RIP 8107... Glad the pilots made it out. Hopefully no injuries on the ground there in Michigan.

It was heart breaking watching it fall out of the sky during the airshow today. Glad everyone made it out okay.

“This is an aftermarket antenna” This mans talking about a MiG-23 like a JDM imported car.

very glad to hear the pilots are safe and no one on the ground was hurt 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Cool video! Some notes: The yaw indicator is not the same as the F-14's string. That string is just a simple visual indicator, but that flap on the top of the nose of the MiG-23 is a yaw sensor of the autopilot. It is a small electro-mechanical device. The container in the right leading edge is the built-in Delta-NM pod, for the Kh-23 AG missiles. The main landing gear designer was not "he", but "she". That lady earned a Lenin-award for that outstanding design job. Which was a quite big thing in the Sovietunion at that time.

the blue cockpit isn't made to have a "calming effect", in fact it's to put less strain on the eyes when switching between looking out of the cockpit, at the sky, and inside the cockpit.

" I just happen to acquire this one a few years ago" .... as you do

That was fascinating. I'm surprised this had working ejection seats. For some reason I thought civilian-owned aircraft couldn't have those enabled.

When the War Thunder update also updates my recommendations on KZfaq

Glad to hear that everyone made it out ok in the accident today! and many thanks to Erik Johnson for this video so we all can appreciate the finer details of the plane before it was loss forever… RIP MIG-23

Слава богу, что пилоты живы.🙏Очень печально потерять этот самолет, но он остался навсегда c нами в этом замечательном видео.

It is such a strange feeling to see this jet in person at Oshkosh and then to find out it's no longer with us. I wondered if they maintained the ejection seats and now we have the answer. Glad everything worked out.

My dad helped design the intakes of the F-4 at MIT. This is one the best informative aircraft videos I ever seen. There's hardly any walkaround and cockpit video about Russian cold war era aircraft, well done comrade!!👍👋😁🇷🇺

It should have red stars on his wings. But I can imagine what residents (from the 50s) would think of looking at russian cold war plane flying by.

8 лет отлетал на МиГ-23млд и МиГ-23п. Превосходная машина.

I'll miss this plane.

"Hello, Discount tire" "Ya hi, I need some tires for a MIG 23"

Damn this is awesome definitely was not expecting to see a Mig-23 on here

The 25:07 for main reasons why Russian use this shade of green is that it does not create residual picture in your eyes. You can look freely in cockpit and outside and you don't get it like you get with grey/black cockpits. It as well helps to keep pilots wake on long flights, and it is more stress free environment to operate in a high stress situations. This is the same reason why surgeons wear such colored clothing and operation rooms, hospital rooms and hallways etc are painted with the similar colors. How many of you have worked in a dark room? Like a bar? It is very stressful and tiring. If you would paint your home with black or dark grey, you would very soon start to feel uncomfortable and in a fast decision making situations you have difficulties to operate properly and harder time to focus on the task. The dark colors increase the requirements for amount of training and repetition of to overcome these same challenges that Soviets overcame by the science to help pilots to work more effectively and learn better. It is not just "make less stressful environment" but really help to maintain vision and be able quickly glance things. At 26:25 the stick red button is not to release bombs, but to turn off the autopilot. The main trigger (as a handgun) is for overriding autopilot, so as long you squeeze it, the autopilot is disabled for you to maneuver and then when you release it, the attitude and mode are registered and maintained. It makes the aircraft fly easily without using stick. The top right corner white button (right of the trim hat) is the Autopilot Level Flight. That is the default mode that pilot use. You just press it and the system will very effectively take you to level flight and maintain the heading and altitude. It is as well the "emergency button" that when you are losing control of the aircraft for G-loc or other reason, you just press it and it saves you. The system works such way that it use the radar altimeter to range you to 1500 meters where it will level you if you are at low level. So it just doesn't put you on level flight but flies you above the terrain for save altitude as well, it was their "terrain avoidance system" that worked excellent manner. This is why you need to pull the trigger to overcome the AP to maneuver and in combat, landing etc you press red button to turn AP mode Off. There are couple other AP modes like one for landing that makes heavily dampening input so it is easy to land as it requires large stick movements instead small, and then there are those intercept, low-altitude and such modes. Basically the MiG-23 is automated manned drone. Pilot doesn't need to do more than take-off and land. The autopilot flies through the planned flight route all the way from take-off to 50 meters altitude from the ground when landing. So in the final phase pilot needs to perform the landing. In the early variants the pilot saw the GCI intercept guidance commands below the HUD in various symbols, later it was made to the HUD. And the GCI can take control of the aircraft and input the intercept for the AP and it takes aircraft to it. GCI can as well turn radar On or Off and return the aircraft back to base. But pilot can override these at any given moment, what did the MiG-25 deflector do.

MiG-23 has the coolest landing gears!

Listening to this guy is absolutely fantastic. He obviously loves flying and his little quips are wholesome af. Good on this guy!

The pointed protrusion under the wing glove was meant to house guidance equipment for the Kh-23 Grom / AS-7 Kerry missile.

