F-15 pilot talks about SU-30MKI at Red Flag

H

hellfire

Member
Aussie Digger said:
No aircraft is "always win in a engagement". Air combat depends on SO many variables. It is NEVER a case of aircraft A v aircraft B with both aircraft completely independent of any supporting systems.

GCI, AEW&C, Air to Air refuelling, other C4ISREW assets, supporting aircraft, GBAD / sea based systems etc. They ALL have to be added into the mix.

On top of this, this person was ONLY speaking of within visual range air engagements. He said nothing of beyond visual range air to air combat and THAT is what Western Air Forces concentrate on.

If you've got excellent detection capabilities and excellent long range missiles, why on Earth would you not use these capabilities, but rather go into the merge?
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well yeah i mean all the stuff like AEW&C,A to A refuelling etc matters,but the US F15 pilot did say "they will able to beat the F15 and F16 on regular basis" once the Su30 pilots know their planes better.
 
F

funtz

New Member
I would imagine they get a new engine in return "pronto" for the damage engine they send to Russia..
Still it's not an ideal situation for the IAF.

The Indian pilots(regulars) where inexperienced in the Red Flag.
The last Copa Air India was a different story, the Su-30MKI gave the F-16C's a decent fight.

One thing i don't understand is that the Su-30MKI has seldom use for ext fuel tanks given the big int fuel capasity, but the F-15 & F-16 often do..
Doesn't that give the Su-30MKI an advantage in the "Merge"?
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This is India, if a engine has trouble it might be a whole project sending it to Russia and the whole excercise seems to take too much time on both ends, as has been shown before with news of other aircrafts.

Again this seems to contradict the HAL( Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) website they claim to have the AL-31 FP engine in Current Manufacturing Range
Source: http://www.hal-india.com/EngineKoraput/products.asp

In which case, why send the Engines to Russia, unless they are not fully operational/just assembling the parts coming in from Russia, (again in which case, why not just replace the parts in india.)
 
F

funtz

New Member
JohanGrön said:
I think it was F-15:s the IAF trained against at Cope India.
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Cope India 2004,
USAF: F-15, InAF: SU-30K Flanker, Mirage 2000, MIG-29 Fulcrum, MIG-27 Flogger and MIG-21 Bison

Cope India 2006,
USAF:F-16, InAF: Su-30 MKI, MiG-21 Bison, Mirage 2000, MiG-29 Fulcrum, and MiG-27 Flogger.

Also, no news from quoted and named IAF sources in 06, in 04 some US defence report came out with reports of the engagements.
 
Haavarla

Haavarla

Active Member
funtz said:
Cope India 2004,
USAF: F-15, InAF: SU-30K Flanker, Mirage 2000, MIG-29 Fulcrum, MIG-27 Flogger and MIG-21 Bison

Cope India 2006,
USAF:F-16, InAF: Su-30 MKI, MiG-21 Bison, Mirage 2000, MiG-29 Fulcrum, and MiG-27 Flogger.

Also, no news from quoted and named IAF sources in 06, in 04 some US defence report came out with reports of the engagements.
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It is not considerated fair/polite for pilots to talk about the "score & count" etc.. from these engagement to the press.
Thats why there's little info about cope India..
These exercises main purpose is to improve the overall skill for the pilots.
 
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R

Red

New Member
Goodness, Cope India are DACTs. They are not exercises to show which aircraft is best. Unless you are privy to what actually went on and know all the facts, it is even pointless to refer to it as it will just be speculative.

The administrators and moderators of this board have professionally "stickied" a thread on this even;

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1157

The pilot was obviously talking about legacy versions of current Western aircrafts. Not the upgraded ones. Not the 4.5 version ones with Aesas et al; Hornets, Eagles, Vipers, etc
 
V

Vivendi

Well-Known Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #27
Aussie Digger said:
On top of this, this person was ONLY speaking of within visual range air engagements. He said nothing of beyond visual range air to air combat and THAT is what Western Air Forces concentrate on.

If you've got excellent detection capabilities and excellent long range missiles, why on Earth would you not use these capabilities, but rather go into the merge?
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He did mention the MIG-21 with Israeli jamming equipment and that they were "invisible" to F-15/16 until merge... due to a combination of low RCS and jamming.

He even hinted that F-22 should keep the gun in case it encountered a MIG-21 with Israeli jamming equipment.


http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/RED11058.xml&headline=USAF%20Pilot%20Critiques%20Red%20Flag%20Action

He praised the F-22 as the next great dogfighter. But he faulted the fact that it carries too few missiles and contends that the on-board cannon could be a life-saver, particularly against aircraft like the MiG-21 Bison flown by the Indians. It has a small radar cross section, as well as an Israeli-made F-16 radar and jammer. The latter makes them "almost invisible to legacy F-15C and F-16 radars" until the aerial merge or until it fires one of its Archer, active radar missiles, the U.S. pilot says.
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Perhaps those low-RCS eurocanards with sophisticated EW turn out to be quite survivable after all :) At least if they stay away from F-22s and F-35s.


Vivendi
 
A

aayiliam

New Member
This is my personal view and as such i dont have much knowdege regarding air war

i dont know if we can compare SU-30 MKI with F-15 as mostly the Flankers will be used as bombers and not as airsuperiority planes there will be other planes accompanying them to fulfill this role and the anti-aircraft machinery will be only used for directing other fighters and for self-defence.
 
A

Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Vivendi said:
Perhaps those low-RCS eurocanards with sophisticated EW turn out to be quite survivable after all :) At least if they stay away from F-22s and F-35s.
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Only if you are dealing with fighter on fighter exercises with mechanically steered arrays (MSA). Tactically significant stealth aircraft with high end jammers won't be able to hide in a battlefield with AESAs. And volume search radar support from ground based sensors (TPS) and AEW&C.
 
H

Human Bass

New Member
Wait people...lets link some dots here. So we have a pro, someone who really knows about how the tech performs in real life confirming that israeli jamming equipment is really good, so good it give an AESA radar some hard time to detect a fighter.

Does anyone here remember this? ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Orchard


Im sure Israel used this same tech, and many others to fool syrian defenses. Its good to know at least a small part of what happened back then...
 
A

Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Human Bass said:
Wait people...lets link some dots here. So we have a pro, someone who really knows about how the tech performs in real life confirming that israeli jamming equipment is really good, so good it give an AESA radar some hard time to detect a fighter.
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He never said it went up against an AESA.
 
A

Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Human Bass said:
Well, he said he was glad the F-22 kept a gatling gun...
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Yes but I think you'll find they are a bit different to active electronically scanned array radars. Part of the reason these 'knucks want a gun is that a truly stealthly fighter is going to be able chose all the circumstances of the engagement and is going to score kill after kill against FLANKERS, BISONS, etc. With the F-22 limited to eight ATA missiles they want more kills. F-35 with an ATA configuration bay will be able to carry 8-12 ATA missiles and has the 25mm gun.
 
C

cobzz

New Member
gf0012-aust said:
If someone is going to try and transcribe a piece of work, they could at least have the decency to use proper english - it brings into doubt the quality of the transcription.

as for the end comments - give me strength. :unknown
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I did the transcript, because apparently some people could not view the video.

Thanks.
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
cobzz said:
I did the transcript, because apparently some people could not view the video.
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Original Text Deleted

Well, you probably deserve and apology from me as I was being unnecessarily harsh when your intent was to assist others.

I still disagree with the conclusions though... :)
 
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