Re: PAK-FA Saga Episode 14

I’m curious to see How aircraft can be any more maneuverable than the SU-30 and the F-22 already are. Are they putting the air craft in reverse and parallel parking them?

They probably can being that they what these new aircraft can, push it a little further. Also remember, the technology of flight suits is also improving significantly. The new flight suit is designated, “CSU-23/P” Advanced Technology Anti-G Suit, or ATAGS. It allows more pilots to pull up to 12G’s!!! Some of the new fighters can handle “13’s”!

I want to know How all these air show tricks will make a difference when both aircraft will likely have high off bore site missiles.

Having very high maneuverability allows a pilot to point the nose of the fighter quicker and better. It allows gun tracking better, also.
As far as super maneuverability as a means the turn the tables on your opponent, don’t for it to happen. Maneuvers such as the cobra can be effective if the guy on your tail is only a quarter mile (400-m) behind then, it can work. (Remember the movie TOP GUN, Maveric used it -that’s the movies.) It is silly to be that close behind an opponent.

Do you think the USAF Couldn’t get war time funding to get Aim9X on a raptor in a war time situation?

The USAF felt the HMDS with “-9X” was an additional capability of which because of the very high performance of the F-22A, this option was not as important as other upgrades. Avionics upgrades are number one for the F-22A. The technical advantage the F-22A has over its competitors, the USAF wants to keep that advantage!

Re: Combat involving multiple aircrafts

Some books for example Aerofax F-15 heavy weight fighter by Dennis r Jenkins says Israel lost an F-15 in an accident in August 1981

Remember the crash sight when the first F-117 was shot down? Have you seen any media circus because of air combat in the area and a crash sight on the ground, showing the wreckage of a F-15? By the time of the Bekaa Valley operations, IAF F-15s had shot down eighteen Syrian fighters. So the first F-15 to be shot down, with wreckage on the ground would cause a media event, just like the other crash sights around the Bekaa Valley. Considering aerial combat between the Israel AF and its neighbor AFs takes place outside the boundaries of Israel, keeping such a crash sight a secret would not be under the Israeli control.

“vanir”, while the MiG-25 always has and can be a difficult opponent due to its altitude, speed and, acceleration. When faced in combat with the Iranian and coalition AFs fighters where it has to be an effective interceptor, it has been anything but effective. Getting close to attack aircraft but not shooting any down is not an effective intercept. When not fleeing and actually engaging in combat, it like the MiG-29 does not have a good combat record or positive kill ratio.

In 1982 the F-16 lacked long range missiles if the MiG-25 could kill F-18s armed with AIM-7s, imaging what defence it had against the AA-7 or AA-6s.

The F/A-18Cs were not allowed to engage the MiG-25, the early morning of 01/17/91. The USAF had its AWACS directing that section of air space and they were trying to F-15s over to deal with the MiG-25. The F/A-18 proceeded towards their target while the MiG approached from astern. A E-2C watched the entire event but, lacked the authority to do anything. The MiG-25 used its radar briefly to get an exact range (AWACS detected the lock-on signal) then, the MiG-25 used its IRST to direct the missile attack.
After that incident, the E-2Cs had control over directing all Navy aircraft. I have no idea about authority over USMC F/A-18s and EA-6Bs.

You don’t understand why the ATF program was so needed

There were many people who knew the Soviet AF was designing two counters to the F-14, F-15, F-16 and, F/A-18. Those counters were MiG-29 and Su-27 in development. They did not plan upon it taking Soviet designers taking so long to complete the designs. They all started their designs around the same time. The F-14, F-15 & T-10/Su-27 around 1969/1870 and the LWFs in the mid-1970’s.

The issue was so big that in the early 80’s LM and General Dynamics were considering behemontic and gigantic airplanes to gain a clear superiority over that horde of Mig-23s and Mig-25s…

The Advanced Tactical Fighter -ATF was a way to get a ‘generational’ jump on the Soviet AF. There was a design competition in which eight companies submitted designs, two designs were picked… LM and Northrop to build prototypes. LM won the competition.
Had the Cold War ‘not’ ended, the F-22 was on schedule to become operational around the beginning of President Clinton’s second term!!

So yes stealth vs stealth is dogfight, but then again, is not like one of them won’t see the other

Currently the F-22 can detect another F-22 at a distance of 20-mi (32-km). So it will become a ‘quick draw’ contest. If both fighters are traveling at Mach 1.5, there will be only a few seconds to act.