Thank God those guys made it out okay.... Heartbreaking to see this unique beauty going down in a few seconds, just like that... Rest In Peace, N23UB!

That "purposeless" thing above the weapon station on the right wing, it seems, had a purpose after all. I tried to find some info about it and I'm pretty sure it's a system called "Delta-NG" which would send radio signals in order to control the flight of the rocket Kh-23 (in Russian, Х-23) or, as NATO named it, AS-7 "Kerry". Just as the two-seater plane doesn't have a radar, the "Delta-NG" could have been also excluded from it. That's why the shell of the device is empty on this plane (I assume it is).

The 2 seater looks way cooler than the single. RIP Beautiful

As boys get older their toys get bigger... what a cool toy to have! 🇳🇿

Your english has that strong accent my huskee is now a polar bear.

So sorry to see this plane downed, she was a really nice one

Sweet Cold War jet.

For a single engine aircraft this thing had impressive speed.

I was living near the military airbase during Soviet period and these birds were taking off and landing kinda every day for 3 or 4 hours. They flew very low above my house and I should say that form back side it looks like a barrel of fuel with fire coming from it and two small wings on its sides. It was pretty scary! And the sound of engines was tremendously loud especially when a jet was not allowed to land and had to make an afterburner climb. The windows glasses in my house were rattling like they were about to break.

Вначале английский был бесподобным!Прямо душу полили медом

"I think I know where everything is now" - Things you don't want to hear your airline captain say just before takeoff

I have NEVER seen a walkaround of an operational MIG 23 ever in my life. THIS WAS A REAL TREAT! Thanks! 🤘😎🤘

My respect, for being so careful about military equipment from the Soviet Union!

Imagine the squawk coming into LAX on a clear day in a "private" tail numbered Soviet fighter LOL

First of all outstanding video, thank you very much for sharing such a close encounter with this beautiful bird. A few things to correct, the space between the inlet and the fuselage is not related to F4 at all, its intended to provide ram air for cooling avionics and the cockpit also to alow the inlet ramp control system to work under optimal conditions. The thing in the wing glove is most likely for the guidance antena for Kh-23 AG missile wich is like a Bullpup radio CLOS weapon, you can also find that in MiG-23 BN wich is a pure fighter-bomber variant. Again this is GREAT!!!! Thank you very much.

This is my favorite walkaround video of an Russian airplane. RIP 8107/N23UB. You will be missed. :(

I will tell you an unbelievable story how I flew in that particular model of a plane when I was 8 years old . I was born in Moscow, USSR, and my uncle was stationed about 200 miles south, in the town of Ryazhsk, Ryazan district. The town was closed to civilians, except for relatives. Before my dad went on a hunting trip with my uncle, he promised that he would make me a pilot. Next early morning, about 4 am, I ended up in Mig-23 in the back seat. There was no pressure suit. I was strapped by a what I think was a drunk technician. Nevertheless, we made it. To make the story short, I became a figure skater, then a skydiver, then a construction engineer. But to this day I remember that flight. Thank you, and God bless.

Respect for soviet engineers. We tend to not give the "commie" engineers any credit in the states.

#1 the intro was hilarious! #2 this video was almost as good and informative as the A-10 video you did! #3 I was disappointed that you weren’t able to capture the MIG in flight.

we are all in love with the Su-34

11:33 - Yes, they did operate it from unpaved runways (not grass, but dirt, as it would easily bear the weight of the MiG, even when it was fully laden), for example, in Angola.

what a humble guy. Very nice to see such a high quality walk around the cold war era fighter. Thank you

Many thanks, dear friends. You have managed to keep this beautiful aircraft flying. All my childhood was spent near these beautiful aircraft.

Excellent documentary. Very brightly, sunny, friendly, and clear.

Yuri: Put this on the plane! Sergei: Da.....and what is it? Yuri: Exactly!

Very interesting tour sir, and thank you for acknowledging our contribution to the evolution of supersonic flight in the shape of the all-moving tailplane.

“Flogger” (NATO name for the mig-23) is one of the more badass nicknames we gave to a Russian fighter jet, there aren’t a lot of these around anymore, I’m pretty sure only one country has a working fleet, thanks for making this so the flogger may see the light of day again!

Wow, man. This is a wonderful machine. Congratulations and happy flying!

Exciting aircraft and an entertaining guide. Doesn’t get better than that! Thank you for posting.

Came back, seen again - from beginning to the end ! What a machine ☆ !!! Thank you 👍

Thank you so much for posting this and thanks to the pilot who owns this wonderful bird. It's very rare and hard to find video of a privately owned mig-23 fighter

Beautiful plane, seems like it was owned by the Bulgarian Air Force in its military days. My uncle used to guard the ordinance for such planes when he was a conscript for the Bulgarian People's Army.

thank you so much for this, to the pilot/owner and the op. gratitude!

I'm glad we have this video the document is beautiful machine after todays crash it's just a smoking hole in the ground.

