Military Aviators: Russian, American, or other?

[Garrette]

Despite the title, this is open to anyone. It's really a thread meant for amusing discussion perhaps touched with real education as opposed to being an academic thread with only a touch of fun.

I've no idea if this article concerning Australia's dilemma over the purchase of new fighters is true, but it got me idly speculating for no real purpose.

The Soviets/Russians have traditionally fielded excellent fighters.

This video of a Mig-29 Fulcrum (erroneously spelled "Fullcrum" on the site) shhows some impressive maneuvering.

This video is said to be an Su-30Mk (really the export version of the Su-27 Flanker) but I suspect it is the Su-37 Super Flanker (Terminator?). In any case, it is a breath-taking display of maneuverability, at least to this non-pilot.

But is it more capable than the F/A-22 Raptor, (don't laugh at the pilot's claim that the Raptor is "twice as better" as other fighters; he's just a zoomie, after all). Here's another Raptor video. And still one more. In the last one, notice the take-off at about one minute in. For the aviators out there, is the occasional smoke during turns a real effect caused by, say, air turbulence? Or is it something they do for airshows only by intentionally releasing fuel or water or whatever?

Finally, there is the Joint Strike Fighter. I couldn't find as much showing maneuverability, but the hovering action is pretty cool.


The general question is this: Is the Su-30/37 more maneuverable than the others? Whether it is or not, which would you prefer to fly in combat and why?

As a non-pilot, I'd have to think hard about choosing the one which appears better in a dogfight but would likely fall to something with a greater stand-off.

If budgets matter, then reconsidering may be in order. The Su's run about $35 million each. The Raptor is $120 million. I don't know about the JSF.

 

[Darth Rotor]

The Soviets/Russians have traditionally fielded excellent fighters.

And kept production costs down.

In any case, it is a breath-taking display of maneuverability, at least to this non-pilot.

This pilot likes it too. I love neat aerobatic maneuvering. It's art.

The Raptor is "twice as better" as other fighters; he's just a zoomie, after all).

*Note to self to tease Hal Bidlack about this*

In the last one, notice the take-off at about one minute in. For the aviators out there, is the occasional smoke during turns a real effect caused by, say, air turbulence? Or is it something they do for airshows only by intentionally releasing fuel or water or whatever?

Depends on the aircraft, though flight demonstrations at air shows use smoke for a lot of reasons. I'll look at it again a few times and ETA if anything comes to me.

Finally, there is the Joint Strike Fighter. I couldn't find as much showing maneuverability, but the hovering action is pretty cool.

VSTOL is a slightly over rated capability, however, I'll remain open minded about F-35 version, as it is a new generation approach to VSTOL.

The general question is this: Is the Su-30/37 more maneuverable than the others? Whether it is or not, which would you prefer to fly in combat and why?

Relevance of that question depends on the envelope and mission.

As a non-pilot, I'd have to think hard about choosing the one which appears better in a dogfight but would likely fall to something with a greater stand-off.

BVR is a more likely engagement geometry.

If budgets matter, then reconsidering may be in order. The Su's run about $35 million each. The Raptor is $120 million. I don't know about the JSF.

Yes, Garrette, costs are a significant factor in decisions of this sort. See the death of Comanche for a text book case of death by unit cost creep. (Among other factors)

JSF cost info, to date, from FAS.org:

Unit Cost in FY94$
USAF/RAF model $28M USMC/Royal STOL $35M USN CV based $38M

That's a lowball.

From Global Security.org, using more recent numbers:

As of 2001 program estimates peg the recurring JSF unit flyaway costs at
$37 million for the Air Force conventional takeoff and landing variant,
$46 million for the Marine Corps short takeoff vertical landing variant and
$48 million for the Navy carrier version, in 2002 dollars.

As of late March 2002 the Pentagon was reviewing a proposal to cut JSF production by 400 aircraft and limit the Navy's F/A-18E/F acquisition to 460 aircraft versus 548.

Cuts on that order means this: unit costs go up again.

Sure enough, I found from some old notes that Lockheed estimated fly away costs at $45-$55 million per, in 2003 dollars, back in 2005.

Ah, but the plot sickens. The Aussies are skeptical, of lowball cost figures. (I think this article is US dollars, but the ref may be Aussie dollars.)

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21395752-662,00.html

The Government, the Bush Administration and the builder of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- Lockheed Martin -- have consistently said the Australian aircraft would cost $66 million each. But Washington's influential General Accounting Office says that the average cost per aircraft has now risen from $98 million to $113 million.

The US bean-counters do not even acknowledge the $66 million price tag.

OK, which dollars are we using here?

