Steve Davies

Actually, that's exactly what Goon said.

Very interesting post, Rhen.

It may not have been flown at high AoA by the vast majority of its many users, but it certainly could be in the right hands - the Americans would sit it on its tail, straight and level, at 90 knots, retain full nose authority, and still control the fight against less experienced guys. I don't know what the AoA was when they did that, but it must have been a lot! I am told that they could still point the nose, with the help of a lot of rudder stomping, as slow as 70 knots. Slower than that and the jet would stall out. As for this concept of a 'high AoA fighter', I don't know that the fighter community ever uses that term or categorises adversary aircraft in such narrow definition. What I do know is that I hear in fighter squadrons time again that nose position and nose authority is everything (contrary to the old adage, 'speed is life'). Whether that means at high speed and low AoA, or low speed and higher AoA doesn't really matter. The Americans developed a feign that took full advantage of the MiG-21's exceptional nose authority in the slow speed fight: they would get the tail up in the air at 90 knots, point at the Eagle or Viper as it overshot, and then hope that the other guy would be intimidated into extending away from the fight. At the moment that he did that, the Fishbed pilot would drop his nose to indicate loss of nose authority. Seeing this, the Eagle or Viper guy, still low on knots, would pitch back into the fight. As he did, the Fishbed pilot would snap the nose straight back up (since he had never really lost authority) and gun the hapless guy in the other jet. I am told that it worked a lot of the time.

The key to that answer lies in who the other guy is. If he's an experienced weapons school guy, then the chances are he's going to go into the vertical and use his energy to either yo-yo or extend away from the fight and either separate, or re-enter the fight with more knots. Knowing that these guys were too smart to be outwitted, the Fishbed pilot would rarely expend all of his knots in one big turn and would, as you suggested, try and conserve energy. However, if he is inexperienced and gets sucked into the low-speed fight, then he will get slow and, against an angles fighter, is going to pay the price. The latter situation happened to very nearly all of the 'line' F-15 and F-16 guys that were exposed to CONSTANT PEG; on subsequent setups they would gradually learn from this and begin to use the vertical. It depends. What can the energy fighter do with his nose given the airspeed that he has? As a non-fighter pilot, that strikes me as the most important question: if he can't point at the guy, then he can't get a tracking shot or snap shot (of course, if you have the JHMCS/AIM-9X combo, then this becomes a moot point!). So, in theory, the guy with more energy should be at an advantage. In practise, it's not as clear cut if the other guy is initimidating you from accross the circle with nose position. Shack. That's exactly what an experienced guy in the angles fighter will hope that a less experienced guy in the energy fighter will do.

Thanks, Ivan :)

Goon The old crusty Weapon School guys who flew the MiG-21 for CONSTANT PEG would hit the merge at 450 knots in their Fishbed against an F-15 or F-16, and the first thing they did was reef the jet into this huge break turn that bled away nearly all of their knots within about the first 180 degrees. There was no point in them conserving their knots because their strengths lay elsewhere. So, unless the plan is to extend from the fight having hit the merge, then yes, there really are valid reasons to force the fight to get slow as quickly as possible. I don't agree - if your strength is the ability to take snap shots, and your weakness is sustained turn rate and specific excess power, then this is exactly what you should be doing.

If the fight is not fair, and he is an angles fighter going up against two vertical fighters, then I would imagine that he is going to extend and leave the fight. He will not stand a chance, otherwise. As with all of this, a lot depends on skill: i know a couple of guys who flew the F-5 as Aggressors, and later the MiG-21 and MiG-17 as Red Eagles, who would take-on and beat pairs of F-4s flown by less experienced pilots. This, though, was generally the exception to the rule in the 2 vs 1 scenario.

Actually, there are instances where a pilot will want to slow the fight down and use superior nose authority in order to get a guns tracking kill, snap shot or to intimidate his opponent with nose position. Some versions of the MiG-21 (vs. F-16 or F-15, say) provide us with an excellent example of this. Another example is the Hornet, whose pilots regularly attempt to get the fight as slow as possible in order to use superior manouvering at higher AoA in order to kill the likes of the Eagle or Viper.

Yes, it does. Departures and subsequent spins as a result of maneuvering with an asymmetric fuel balance is a well-known issue for the Eagle. It has caught out many an experienced pilot, and in the early days killed quite a few of them as a result. These days, it is far less common. Although I cannot comment on this case, historically speaking one of the main causes has been that pilots have failed to monitor fuel balance between ACM/BFM setups.

RT I would be massively surprised if the IAF had not made some effort to keep their most classified capabilities offline (this is something that everybody does), but realise that they spent 18 months spinning up for Red Flag; that they wanted to be invited back, so they had to impress; and that they actually had learning outcomes of their own that needed to be satisfied. With that as a basis for their participation, it would have made no sense to have handcuffed their young guys with draconian restrictions on what they could/could not do. Also, the Indians are smart people. They would have known that there would have been ELINT gathering at Red Flag, and they would have balanced the likelihood of having some of their capabilities compromised with the training benefits of attending. So long as they did not reveal wartime-only capes, I would bet that the benefits outweighed the negatives.