At 8:50 - Thats housing for Kh-23 AG missile communication/guidance equipment. Or as its in the US called "nothing" :)

What a beautiful plane it is. I always had a slightly crush on the MiG-23, very good deatailed video about it.

Dan is a great guy to fly with. Glad I got to finally see video of his "project" ride

glad we're (maybe) going to have it in WT

Always a favorite when I was a kid. That and the SU25 Frogfoot. Great video!

AMAZING. Never thought I'd see a -23 in the US. WOW.

Just great, can’t wait to see the videos of you flying it, thanks

Big thanks for the video! Really cool to have such detailed walkthrough. Looking forward to see more of that on your channel. Thanks!

Beautiful Russian plane Love from the USA ❤️

Erik, Your videos are always the best content and most concise. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. Cheers

Lovely aircraft; thank you for the great tour!

One word... Badass!

Awesome job on this !! Thanks Erik!

Holy hell this is fantastic. Totally riveting.

I've always liked the MiG-23. It has a pleasing chunky, angular shape to it.

Thank you so much for your video! This is so great, when people from different countries can talk about their aircraft with respect to each other! Thank you so much again! Let our jets will meet only during air shows as products of progress, not of war!

Fascinating! I had the opportunity to sit in a MiG-23BN. That was the fighter-bomber version; it had a duck bill nose without radar that was optimised for air-ground missions. It's interesting to see how similar the cockpit is to the BN model. Thanks, Lt. Comdr. Filer!

The intro makes me proud to be Russian and I'm not even Russian

Superb video!! Very interesting. That main landing gear is insane!! Thanks for posting

Thank you for the walk through, enjoying this very much!

Everyone knows that red stripes make things go fast!!

Wow i really really enjoyed this, always had a thing for russian planes but this was way more detailed than i expected. Hope to see more, thanks!

This was so good that I had to pause it on my TV (not logged into YT there) and come and find it on my machine that's logged in just to like the video. Well done.

Thank you so much, for the fantastic video, and great and informative narration, especially from someone with vast flying experience and of such a passion. Highly appreciated. Happy landings!

Wow. I never would have imagined that there were any flying examples of a MiG-23 here in America outside of Constant Peg.

I knew a very experienced mig 23 pilot angola war veteran/instructor/test pilot/commander ...He drives a taxi in cuba ! So you can find a real mig23 expert for a few bucks..

Most of us would love to fly an A320, but Dan does that to pay the bills. This is his passion. I was going to say he's a lucky man, but it's not luck. It's the result of many years of hard work & dedication.

What a wonderful video. Thx for sharing it with us.

The pod on the wing @ 8:40 was for the Delta-N guidance link used by Kh-23 air-to-ground missiles (basically a Soviet AGM-12 Bullpup). Probably got removed when it was demilitarised/imported. The later variants got rid of the inbuilt pod and carried one on one of the two ventral side pylons instead. The black pressure sensor on the stick is how you guide it, it's an MCLOS missile; on the single seaters it also controlled seeker head slaving for the IR missiles in close combat, I believe. Big red button on the stick logically seems like a pickle button to anyone used to western jets, but is actually the autopilot master disconnect button, and the one on the other side of the trim switch to it is the autopilot "recover to level flight" button/panic button.

And I just wanted a L-39, and now I'm jealous. lol Great video and amazing up close look at the MiG-23.

I love the dedicated ''fuck with the new guy'' buttons in the back seat

Super cool review. Thank you for sharing. I've never looked (vicariously) at a Soviet flanker like that.

One of the best over view videos I have seen in a while. Nice work.

Russian fighters have always fascinated me since my childhood days. Never got a chance to get closer to this aircraft, but this video has done the need full!! I don't think there are any walk around vid of any russian fighter covered in such great depth. Loved specially the engine start up in the end. Thanks for uploading such an informative video!! Great job👍👍

Thank you for the tour!👍

What a cool and humble dude ! Great walk-around! Very informative and delivered in an entertaining way! I flew the 21 bis, so I really appreciate you mentioning the 21 in this video! Would love to meet up someday ! Plus, that intro was the bomb ! 👍😆🤙 Ati

Great job Dan

As the videos started I stood up,don’t know why.

Spectacular and very detailed video! Congratulations to all involved !!

Here from Barnstormers. Fascinating. I did not think I’d stay for the whole 42 minutes. Hilarious intro too.

What a legendary jet. The landing gear design alone is absolutely genius and looks badass. I love how in the close up shots you can see the metal work and its got a kind of "home made" feel, al hammered together in the field. I mean that in a good way. Its got a tough workman like feel about it. I like that its not all clean, neat , pretty and refined like western combat jets. There seems to be zero ergonomics in the cockpit design, gauges all over the place tucked into corners and stuff. I saw another version of this once - the MiG27. Looks like a duck! This one looks much nicer!

Gread vid. Hope you plan to show more of this. Want to hear more about flying the thing also.

Hey. This guy is the best. Congratulation for having such a great 23. The best walk around video on internet for that aircraft!

This is awesome thank for doing this!