"Purchase quantities have been reduced, total program costs have increased and delivery of the initial aircraft has been delayed," the GAO report says.

The Howard Government wants to spend up to $16 billion for 100 of the so-called next-generation stealth fighters to replace RAAF F-111s and F/A-18s.

Let's take a peak at the GAO report, : http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07360.pdf

Unit Cost Estimates (Then Year $ in millions)

$95-$112 million per, in 2005 dollars (US). (Estimates from a table on page 8)

The price of high speed, low drag, is on the rise.

DR

 

[Wildy]

So that was an article about Australia?

That explains why I learned that if I had the forces I could attack and most likely defeat the US because their National Guardsmen are crap.

 

[Darth Rotor]

So that was an article about Australia?

That explains why I learned that if I had the forces I could attack and most likely defeat the US because their National Guardsmen are crap.

Are you sure you are posting in the correct thread? This is a discussion about fighters. Jets. Airplanes that go fast and are very expensive.

DR

 

[Garrette]

And kept production costs down.

We army guys get to see that, too. AK-47 and all that.

This pilot likes it too. I love neat aerobatic maneuvering. It's art.

Made me think of Rickenbacker in WWI and his self-described flight against several aircraft (most of them not fighters).

Could you tell if it's an Su-37 or are the differences not noticeable since the underlying platform is identical?

Depends on the aircraft, though flight demonstrations at air shows use smoke for a lot of reasons. I'll look at it again a few times and ETA if anything comes to me.

Much obliged. I appreciated the smoke in the Su; it highlighted the maneuvers.

VSTOL is a slightly over rated capability,

You mean Hollywood gets it wrong?

Relevance of that question depends on the envelope and mission.

I assumed as much; hence my mention of stand-off.

BVR is a more likely engagement geometry.

That's my assessment, too, but my non-military colleagues think the cool flying means we've lost the skies.

Yes, Garrette, costs are a significant factor in decisions of this sort. See the death of Comanche for a text book case of death by unit cost creep. (Among other factors)

JSF cost info, to date, from FAS.org:

Unit Cost in FY94$
USAF/RAF model $28M USMC/Royal STOL $35M USN CV based $38M

That's a lowball.

From Global Security.org, using more recent numbers:

Cuts on that order means this: unit costs go up again.

Sure enough, I found from some old notes that Lockheed estimated fly away costs at $45-$55 million per, in 2003 dollars, back in 2005.

Ah, but the plot sickens. The Aussies are skeptical, of lowball cost figures. (I think this article is US dollars, but the ref may be Aussie dollars.)

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21395752-662,00.html


OK, which dollars are we using here?

Let's take a peak at the GAO report, : http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07360.pdf


The price of high speed, low drag, is on the rise.

DR

They wouldn't have to cancel many of those to sweeten my retirement pot...

 

[Corsair 115]

In the last one, notice the take-off at about one minute in. For the aviators out there, is the occasional smoke during turns a real effect caused by, say, air turbulence? Or is it something they do for airshows only by intentionally releasing fuel or water or whatever?

I'm pretty sure that is a natural effect. You can see a similar thing happening from the wingtips of aircraft making hard turns. In the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! for example there's a scene where the P-40s are in a dogfight with the Japanese fighters. In one shot you can see a P-40 pulling a hard turn and for a few moments you can see similar vapour trails coming off the wingtips.

Though it was explained to me once, I unfortunately can't recall the technical explanation of why those vapour trails appear. I think it has something to do with the way the airflow is disrupted when the aircraft makes sharp attitude changes.

The general question is this: Is the Su-30/37 more maneuverable than the others? Whether it is or not, which would you prefer to fly in combat and why?

Manueverability in and of itself really doesn't mean that much in a dogfight. In WWII, the Japanese Zero and Oscar fighters were highly manueverable, but it didn't help them in battles with American fighters once the U.S. adopted the proper countertactics.

Personally, I'd take speed, stealthiness, and good weapons over manueverability.

Of course, in the end, as Chuck Yeager once remarked, it's the man, not the machine. A superior pilot in an inferior machine will usually defeat an inferior pilot in a superior machine.

 

[AgeGap]

This video is said to be an Su-30Mk (really the export version of the Su-27 Flanker) but I suspect it is the Su-37 Super Flanker (Terminator?).

Su-37 was a single seat prototype. Differences may be negligible otherwise.

The vapour trails are a secret government scheme to poison all the citizens with drugs that will render them servile. Or it could be this- Wingtip vortices^WP

 

[Bob Klase]

Though it was explained to me once, I unfortunately can't recall the technical explanation of why those vapour trails appear. I think it has something to do with the way the airflow is disrupted when the aircraft makes sharp attitude changes.