Anyways fighters don’t aim other fighters, their mission is to destroy bombers and support planes, who cares if a su-27 reach New York?

If these fighters can avoid and outrun the enemy fighters..well, then they are done

If due to mid-air refuelings an Su-27 entered US airspace escorting a Tu-160, along the east coast, it would be a big deal!
Fighters most definitely will hunt other fighters and interceptors! One side will seek to completely control the air. Avoiding combat does nothing for your side.

the Israelies during the big air battles over the Bekaa valley only sent one formation of F-15 up at any one time, so that everything else in the air had to be the enemy.

The IAF also had a lot of F-16C which shot down the bulk of the SAF fighters. F-15s shot down thirty-one SAF fighters, while the F-16s shot down forty-five SAF fighters.
I found this piece a couple months ago by Tom Cooper at ACIG, URL:
http://www.s188567700.online.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6500&start=45
“In the case of the IDF/AF in 1982, the battle management was definitely in the hands of controllers aboard E-2Cs. Most of the times, the pilots couldn’t even select what group of Syrian fighters would they engage. Rather than this, they were given a very firm vector, and a permission to engage only in the given area for duration of two minutes. After that, they had to withdraw and another section was to take over.”

I know Israeli pilots have ‘limited’ choices! They need to kill the enemy outside Israeli borders yet, the IAF does not want their fighters to penetrate “to far” into Sryian airspace.

but in 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 2 combats that might still be possible, but when dozens of aircraft are involved in intricately planned operations is it practical to have such classic dogfights ?

From the looks of Red Flag it looks like larger groups prefer to maneuver in large formations and break out in quads or pairs from there. But that could be limitations with the asymmetrical zones they use.

Yes, all the different aggressor programs have verified that the larger the groups of fighters the closer the kill ratio is. In test the F-15A defeated the F-5E in “1 Vs 1” combat 64:0. As the numbers increased, the kill ratio evened out. By the time there were “32 Vs. 32” the kill ratio dropped to 2:1, F-15’s favor! Most of the kills were by an unseen shooter. Now, when dogfights are limited up to “4 Vs. 4”, one sided kill ratios can be maintained.
The Israeli AF did a test in the last of the 1990s. All fighters were equip with simulated Python-4 and AMRAAMs. The two groups of fighters approached each other from head-on positions. It was “16 Vs. 16” and at the end an IAF colonel said, “it was real bloody up there today, and the few who made it to the merge never pulled more than “3G’s”! Surviving was a matter of luck.

Re: MiG-31 vs F-15A/C

It was a test though, conducted with drones that flew and maneuvered, but probably didn’t use ECM and probably were so kind to stay within the engagement envelope.

One of the targets in “Operation Six On Six” (SEE NOTE) had self protection jammer. On a later test an F-14A fired two missiles at two different target, one a small boat while the was a fighter at the same altitude. While the AWG-9 has good range, from 22,000-ft., an F-14A could detect an Exocet Missile in a sea skimming mode at a distance of 40-mi., amidst the sea clutter. All sorts of things are listed but, taken in context it is not a ‘end-all’ and ‘be-all’! One thing the F-14A and F-15A could do was to maneuver at while pulling several “G’s” and maintain radar lock-on. A problem the MiG-29 and Su-27 still had trouble with. The MiG-31 became operational in 1982 with the PVO a few years later for the Frontal Aviation the V-VS. The MiG-31 was also the first Soviet aircraft with a multi-mode radar and HOTAS.
NOTE:
In Operation Six On Six, one Phoenix Missed its target, another Phoenix was on course to intercept its target but the target failed. Still that was five out of six missiles functioned as designed. The success secured continued funds to make the F-14A operational.

In combat the F-14 never carried more than 4 AIM54 anyway, and more often only two. This has multiple reasons, for example the limited supply of these missiles on carriers and that the objective were fighters rather than bombers.

