Via flightglobal
US Air Force pilots flyingBoeing F-15s “dominated” and “amazed” Indian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30MKI pilots in a recent exercise, but still expect that legacy F-15s andLockheed Martin F-16s will swiftly lose their competitive edge to the Russian export fighters.
Those remarks came in an explicitly candid assessment by an unidentified USAF pilot posted on 4 November on the YouTube online video sharing service. “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, no,’” the pilot tells an audience that includes retired air force leaders.
He adds that “it’s only a matter of time” before the IAF Su-30 pilots learn how to overcome the manoeuvre used so successfully against them at the international Red Flag exercise.
The F-15 pilots used their simulated combat experience against the thrust vectoring capability of the Lockheed Martin F-22 to exploit a vulnerability of the Su-30 in a hard turn, the pilot said.“So we start to pull in on him, and then all of a sudden you start to see the [Su-30’s aft-] end kick down and he starts doing vectored thrust,” the pilot says.
“But now he starts falling out of the sky. He’s falling out of the sky so fast that you don’t even have to go up,” the pilot adds. “You just have to pull back on the stick a little bit, pull the throttle, go to guns and come in and drill his brains out.” Even so, the professionalism and skill of the IAF pilots at Red Flag gained the respect of the USAF pilots.
However, French Air Force pilots, who deployed to the same event with the Dassault Rafale fighter, apparently engaged in non-friendly activities.“They never really came to any merges,” the pilot explains.
“What they were really doing was, they had all their sensors on sniffing and seeing how our radars worked. And that’s really all they were doing out here. They came out here and they watched the whole flight, with their newest airplane and their newest electronic receiving units, and sucked up all the ‘trons in the air.”
The pilot also says the IAF’s MiG-21 Bison aircraft, modified with Israeli radar, active radar missiles and electronic jammers, are nearly “invisible” to the F-15 and F-16’s current mechanically-scanned arrays, allowing the Indian pilots to sneak past the USAF radar screen and engage the F-15s and F-16s in dogfights.
“The MiG-21 had the ability to get in the scissors with you at 110kts at 60 degrees nose high and go from 10,000 to 20,000 feet,” he said.
The Su-30MKI deployment to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, for the exercise was complicated by the low-reliability of the Russian made engines, the pilot adds.
“One of the things the Indians were very disappointed in, was when they FOD’d an engine out, the Russians make them send the engine back to Russia, and then they’ll send them a new one,” the pilot says. “So, not the perfect situation for them being here in the United States with those engines.”
The pilot did not identify himself in the videos, but there were several clues to his status. He wore a fighter pilot’s G-suit, and he referred to a patch on his shoulder that indicated he was a member of the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB. He also referred to Nellis as “here”, indicting this was the location where his lecture took place.
8 responses so far ↓
1 XAKER // Apr 9, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Даа… В некоторые моменты жизни волосы могут шевелиться и не только на голове
2 Xoзяин // May 28, 2009 at 2:14 am
Даа… Мне кажется в этом посте нет никакой логики
3 bob // Jun 2, 2009 at 11:45 am
As a french taxpayer, I really appreciate that French pilots do their job during Red Flag, instead of burning tons of kerosen for the fun !
4 azher // Aug 7, 2010 at 3:01 pm
so MKI is beatable..haha certainly somethings Indian wont like.Another thing ,with time new tactics will be evolved to beat little superiority of MKI with existing vipers and eagles….and definately FC-20 will be on par or superior to it
5 azher // Aug 7, 2010 at 3:06 pm
So hey IAF u have planned 280 white elephants which can be seen on a vipers radar at a distances of over 100 miles……. means when a MKI takes off any where in india..radars in pakistan starts jummping up and down..trust vectoring and BARS radar will only do little to save it frm AMRAAM.Right they will come up with tactics and ur rivals will sit and wont come up with anti-tactics….we hope u believe that.