I don't remember it well enough to give a detailed explanation- it's been over 10 years since I flew and we didn't get that in helicopters. But basically it happens because of condensation of the moisture (water) in the air. The condensation happens because the low pressure lowers the temperature air. The lower the temperature, the less moisture the air can hold and the excess water condenses.

 

[Garrette]

Su-37 was a single seat prototype. Differences may be negligible otherwise.

I was unaware of this. Thanks.

The vapour trails are a secret government scheme to poison all the citizens with drugs that will render them servile. Or it could be this- Wingtip vortices^WP

Thanks to you, Corsair, and Bob Klase. I like them being real; makes the effect that much cooler, especially when it encompasses the entire airframe as it occasionally does in the vids.

 

[egslim]

The Su's run about $35 million each. The Raptor is $120 million. I don't know about the JSF.

The Government, the Bush Administration and the builder of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- Lockheed Martin -- have consistently said the Australian aircraft would cost $66 million each. But Washington's influential General Accounting Office says that the average cost per aircraft has now risen from $98 million to $113 million.
At current exchange rates $66 million Australian (the most optimistic estimate here) is some $60 million US. At $113 million one has to wonder if it would not be more cost effective to scrap the JSF and buy more Raptors instead. Assuming a Raptor is at least equally capable as the JSF will be.

And quantity is an important quality too. Aircraft will be down for maintenance and rearming. And numerous aircraft have to be kept in the air at any one time, to cover a large area and several tasks simultaneously. It is better to have a sufficient number of aircraft able to do the job well enough, than an insufficient number of individually more advanced aircraft.

 

[Garrette]

And quantity is an important quality too. Aircraft will be down for maintenance and rearming. And numerous aircraft have to be kept in the air at any one time, to cover a large area and several tasks simultaneously. It is better to have a sufficient number of aircraft able to do the job well enough, than an insufficient number of individually more advanced aircraft.

You, sir, are out of touch with both today's Pentagon and today's Congress.

 

[egslim]

You, sir, are out of touch with both today's Pentagon and today's Congress.

Let's just hope things don't get as far out of hand as with the B2A. Originally the B1B was intended to replace the B52, and when that failed (too expensive) the B2A was meant to replace them both. Which failed for the same reason. Last I heard the B52 will continue in service until 2030. So now the USAF has three generations of strategic bombers in service.

If the Raptor and JSF are too expensive to buy sufficient numbers to replace the F15 and F16 the latter two will have to remain in service long past their expiration date.

 

[Ranb]

Isn't the low radar cross section going to give the F-22 and F-35 the edge over any other fighter in the sky? I have heard it called "killing baby seals" when stealth aircraft are pitted against non-stealthy aircraft.

I remember an uncle in the Air Force 30 years ago saying he could out fly any missile he saw in time, and he was flying F-4's at the time. Years later when he was flying the F-16, he said that was no longer true. The missiles had improved to the point where the pilot shooting first was the one who lived.

I have no idea if my anecdotes are true, just stuff I have read and heard.

Ranb

 

[Big Les]

The JSF is going to be interesting, if not nearly as sexy as Typhoon. The overriding reason we plumped for the STOVL JSF, as with the Sea Harrier, was that we don't have the carriers to operate anything better. It's going to cost a hell of a lot, and lack the range and payload of any number of other options. As of now (and since the 2006 Sea Harrier retirement), we have pre-Falklands era naval fixed-wing air-air capability (i.e. GR.9 mud-pluggers with AIM-9s and no radar).

Land-based STOVL was really a Cold War insurance policy, and we'd be much better off with the basic version of the "Lightning" (though if anyone can make it pay its way, it's the RAF and USMC).

 

[egslim]

Isn't the low radar cross section going to give the F-22 and F-35 the edge over any other fighter in the sky? I have heard it called "killing baby seals" when stealth aircraft are pitted against non-stealthy aircraft.

Tom Clancy?

VI - STEALTH AIRCRAFT: EAGLES AMONG SPARROWS?

Stealth requires not only design compromises, it also imposes operational compromises. Sensors to locate targets pose a particular problem for stealth aircraft. The large radars used by conventional aircraft would obviously compromise the position of a stealth aircraft. Air-to-air combat would rely on passive detection of transmissions by hostile aircraft, as well as infrared tracking.

[...]

