ptldM3
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That's what the J-20 did, a cobra by going suddenly vertical and then push the throttle to do a sustain climb. When you are vertical, your body will slow you down quickly like a brake. That's the purpose of a Super Cobra. It's actually not very useful in air combat, because it bleeds your energy too fast and too much.
I have never seen a J-20 do a Cobra and let me reiterate what I said before, going into a vertical climb will not "slow you down quickly like a break" unless the aircraft does a Cobra maneuver which is something different altogether.
Its gravity and atmospheric conditions that will slow an aircraft down.
If your enemy catch you doing that, he could loop over you like that glider and get behind you, without losing too much energy.
The Cobra has actually been used in combat and it worked. In training exercises it also worked. The Cobra maneuver you see in air shows is not how pilots in combat would perform the Cobra. In airshows it is exaggerating and meant to awww, the crowed.
This I disagreed. A sustain vertical climb could be done, long enough to demonstrate its Trust to Weight Ratio is > 1. No need to climb to maximum altitude.
In fact, if your maximum altitude is 60,000ft, you could climb vertically far lower than that, because you are not using lifting force from the wings, your accumulated kinetic energy, to help with the climb, just your raw engine power.
You will go up like a rocket, not like an airplane, and use up a lot of fuel and reach lower altitude.
The point is that we don't know how long a J-20 can sustain a virtcall climb. Just as you were quick to point out the glider only briefly went virtically before it did a loop. We don't know how long that glider could have maintained virticall flight. What's important is that aircraft with horrible thrust to weight ratios can go into virticall climbs, even gliders with no thrust or engines can do it so people debating the thrust of the J-20 based off a brief virticall climb is pointless.