6 azher // Aug 7, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I hope block 52 was the last batch of any us jets to PAF and we inducts FC-20 and jxx in large numbers…so no bully can threat us for mis-adventures.But dats only gona happen once ARMY has thorn goverment in prison..oh sorry in exile for ever as we dont need them at all..dey can go and live in uk ore any where..may be india…and can beg there fr ever
7 sachin // Aug 12, 2010 at 7:26 pm
azher you so typically sound pakistani.its easy to locate your breed.anyway the writer of this article should know atleast who this pilot was…Colonel Terrence Fornof is an F-15 pilot at the United States Air Force Warfare Center, Nellis AFB, Nevada. some short comings of the lecture aare as follows:-
The Su-30MKI did not use the data link in the exercise unlike the other air forces. The reason being the HAL supplied system is not compatible with NATO data links – neither is the system required to be compatible with NATO. The speaker clearly mentions that the high fratricide ratio in the kills was because of this reason. While NATO air forces are designed to inter operate with each other and carry out joint missions, the IAF is not.
Su-30MKI is equipped with its own data link which can share target information across multiple fighters. IAF is presently inducting A-50EI Phalcon AEW&C aircraft. Red Flag and other exercises before it have seen IAF working very closely with the AWACS crew of the other air force. Operational Data Link (ODL) will be provided to all fighters in the IAF over the coming years.
The IFF system used by IAF is not compatible with NATO standard, hence the need for verbal communication with the controller.
The aircraft were operating their radars on training mode since the actual signals with which the Bars radar operates are kept secret.
The high mix of highly experienced pilots in Ex Cope India, if true, cannot be consistent across all sqns that were involved in the exercise. During Cope India, the 24 Sqn operating Su-30K/MK was first Flanker unit in the IAF and only one of two Su-30 units in the entire IAF at that time. To find a concentration of senior pilots in these squadrons will not be unexpected given that these units will be forging doctrines and tactics and building up a pool of pilots. Per article on Cope India here; “Nor did U.S. pilots believe they faced only India’s top guns. Instead, they said that at least in some units they faced a mix of experienced and relatively new Indian fighter and strike pilots.”. Moreover, the mix of experience needs to be examined for the USAF squadrons as well. The aggressor squadron at Nellis and the F-22 attracts the best in the USA.
MiG-21 Bison does not have an Israeli radar as noted in the lecture. The type is equipped with a Phazotron Kopyo (spear) unit. The Kopyo radar has a 57km detection range against a 5 m^2 (54ft^2) radar cross section, or fighter-sized target. It can track eight targets and shoot at two simultaneously.
Su-30MKI is equipped with Saturn AL-31FP engines, not Turmansky as mentioned in the lecture
Soviet era aircraft were designed to operate from poorly prepared airfields. For example; MiG-29 closes its intakes during taxi and take-off to avoid ingestion of FOD thrown up by the front wheels. In this state the engines are supplied air thru louvres located on upper surface of the leading edge. This design feature is at the cost of significant internal fuel capacity and hence has been eliminated in newer MiG-29 versions starting with the K/KUB variants. Flanker come with lighter anti-FOD grills in the intakes as well as wheel fenders that catch FOD. IAF has precautions built into their SOPs – which may be overlooked in case of war or any such exigency. Since the deployment was far away from home base in the USA, with no spares support and related infrastructure it was well worth to observe strict adherence to SOPs instead to being stuck with a grounded aircraft!
as for azher read these things carefully and try to pass them on to your army..coz anyway they will never be able to carry out such big exercises with any disciplined army of the world
8 Amogh Gudi // Aug 18, 2010 at 7:32 pm
I was at Red Flag 08 and trust me, those USAF drivers did not even go for a merge. All they tried to do was use their electronic recon equipment to figure out our radar. it was right to turn off our radars. but sad we couldn’t get any BWR shots. yeah, and the data link problems were irritating. my sqdn leader had a problem with his engine as well. And there was a female AWACS pilot, USAF and indian origins. hottest air force officer in the world. too bad, she was engaged.
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