Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Shane on August 30, 2006, 01:15:58 PM
-
something to aspire to...
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/192851/air_show_wonder/
-
Who the hell is Shane :D
Frikin sweet video!
-
How'd they get the pink smoke to come from the F4u1?
-
Impressive flight demonstration.
-
Shane!!!
:O
-
nice to watch ..purty amazin slow speed stuff.
Slow ..however .. equals dead in contested air, as most of us know.
All the modern bells an whistles ..it still takes a solid lock to put a missile out there, much less a gun shot.
Momentarily pointing near a bad guy just won't do the trick, especially if yer hangin yer butt out like that .. imagine for a moment you see one of these guys at zero airspeed ..you know where he's gonna be for the next few seconds and where his aircraft is going.
All you gotta do is put rounds there .. or .. get a lock .. the missile wont miss a non-manuevering target. If he's low enough even a shoulder launched SAM will nail him before he can get speed back.
-just sayin
(tm Pasha)
-GE (I love seein hurricanes or zeke's when I am in a faster plane.. even a Spit 5 can dictate the fight)
-
Originally posted by Grayeagle
Slow ..however .. equals dead in contested air, as most of us know.
Momentarily pointing near a bad guy just won't do the trick, especially if yer hangin yer butt out like that .. imagine for a moment you see one of these guys at zero airspeed ..you know where he's gonna be for the next few seconds and where his aircraft is going.
The purpose of thrust vectoring is to maintain control at ridiculous angle of attacks. Slow speed maneuvering is just a more impressive visual demonstration of it. Besides, even in modern fighters, heavy ACM will still leave a fighter slow from time to time.
Modern dogfight missiles are MORE than capable of snapshots. Heatseekers only need a moment to aquire a target, and the AIM-9X sidewinder is supposed to be able to aquire targets mid-flight. When you're using a missile with an off-boresight capability, advanced electronics, and a high kill probability, burning off a ton of speed to get a quick kill isn't such a bad move.
-
my plane shoots out pink smoke!
-
hmm .. opinions vary.
They always do.
So you see this bandit reverse and fall backwards and he's already goin under 100ias when he starts.
You know his plane is now ballistic, and will do an arc earthward directly to regain flying speed.
What to do ..what to do.. decisions decisions.
His missiles ..if they launch ..will come off the rail with no added speed from the aircraft, not counting altitude advantage or disadvantage, or ECM effectiveness available.
If it's a self seeker ..a good one .. it may pick up what he is lookin at.
It may not.
For the sake of argument .. lets say he was bein chased down by an F-16/18 ..most likely adversary as an F-15/22 would not be as fair.
I would guess the setup to be a hard break by the sukhoi followed by the reversal move ..because the pursuer was closing on his six.. meaning he had some closure rate goin on. Distance tween targets would dictate guns or missiles.
First lets talk close in.. guns.
Pursuer can draw a line directly thru bandit with 20mm if close enough and put the guns pipper on the bandit ..he's stationary for all intents. Can the Sukhoi point, track, hold and shoot accurately enough? (see the nose fall when the plane begins to fall ..is he vectoring thrust or just recovering from the apparant lack of airspeed ..I mean .. is it a VSTOL aircraft ..because it doesn't look like it to me). If the pursuer sees the nose comin up to point at him, and jinks hard.. can the sukhoi react fast enough long enough? .. it just doesnt look like it to me.
Ok lets talk further out .. missiles range. Heat seekers an the like.. because if its radar missiles none of this applies. A high altitude radar missile shot against a lower altitude target will win all things being equal.. altitude advantage works in missiles just like it does in aircraft. The higher missiles go faster downhill and go further for the same reason. The only caveat here is how close to the ground the Sukhoi is ..if he's in the trees he may survive a radar attack.
So . . sukhoi is advised he has a bandit in his six arc, revs, sees the pursuer as his nose comes up and his plane begins to slow to zero then reverse ..and he begins to fall. His pursuer more than a mile away sees this, launches two, strokes AB, goes high while keepin eyes on the bandit.
