This is a Vietnam War pic of a dogfight between a MiG-17F & F-4N Phanyom II. It is supposed to be genuine. How was it taken and what are the droptanks still doing on the aircraft?

The F-4 seems to be carrying rocket pods

Фотография из книги "Air War Over North Viet Nam" Istvan Toperczer. (Компьютерный коллаж).

Translation: photograph from the book "Air war over north vietnam" Istvan Toperczer. (Computer generated collage)

It's a piece of art, no way the colours were so vivid and the picture so sharp in that era. And if you look at the mig's canopy you can see it's drawn and not photographed as it lacks transparency.
The F-4 engine smoke and wingtip contrails are also "like in lomac".

No way this is a photograph, the site meant that it was a photograph from the book (a scanned picture from a book would be a better description)

Its not real. I have never been fooled by a photoshop picture ever. This is clearly a photoshop pciture for a number of reasons (lighting, picture quality, focus, ect).

I can tell you how they did it though. They got a side picture of a MiG, a in flight picture of a Phantom, put them on top of a background photograph and added smoke ect.


EDIT: DARN FF beat me to it

I don't think that's a photoshop job Lt. It looks more like a high quality painting to me.

Thanks for the clarification guys.

If you look carefully, one can see that undercarriage bay doors are open on the MiG. Suggesting that it was photographed while one the ground.

Excellent observation Robban , the MiG17(or is it a MiG19?) gear wells are indeed open.
end of discussion
btw off topic I read that the NVAF pilots preferred the MiG17 and the MiG19 over the newer MiG21PF.Anyone back up this claim?

Its a MiG-17 and, nope, the gear doors are not open. The MiG-17 had a fairly simple well cover door that traveled with the main gear, which came down from about mid-wing. The protrusion under the nose is the 37mm cannon, and there are 2 23mm cannon that can't be seen in the picture because they are on the port side of the aircraft. The picture is a painting.

NVAF pilots complained about the lack of a good gunsight on the MiG-17F. they had to make corrections by watching their tracers trajectory. All MiGs were very agile fighters, could take on any US a/c in a gun fight.

The MiG-21PFV could also carry missiles, and was the only a/c that could match the F-4's performance. It had a better gunsight than the MiG-17 and MiG-19.

I have read that the MiG-21 was the most sought after plane in the NVAF fighter regiments.

Why wouldnt it be? It was the latest and the greatest. It was significantly faster than the MiG-17 and had better armament. It also had a half decent radar for the era so the pilot would not be clueless. If I had to go up against an f-4 with that era of MiG and there were no -23s or -25s available to me I would only take a -21.

The Scotsman was Here!

When your missiles miss, you're in rather more trouble in a MiG21 than you would be in a MiG17

The clue for me about it not being a genuine photo would be the question - who took the picture?

"Hello base tell the Phantom we gotta do it again and could you radio Hanoi and get them to ask 2614 to go round one more time and smile next time, I didn't quite get him in focus. Tell them we promise to carry on the war once I get a good photo"

One of my customers has a painting in his hangar with a couple of T-33s on it, flying in almost the same relative positions, and the color choices and brush strokes are very similar. I'll have to find out who the artist was next time I'm down there. Maybe this MiG and Phantom painting is one of his also.

quote:

Originally posted by Brit_Radar_Dude:

"Hello base tell the Phantom we gotta do it again and could you radio Hanoi and get them to ask 2614 to go round one more time and smile next time, I didn't quite get him in focus. Tell them we promise to carry on the war once I get a good photo"

LMFAO!!

Yeah, the photo they finally got was right before Hanoi called back and said "You been heah foah owah, you go now!!!"