There are limits to the utility of stealth techniques. Since the radar cross-section of an aircraft depends on the angle from which it is viewed, an aircraft will typically have a much smaller RCS when viewed from the front or rear than when viewed from the side or from above. In general stealth aircraft are designed to minimize their frontal RCS. But it is not possible to contour the surface of an aircraft to reduce the RCS equally in all directions, and reductions in the frontal RCS may lead to a larger RCS from above. Thus while a stealth aircraft may be difficult to track when it is flying toward a ground-based radar or another aircraft at the same altitude, a high-altitude airborne radar or a space-based radar may have an easier time tracking it.

Another limitation of stealth aircraft is their vulnerability to detection by bi-static radars. The contouring of a stealth aircraft is designed to avoid reflecting a radar signal directly back in the direction of the radar transmitter. But the transmitter and receiver of a bi-static radar are in separate locations -- indeed, a single transmitter may be used by radar receivers scattered over a wide area. This greatly increases the odds that at least one of these receivers will pickup a reflected signal. The prospects for detection of stealth aircraft by bi-static radar are further improved if the radar transmitter is space-based, and thus viewing the aircraft from above, the direction of its largest radar cross section.

Several analysts claim stealth aircraft such as the ATF will be vulnerable to detection by infrared search and track systems (IRST). The natural heating of an aircraft's surface makes it visible to this type of system. The faster and aircraft flies, the warmer it gets, and thus, the easier to detect through infrared means. One expert asserts "if an aircraft deviates from its surroundings by only one degree centigrade, you will be able to detect it at militarily useful ranges."(4) In fact, both the Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 carry IRST devices, which indicates that the Russians have long targeted this as a potential stealth weakness.(5)

It depends on how well modern and future radar and IR detection systems perform against low observable targets.

 

[AgeGap]

Sorry people but I can't remember where I read it or who wrote it. There was an article in a British magazine about a military exercise I think in Canada where the Raptor was pitted against an aggressor unit. Su-27 were simulated with F/A-18s etc. The Raptors pwnd the aggressors. The Raptors scored something like 144 kills for no losses. Not really proof.

 

[Rob Lister]

Are you sure you are posting in the correct thread? This is a discussion about fighters. Jets. Airplanes that go fast and are very expensive.

DR

Yes, but the link posted in the OP dealt with NG preparedness. Hence Wildy's and my confusion.

 

[egslim]

Sorry people but I can't remember where I read it or who wrote it. There was an article in a British magazine about a military exercise I think in Canada where the Raptor was pitted against an aggressor unit. Su-27 were simulated with F/A-18s etc. The Raptors pwnd the aggressors. The Raptors scored something like 144 kills for no losses. Not really proof.

I think you mean this one: http://warisboring.com/?p=387

During their first major exercise in Alaska last year, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters from the 27th Fighter Squadron shot down 144 “enemy” F-15s and F/A-18s in mock dogfights.

Followed by another exercise:

the 94th ran headlong into the F-16s of the 64th Aggressor Squadron and suffered its first simulated shoot-down.
The 57th Adversary Tactics Group undertook some interesting tactics not contained in the overall [scripted] intelligence scenario. [...] The tactic worked. An F-16C pilot assigned to the 64th Aggressor Squadron gained the first-ever F-22 kill in Red Flag.

Which proves that creative tactics and fighting "dirty" work. Scripted exercises produce spectacular statistics, but real world performance is different.

 

[Bikewer]

I'd note that in conflicts involving US fighter aircraft vs. Soviet-made aircraft, the kill ratio has been spectacularly in the favor of the US.
However, I believe that not since Vietnam have our guys faced "thier" guys, and in that case the Soviets denied it....
The long suit has always been pilot training and command and control. In recent years we have gone up against decent soviet-built aircraft flown by decidedly inferior pilots.

Historically, the Soviets have built excellent, durable, easy-to-maintain fighters. In WWII, the Yak series were acquitted the equal of any fighter aircraft at the time.
The margin between the Saber-Mig conflict in Korea came down to pilot skill; the aircraft were nearly equal overall.

Our aircraft tend to be vastly expensive, but pilot training is second to none, and command and control and battlefield intelligence (via sattelite and AWACS) unsurpassed.

 

[shadron]

Historically, the Soviets have built excellent, durable, easy-to-maintain fighters. In WWII, the Yak series were acquitted the equal of any fighter aircraft at the time. The margin between the Saber-Mig conflict in Korea came down to pilot skill; the aircraft were nearly equal overall.

Incident to that, NOVA had a program on the air war in Korea, focusing mainly on the pilots who were downed and what happened to them. It also has a section on the relative merits of the aircraft and the pilots, who were Russians. This episode "Missing in MIG Alley" is downloadable in it entirety at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warplanes/. There is also a graphic comparing and contrasting the planes.