to bring this feature in SF2.

7 hours ago, FLOGGER23 said:

What if it's added as a Fuel Tank and given the flares function in the data.ini?

All D, R, and N had ASO-2 dispensers.  N additionally had 152(?)  illumination flare dispensers.  

Chechoslovakia also made an additional pod  (refurbished D type) for calibrating land-based search radar stations. 

So technically as long as the pod is carried you can add a flare dispenser into the airframe via data.ini. I would do that, so AI flight and players could use it properly.

 

A very early run of 21R had a pitot tube on the center of the nose 

LSK modified 21M into reconaisance role, and wingip SPO-3 was a part of modification.

 

And. As I said, some 21R also had FODs, installed

Here with N recon pod. Visible Illumination dispensers, and ASO-2 In the center at the pod's rear.

[EricJ]

9 hours ago, FLOGGER23 said:

What if it's added as a Fuel Tank and given the flares function in the data.ini?

I mean you can try, but I'm not going to say you'd be successful. It's just a matter of what's hardcoded and the like.

[yakarov79]

21 hours ago, Gepard said:

What me makes thinking, that teh egyptian MiG-21RF are modified MiG-21MF is the engine. They had R-13F-300 engines. The guy, who made the upper photo said, that he was able, during his visit in the ukrainian repar facility in Odessa, to have a look in the engine tube and he realized, that it was a R-13, not an R-11. IIRC, i have heared, that it was nearly impossible to fit a R-13 in the fuselage of a MiG-21 of the first and second generation, because parts of the engine were located at other positions. And the MiG-21R was a plane of the second MiG-21 generation.

Me, think that it might be again confusion in the designation system. Egypt had Mig-21RF - izd.94RA. The first Soviet MiG-21R was izd.03/izd.94R. All exported airframes were designated as izd.94RA -even for Egypt with underbelly fairing for cameras and those for European countries were also izd.94RA.

Some airframes of MiG-21R (izd.94R) were upgraded with R-13 engines and then redesignated izd.96R (izd.96 was a prefix for 3rd generation airframes) - those were not for export.

 

As for UB-32. If I remember correctly when carrying a UB-32 and/or 500kg bomb you have to remove part of the gear strut cover.

 

7 hours ago, EricJ said:

16 hours ago, FLOGGER23 said:

What if it's added as a Fuel Tank and given the flares function in the data.ini?

I mean you can try, but I'm not going to say you'd be successful. It's just a matter of what's hardcoded and the like.

Do not try to overthink it. You will make additional fuel tanks or something and it still will not be what you need. You can not expect miracles from an old game, Just adjust to what you can do. Tea was working on ODS30AE, we had a lot of ideas, but in the end, we had to make it work with what we had. In the game, for a model, you will use loadout.ini. and more likely there will be an R or D container loaded. Always. Just add a permanent flare dispenser via data.ini. - then it will always work.  And If you want to carry a strike mission in R...just add SPS-141 under (also equipped with 2x ASO-2) and all will be fine. Remember this is a game, and in this game, you can not have everything the way it supposed to be. 

[+Gepard]

Funny facts to the east german CLA-87 pods.

There were 3 different versions of this pod. One of this pods was to equippe with a videocamera. Small problem: in East Germany was no videocamera available. The own industrie was unable to build one and soviet video technic was crap.

So the GDR found a nice solution. They bought some thousand Akai video recorders in Japan, which were sold in TV shops in the GDR. But this was only a coverstory. The real interesse was on a fistfull videocameras from Panasonic. This cameras wer not sold, but installed in the CLA-87 recon pods.

[+FLOGGER23]

MiG-21F-13 External job is done, now let's go to the cockpit and aft cockpit details, pictures of the aft piping are welcome

Not bad for 26k polys me thinks

 

 

[+swambast]

3 hours ago, FLOGGER23 said:

Not bad for 26k polys me thinks

Uh, that is absolutely excellent for 26k polys, fantastic work and you should be damn proud.  Being intentional and optimizing right upfront the base model is the way to go vs. often relying on multiple lower level LODs, well done FLOGGER23.  

[Svetlin]

Hi, will the canopy be animated to open/close? If it will, may I suggest that you used the same animation slot to animate the upward turning air-pressure-sensor mast? When the F-13 was parked on the airfield, the technicians would turn the mast up as a safety measure. It would be cool to have the canopy and the mast operating under the same animation.

[yakarov79]

that is a very good idea.

 

[+FLOGGER23]

Oh yeah! We all had the same idea.

 

 

 

 

 

[EricJ]

On 6/7/2024 at 10:11 AM, yakarov79 said:

Me, think that it might be again confusion in the designation system. Egypt had Mig-21RF - izd.94RA. The first Soviet MiG-21R was izd.03/izd.94R. All exported airframes were designated as izd.94RA -even for Egypt with underbelly fairing for cameras and those for European countries were also izd.94RA.

Some airframes of MiG-21R (izd.94R) were upgraded with R-13 engines and then redesignated izd.96R (izd.96 was a prefix for 3rd generation airframes) - those were not for export.

 

As for UB-32. If I remember correctly when carrying a UB-32 and/or 500kg bomb you have to remove part of the gear strut cover.

 

 

Do not try to overthink it. You will make additional fuel tanks or something and it still will not be what you need. You can not expect miracles from an old game, Just adjust to what you can do. Tea was working on ODS30AE, we had a lot of ideas, but in the end, we had to make it work with what we had. In the game, for a model, you will use loadout.ini. and more likely there will be an R or D container loaded. Always. Just add a permanent flare dispenser via data.ini. - then it will always work.  And If you want to carry a strike mission in R...just add SPS-141 under (also equipped with 2x ASO-2) and all will be fine. Remember this is a game, and in this game, you can not have everything the way it supposed to be. 

I do a lot of Arma 3 modding, mainly helos and the like, so I know where you're coming from. I've gotten a lot of requests that the game just doesn't support, so I know when a game says NO to me.

[OlWilly]

On 06.06.2024 at 9:39 PM, Gepard said:

An other interesting fact about the soviet standard recon pod for MiG-21 is, that it had included two flare dispenser ASO-2 with 32 flares each. I dont know, wheter it is possible to bring this feature in SF2.

For player, kinda possible.

Create a ghost station where you want the flares to be. Creates a lod-less flare dispenser; pair dispenser and the ghost station through specific station code.

On loadout screen, load pod into the regular station, then dispenser into the ghost station. Voila, you have both functions.

Don't cheat though, don't load dispenser without pod, mkay?

Edited June 10, 2024 by OlWilly

[yakarov79]

yes, but in this case AI will not use dispensers at all. AI is only capable of using cmds when chaff-flares are part of the main aircraft data.ini,

as I said, been there done that. Solution is few posts above, whole ODS30AE is built this way.

[+Gepard]

A MiG-21 version which we still need is the MiG-21-93 alias MiG-21BISON.

New cockpit canopy and windshield, chaff flare dispensers over the wingroots, deceptive jammer in the tailfin, Kopyo radar with capability of detecting a MiG-21 size fighter at 57 km and engaging two targets at the same time.

[+FLOGGER23]

It is in my mind, but for now, gotta finish the Soviet Family ;)

[+FLOGGER23]

Well, after 2K ish more polys, this was as far as i was able with all the pics from internet and the ones i took

 

BTW, no F-13 was ever camouflaged in Soviet service, am I right?

Edited June 26, 2024 by FLOGGER23