Sukhoi launches ..low speed launch, altitude disadvantage (otherwise why point nose high) ..and he's stationary as far as the missiles comin in are concerned ..they're at mach 3 before they detonate close by or right inside his fuselage.. long before his missiles get close to the pursuer.. who now has altitude and airspeed and can decide how best to defeat the incoming missiles.
As I said .. discounting ECM entirely.. because if it works, nothin you got will hit the bandit.
Just one scenario.
Don't get me wrong .. if I were the sukhoi pilot I would use all I had to defeat the pursuer .. but gettin slow .. that F-16 would have to be comin in hard an fast before I considered gettin slow and I would go for the overshoot by keeping manueverable ... not hangin myself out to dry.
Just my 2 copper.
-GE
-
The purpose ISN'T to be maneuvering at 100ias.
Lets assume the jet can maintain a 20 degree angle of attack without losing control. Next, off-boresight missiles giving you about a 60 degree arc to target in. That means you can shoot at a target 80 degrees off your nose. Add thrust vectoring and that 20 degree AoA can be expanded drasticly. You don't have to flip around backwards and blow all of your speed for thrust vectoring to mean a kill. Even a very small increase in max AoA can mean a kill against what would normally be a more maneuverable aircraft.
Think of it as a way to get your nose a bit further up in a turn for just long enough to get the shot off. The low speed tricks you see them doing have no place in air combat, but they demonstrate a capability which does.
-
That kind of maneuverability combined to the russian AA-11 Archer missile (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/aa-11.htm) and a helmet mounted sight is a very hard nut to crack for any enemy fighter in combat. The first variant of this missile/targeting system has been deployed for some 20 years now and if I remember correct, the western equivalent, AIM-9X sidewinder, was only approved for production just two years ago.
As an sidenote it is funny how you yanks always begin your imaginary air combat scenarios from a situation where the Sukhoi is being tailed by one of your F-15s or 16s :)
-
oh sorry...looks like he forgot to mention the Finnish front line fighter...F18 Hornet =)
Which is also a very capable plane. :aok
-
Originally posted by mars01
Who the hell is Shane :D
harr?
-
Originally posted by BigR
oh sorry...looks like he forgot to mention the Finnish front line fighter...F18 Hornet =)
Touché, a good one :lol
-
Originally posted by Furball
harr?
Troll!
-
Without Shane playing, la7's are just cannon fodder!:noid
-
Originally posted by SkyRock
Troll!
2nd
-
Originally posted by Innominate
The purpose ISN'T to be maneuvering at 100ias.
Lets assume the jet can maintain a 20 degree angle of attack without losing control. Next, off-boresight missiles giving you about a 60 degree arc to target in. That means you can shoot at a target 80 degrees off your nose. Add thrust vectoring and that 20 degree AoA can be expanded drasticly. You don't have to flip around backwards and blow all of your speed for thrust vectoring to mean a kill. Even a very small increase in max AoA can mean a kill against what would normally be a more maneuverable aircraft.
Think of it as a way to get your nose a bit further up in a turn for just long enough to get the shot off. The low speed tricks you see them doing have no place in air combat, but they demonstrate a capability which does.
From a tactical perspective, the main thing the thrust vectoring and canards give the SU is better turn performance but, for the most part, there is little tactical utility in the ability to point the nose at this slow of a speed ("post-stall" maneuvering) being demonstrated here so Innominate is partially right. But, he's also partially wrong. The point to a high off-axis seeker capability is that you don't have to point at the target to launch. I don't know the numbers on the AIM-9X but in the late 80's we experimented with an advanced IR seeker that had 120deg FOV (240 total). This seeker wasn't continued because our aircraft were already more capable than the competition and it was deemed to be unnecessary by the powers that be. Combined with a HMS you could shoot behind your wingline. With fire then aquire systems, thrust vectoring and HMS you could do even more than this 80's system.
Also, you can't pull high AOA at high speed, at least not without blacking out or ripping the wings off so by definition the SU's capability is more about low-speed maneuverability and it's value is debatable with the advanced missiles (AA and SAM) out there. During all the training I've done, in any multi-bogey environment if you drop anchor to turn with an adversary you're dead meat I don't care in what direction your nose is pointing.
Oh..I should add though....that's one hell of an airshow.:aok
Mace