You have to differentiate between technical and software capabilities - wartime-only modes are technical and can be 'snooped'; that's precisely why they are reserved for wartime. Software routines, like onboard EID (at least, some EID capes), are not. In retrospect, they may have an autonomous EID capability, but with red and blue forces being played by the same a/c types it may not have been much use to them without Mode 4 IFF capability to help tick the boxes of the ROE matrix. Whatever the case, using onboard EID techniques isn't about 'looking big'. The whole point is that you can declare a bogey as hostile or friendly without telling the other guy how you did it - provided that you don't frat, that's an accepted part of how Red Flag works.

You need to work with current data: that article is 7 years old. Plans to integrate Link-16 TX were abandoned in 2007 in favour of the stealthier TTNT. I would suggest you have a read of the following, up-to-date articles: http://www.air-attack.com/news/news_article/3184 http://www.defense-update.com/features/2008/may08/F22_datalink_gateway.htm

Mugato Just because Link-16 uses spread-spectrum ECCM techniques does not mean that it cannot be detected by SIGINT platforms. I am not an RF engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but respected industry sources (Aviation Week, et al) have stated that one driving reason for ditching plans to integrate Link-16 TX capability on the F-22 is this very premise. I just spent a couple of days at the 90th FS in Elmendorf, and they did not once mention Link-16 TX as something they are working on. Indeed, the very recent demonstration of F-22 TTNT between pseudo CAOCs at Langley and Nellis, and participating F-16s, would seem to support this.

A quick Google search offers a pretty descriptive overview. It is almost a year old, but other than the fact that TTNT has now been succesfully tested on the F-22, it remains accurate: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=dti&id=news/DTINETS.xml&headline=F-22%20and%20F-35%20Suffer%20From%20Network%20Gaps

GG Those accounts are inaccurate. The F-22 uses a narrow-beam Intra-Flight Data-Link that is very limited in range (a function of the strength of the signal transmitted) in order to limit emissions. Link 16 is highly susceptible to SIGINT intercept, and would therefore broadcast the Raptor's position. That is why it is not used. TTNT (Tactical Targeting Network Technology) and Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN), which are both in development, are being tested at the moment as a means to get the F-22's 'picture' into other cockpits. The F-22's sensor data downloads to either the CAOC or a similar ground station, which then relays the data over Link 16 to everyone else on the net.

Thanks, RT :) I see now where you were coming from :doh: Cheers Steve

Kula I don't buy that as an explanation: you don't travel half way around the world and then embarrass yourself in front of a host nation you have worked hard to convince that they should let you attend. On a practical level, being morted continuously in the first week, and then fratting continuously in the second week is not something that it going to impress. Why? Because it impacts on the the training objectives and learning outcomes of all the other Blue Air forces. My belief is that if they had had the capability, they would have used it. Probably a reasonable 'rule of thumb', but I don't think that it actually means anything. But it will never be as simple as that, as many of the last air-to-air engagements of the last 20 years have shown - there are so many other factors that will influence the outcome:pilotfly:

RT The real issue that this guy was hinting at was the inability of the Su-30 to autonomously generate an EID on the contact, either through Mode 4 IFF or technical/software based means. That the IAF wasn't on the net (data link) is clearly also a problem, but the DL on its own does not generate an ROE-quality EID - you have to have AWACS or a series of onboard systems to do that.

RT I think that some of the comments he made were politically embarrassing, and I would imagine that is why the videos were removed. As for the 'revelation' about the French gathering intel, that's something that *every* country does against one another in these exercises. In that sense, this was a little like the pot calling the kettle black. There was quite a lot of reading between the lines that you could do with this presentation.

Element That sounds like a sensible plan. Out of interest, I tried running DCS:BS under Parallels last week, but it did not work.

Element Track IR works fine under bootcamp, but you do need to make sure that you have the most up-to-date driver when you use it with BS. My graphics cards specs are as follows: I can't comment on the other card you asked about, as I don't have any experience of it. Suffice to say that the NVIDIA in my machine handles the sim very well, IMO.

Element Here are my basic specs: DCS:BS runs beautifully with all the graphics options maxed out :).

Works great on my MacPro (running XP, not Vista).

Mvgas It was tail #90-843 I flew at Spang, and while they were going through CCIP at the time, this jet had yet to be modded. Are you a RoKAF Block 52 fixer, or a USAF Viper fixer? I wonder whether or not that might explain the difference in what you and I have both seen? Feuerfalke I know that I am very lucky indeed!

I am not a pilot, Feuerfalke :) I just get to ride in the back of these things every now and again.