One of the main reasons it seldom carried no more than four Phoenix Missiles is because it exceeds the recommended maximum landing weight aboard a carrier, depending on the fuel load.

the AWG-9 radar was advertized as a great radar, in reality is field view while attacking was so narrow, that the volume of space it could use to fire a ripple of six missiles was confined to a very small sector in space

Back then (1974) its performance was state of the art and no other fighter in that decade could duplicate its ability. Its detection volume was not narrow, it just wasn’t as wide as the Zaslon many years later. The ability of the AWG-9 to look into broadband jamming and still detect the targets at long range was a strength of the Tomcat. The F-14’s ability to detect dozens of target, track twenty-four and, fire on six of them was an outstanding capability. The ability to fire on six separate targets took only thirty-eight seconds from the firing of the first missile to the sixth missile. That rate of launching is still in-line with the multiple launches of the F-15C/AMRAAM or the Rafale/MICA combinations…. thirty plus year later.

in 2010 russian radars are at the same level of any western manufacturer specially when most defence technology uses commercial items readily available in Asia.

Once the world got out that Su-27’s Lyulka AL-31F engines used the “Intel-8080” 8-bit micro-processor for its digital engine control, the world relaxed because of COTs circuits had become so readily available. Keep in mind that what is available among commercial products. There are custom circuits ($$$) like the new Raytheon IC that operates at “one terra-hertz”! You know the US Government has very strict limits on who is eligible to purchase such circuits.

Re: Your Personal Favourite Fighter/Intercepter Of The Cold War?

http://anft.net/f-14/f14-serial-loss-st.htm

Compare that to your claim about engine related losses to stay polite.

Thanx for the URL.

Maybe you realized that the shore-based Iranian examples never came even close to that.

I have never read anything in print to offer any information one way or the other. Any explanation as to why the Iranian AF had different results?

Re: Your Personal Favourite Fighter/Intercepter Of The Cold War?

My choice (while bias) is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat as the best interceptor. Excellent or first rate performance (maneuverability, long range, etc.), state of the art radar and, the best missile for an interceptor of its time -the Phoenix Missile.

Iran-Iraq war. According to ACIG, the Mirage F1’s confirmed kills are as follows:

2 F-14As

I went through both sections of the ACIG on the Iran-Iraq War and found the Iraqi AF has three confirmed and two unconfirmed claims against Iranian AF F-14As by F.1s. While the Irainian AF had thirty-two confirmed and three unconfirmed kill claims against the Iraqi F.1s

As for the F-16, I disagree strongly that the performance gap was “no big deal”. I have it straight from the mouth of a French F1 pilot (now colonel) that his unit would regularly cream Belgian F-16As (pre-MLU) during exercises in the early 1990s. His explanation? Lack of ECM on F-16s & the Super 530F missile.

As with so many aerial exercises, the first question should be, “what were the rules of engagement? The aerial exercise at the UAE in 2009, it turns out that the great claims of the Rafales against the Typhoons… were the Typhoons were simulating Su-27s!!! Under those rules the Rafales should have won 7-0.

(I learned something that day) IMHO, during the first 10 years of its service life the F-16A/C was little more than a sad joke – had NATO gone to war, it would have been shot down in spades by Mig-23s & Mig-25s, even without the help of new Mig-29s & Su-27s.

As for the F-16 being a joke, I think the Israeli AF has demonstrated, when supported (SEE NOTE), the F-16 can do an excellent job.

NOTE;
The F-16 being supported with, BVR combat by F-15s against the opponent plus ECM to allow the F-16 to get to WVR combat… the F-16A is extremely effective.

One more comment, the F-4 was designed as a carrier born interceptor, the predecessor to the F-14 -same role. It was used as a fighter and when using good tactics was excellent as a fighter. Viet Nam it got a bad reputation because the US forces did not know how to dogfight! After TOP GUN was started and ACM was taught during the 1968 bombing halt, the F-4 returned to combat over the North and compiled a 13:1 kill ratio for those who went through TOP GUN!

Re: Laser Phalanx test

So they have finally got a working model. I would interested in how they solved the “fog problem!” Back when AW&ST first exposed that the Soviet Union had several laser, maser and, electron beam weapon systems under development. One of the programs the Soviet Navy had was to build a laser as a CIWS for the battle-cruiser RS Kirov operational by the late 1980s! Hearing about this President Reagan proposed, “The Strategic Defense Initiative” -Star Wars. The USA had no coherent program at that time, the three US services were not working together.
One of the programs within Star Wars was a laser system that would act as an CIWS for the USN! The problem was a continuous beam had real problems with fog! The fog would diffuse the beam. So, it was decided to pulse the laser. This would allow each pulse to burn through a little more fog and the next pulse would burn a little further.
I would like to find out how this problem was solved.