It is somewhat counterintuitive - but there are several explanations that connect the high landing speed with accidents. (This is not my personal knowledge - but from a couple of sources - including one I will try and find and post). A minimum speed is required to stay in the air and that speed is reduced as the plane comes down to land. Somewhere around 340 kmph the plane will stop floating and descend to the runway if it slows down more - so it is essentially approaching its stalling speed. One of the "problems" about the MiG 21 is that it apparently does not give warning signals like shaking and juddering at stalling speed. So while landing there is a critical speed point at which the pilot has to touch down. If he cannot touch down for some reason - say he has overshot - this is the point where the MiG 21 apparently acts funny. For the pilot to "go round" for another landing by aborting one landing - pilots have a natural tendency to pull the stick back to raise the nose. Unfortunately - when the MiG 21 is at that critical velocity raising the nose actually drops the speed further and the plane stalls and may hit the ground. (Apparently this "pulling stick back" is OK in other aircraft). For the Mig 21 (I have read) that the right thing is to point the nose down (counter-intuitively) and rev up the engine (afterburner) to build up speed before pulling up the nose.prashantsharma wrote:Lalmohan wrote:shiv - from what I have read elsewhere about mig21 handling:
it has fantastic acceleration, agility and raw dogfighting ability coupled with high speed sprinting to and from targets, tight turning circles, etc. which make it a phenomenal - small and agile fighting platform: this is why pilots love it, pity about the short range and until recently not much BVR capability
the delta wing however also makes it high drag in a turn - which has disadvantages in terms of manouvering AND makes for high speed landings - which are tricky to manage; this is where the criticisms come from - and to be honest, a high speed landing is always dangerous
I dont recollect any crash of a mig-21 being attributed to its "high landing speed"
This is second and third hand knowledge - but I am reasonably sure of its accuracy. I wonder if Abhibhushan can chip in here..