TVC means you are trying to go beyond aerodynamic limits- i.e stalling the jet. Speed loss is inevitable and will leave you at the mercy of a wingman.
Air combat is very rarely 1v1
Bismillah ir Rahman ar Raheem
Thank you, especially for the 1v1 part. Everyone forgets that it is just one small part of ACM training and trained for last-ditch scenarios when you have lost your wingmen and been forced to a merge. It is just the most glamorous and most easily understandable portion to non-fighter pilots.
The Red Flag analysis of the MKI from a few years back is pure propaganda and payback in my opinion, but the following part on post-stall maneuvering is quite accurate, I believe (P.S. please ignore the hogwash on the F-22's sustained turn rate - usual USAF propaganda):
"How did they (the MKIs) Fly? There is a lot of stuff on the subject in the newspapers and magazines about this airplane. There's a great video on YouTube, where somebody shows the F-22 flying its demo, and the Su-30MK, side by side, and he does the exact same demonstration, as the F-22. And an air show, then can do the same demonstration. The reality is, that's about as close as the airplanes ever get. When you compare it with US airplanes; where does it stand up against the F-16 and F-15, it's a tad bit better than we are. And that's pretty impressive, it has better radar, more thrust, vectored thrust, longer ranged weapons, so it's pretty impressive. The Sukhoi is a tad bit better (holds arm at chest level, and the other arm signifying the Sukhoi a wee bit higher). But now compare with the F-22 Raptor, the raptor is here. (holds palm way above his head - signifying that the aircraft is much better). OK, next.
Now coming to the maneuvering. We did a lot of 1 to 1 fighting with it.... and we were very concerned,
because in Cope India when we went over to India and fought them, they always had their best pilots. We always fought them at the 'Indian Nellis' and they always had their best pilots flying. We always had our operational unit based out of Kadena where the experience ratio is 80% inexperienced guys with less than 500hrs flying time and 20% experienced. The 20% were fairly experienced but they came back from staff jobs so they really hadn't had a lot of time flying. Anyway at Cope India, we held our own, but the Indians pounded their chests - they said we beat them more than they beat us – and that was true there.
Now they come to Mountain Home, and the Su-30 unit that they bring was a regular operational unit – with an experience mix of about 50-50 (experienced vs inexperienced). Their experienced guys had all come off the MiG-21 Bison.. The MiG-21 Bison is a pretty neat airplane. It is based on the MiG-21 as many of you guys know from the Vietnam (War) era, but upgraded with an F-16 radar built by the Israelis in the nose, active radar missile, and they carry an Israeli jammer on it would practically make them invisible to our legacy radar in the F-15 and F-16.
Remember days in 4477th (4477 Test and Evaluation Squadron)... MiG-21 had the capability to get into the scissors with you, 110 knots, 60 degrees nose high, go from 10,000 feet to 20,000 feet, very maneuverable airplane, but it didn't have any good weapons. Now it has high off bore sight Archer missile, helmet mounted sight, active missile, and a jammer that gets it into the merge, good radar, so that's the plane the SU-30 experienced pilots came out of and they were pretty good in the engaged fight.
Well we get them to Mountain Home and we let the operational guys fight... and then a couple of things happened. Amazingly, we dominated - not with a clean F-15 i.e. Without any wing tanks and other stores, but we dominated with an F-15 in wartime configuration i.e. 4 missiles onboard, wing tanks, and they're sitting there in clean Su-30s except for pylons which did not have anything on it except an ACMI pod. They were amazed, matter of fact they were floored to the point after the first 3 days, they didn't want any more 1 vs. 1 stuff. Let's move on to something else (laughs). Funny 'cause in India, they wanted only 1 to 1 - cause they were winning at that.
A quick word on the airplane. Vectored thrust. The Raptor has vectored thrust, but its two dimensional and works only in the pitch mode. When the airplane pulls, and it gets past a certain AoA (Angle of Attack), the vectored thrust kicks in and drives the airplane around. In the Su-30, instead of having it in the pitch, it has TVC in a V. It doesn't have to be in a post stall maneuvering.... the TVC would kick in and push the aircraft the direction when the pilot engages the switch on the stick. All this is formidable on paper but what you would know is that with the TVC kicking in, its a huge aircraft, and thrusting such a huge aircraft in that direction creates a lot of drag. It's a biiig airplane. A huge airplane. So what happens is when it moves its nose around, its sinking. We had enough experience with the F-22. which has up/down TVC nozzles.
What would happen is that the in a merge with the F-22... From our experience, that's the only way you would get the F-22. and the only way - this happens only if there is an inexperienced pilot because the experienced ones never make the mistake. You would be pulling in a scissors fight hoping you would get the F-22 in your sights (laughs ). The F22 can sustain a turn rate of 28 deg per second at 20,000 feet while the F-15 can get an instantaneous rate of 21 and a sustained rate of 15-16 degrees. So you are pulling and hoping. Post stall, maneuver, the *** end drops and instead of going up, it just drops in mid air and the airplane will rotate with its nose up. This is where the Eagle or Viper pilot would pull up vertical, switch to guns, then come down and take a shot at the F-22. Of course you have to first get in close to do this, most probably the F-22 will kill you before that.
The Su-30? No problem. Big airplane. Big cross section. Jamming to get to the merge, so you have to fight close... he has 22 - 23 degrees per second sustained turn rate. We've been fighting the Raptor, so we've been going oh dude, this is easy. So as we're fighting him, all of a sudden you'd see the *** end kick down, going post stall - but now he starts falling from the sky. The F-15 wouldn't even have to pull up. slight pull up on the stick, engage guns, come down and drill his brains out.
While on paper, he has vectored thrust, all these great weapons and everything, he looks the same as a Raptor, he's nowhere near the same. So that was a really good thing for us to find out, that we really didn't know until this last exercise. Now, what I'm scared of, is congress is going to hear that and go 'great we don't need to buy any more airplanes... no no no, we used to be way ahead of them, now they're right up close to us and just a little bit higher. I say that they're just a little bit better than us, is because when there pilots learn how to fly, they'll be able to beat the F-16 and F-15, on a regular basis. Right now, they use TVC and just go into post stall.... so it's only a matter of time before they learn."
Hifz u kum Allah
plz dont get off the thread purpose
Thanks
Thunder
sorry!
Hi,
Welcome to the forum----.
Wouldn't you be saying " Us pilots generally smile amusedly when most novices fight over magical numbers such as 1:1 thrust ratios and differences in turn rates of 0.1 degree/second ".
Bismillah ir Rahman ar Raheem
Thank you brother.
Not a pilot, just a very old perennial student; my engineering degree was not even in aeronautics. Love to pick up some gleanings of wisdom from Oscar and Taygibay here (and johnwill and Gums over at the old f-16 forum).
Hifz u kum Allah