By now you probably have heard the “Rebels” shot down their own MIG23 airplane by mistake.
The MIG23 is 1960s era design, 1970s built swept wing Fighter aircraft – which means it is designed mostly to shoot down other fighter airplanes. It can fly at over Mach 2 (around 1500 mph) .
This plane was apparently from the description being flown by a Qaddafi pilot who decided to join the rebels. Unless the rebels have a supply of MIG23 compatible weapons and the “know how” to put them on the plane, the MIG23 only had the weapons it had on board when the pilot defected.
The MIG23 is roughly comparable the F4. It carries heat seeking (IR) and/or semi-active radar missiles (meaning that if a radar source is bouncing radar off the target, the missile will follow the radar signal) to shoot down other planes from the 1970s.
The MIG23E was a stripped down MIG23 sold to North Africa without all the “good stuff” so it couldn’t be useful against a real MIG23. (one source says it was a 23E – a more credible source says it is a MIG23BN, which is a more flexible fighter/bomber).
The MIG23 can carry 57 mm rockets, “dumb” bombs up to 500 kg (300 pounds) and Kh-23 – short range (1-5 miles) laser guided air to surface missile for taking out small targets. It’s a Vietnam era age munition.
That MIG23 shootdown video is pretty low resolution, but I don’t think I see any weapons on the mount points. (others see the same thing) That means all it is doing is operating to see what is going on outside the city – and is doing no more than a helicopter could do, but less so because a fighter aircraft is designed to go fast, not to loiter (at the beginning of the video, it’s pretty clear he is going as slow as he can without stalling the plane – the wings are in the forward position which means he is trying to stay above 80 mph and at low altitude – which is why he was a sitting duck to his own AAA fire)
