F-18E Downes Syrian Warplane

[snypa777]

"A US official told CNN that another Syrian Su-22 fighter made an approach in what the military assessed as a possible bombing run on US backed-Syrian Democratic Forces near Tabqa, Syria, on Tuesday. The official said that coalition aircraft made a show of force and conducted a warning maneuver, and the Syrian fighter jet then aborted its trajectory and left the area".

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/21/polit ... index.html

I guess making good on defensive promises sometimes works.

[hythelday]

How about we stop perpetrating that "AIM-9X was shot at Su-22 and missed"?

We don't know IF it was shot. We don't know IF it was -9X that was shot. We don't know IF it was intended to hit Su-22. We don't kniw IF it missed.

Until there's at least a second source to that claim, all we know that a Fitter was brought down. Even the reports regarding pilots fate are conflicting.

When the second/official source emerges, we'll know that IIR and HOBS tech is not, indeed, invincible.

[arian]

Until there's at least a second source to that claim.

What do you mean a second source? There are hundreds of sources. One CBS reporter tweeted it, then another reporter cited that, and another cited that and so forth. Sounds like lots of sources to me.

[botsing]

Until there's at least a second source to that claim.

What do you mean a second source? There are hundreds of sources. One CBS reporter tweeted it, then another reporter cited that, and another cited that and so forth. Sounds like lots of sources to me.

It's exactly that reason why I added the word (reliable) to my post. It is scary how fast mere speculation can end up as "factual news" on so many sites.

smsgtmac sentiment in this is fully understandable and supported by me.

[juretrn]

That's often the case with lazy reporters; don't bother fact-checking, just hit the magic retweet button. Boom, report done.
Kind of reminds me how Solomon (yes, he again) reposted a "story" from Fars that Israelis sent a squadron of fightersm a couple of EW planes and a couple of tankers to Saudi Arabia or some sh*t. Fact check much?
Speaking of the devil, just went to check what he posted on this, and yep. He jumped the "-9X is sh*t " train as well.

[XanderCrews]

That's often the case with lazy reporters; don't bother fact-checking, just hit the magic retweet button. Boom, report done.
Kind of reminds me how Solomon (yes, he again) reposted a "story" from Fars that Israelis sent a squadron of fightersm a couple of EW planes and a couple of tankers to Saudi Arabia or some sh*t. Fact check much?
Speaking of the devil, just went to check what he posted on this, and yep. He jumped the "-9X is sh*t " train as well.

That's funny since the F-35 is terrible since it doesn't have 9X internal

[zero-one]

More details on the event.

The new details they gathered were quite good but note the conclusion made by the Writer was nothing short of a disaster.

THE shooting down of a Syrian fighter jet may have exposed a fatal flaw with Australia’s next generation aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter.
Details have begun to emerge about Sunday’s incident, which saw two US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets engage a Syrian Su-22 fighter in the skies near the Islamic State capital of Raqqa.
It was the first time a US combat jet has shot down a manned aircraft since 1999.
But things did not go to plan.

The F-35 Strike Fighter: Flight or fail?
According to the marketing and lobbying of manufacturers, modern US air-to-air missiles have a claimed ‘kill’ ratio of almost 100 per cent.
But one of the missiles fired at the Cold War veteran missed.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet launching from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Two US Navy aircraft shot down a Syrian regime plane on June 18, 2017, after it dropped bombs on US-backed forces fighting the Islamic State. Picture: US Navy
An F/A-18E Super Hornet launching from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Two US Navy aircraft shot down a Syrian regime plane on June 18, 2017, after it dropped bombs on US-backed forces fighting the Islamic State.

FALLING ARROWS
The shoot-down followed attacks on US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces by Syrian Government troops using tanks and artillery.
Syrian regime forces began to advance after its jets bombed US-backed forces which were themselves moving on Islamic State positions near Tabqa, a town south of the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa..

This engagement prompted Coalition commanders to activate a ‘hotline’ with Russian forces in Syria, established to avoid just such incidents.

But the forces loyal to Russian-backed President Assad continued to advance.
So US commanders ordered Coalition aircraft to fire warning shots near the Syrian Government forces.
This halted the Syrian regime ground vehicles. But not its aircraft.
“They saw the Su-22 approaching,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.
“It again had dirty wings; it was carrying ordnance. They did everything they could to try to warn it away. They did a headbutt manoeuvre, they launched flares ….”

This reveals the US aircraft went to great pains to warn the armed Syrian aircraft away, flying just ahead of it to buffet it in the turbulence of their own wakes and firing flares to highlight the gravity of the situation.
“But ultimately the Su-22 went into a dive and it was observed dropping munitions and was subsequently shot down,” the spokesman said.

But it wasn’t quite that simple.
The US F/A-18E fired a heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder missile at the Su-22. But the 40-year-old Syrian jet was able to dodge, dropping flares and jinking out of its flight path.
The US fighter then had to fall back some 2km before firing a medium range, radar-guided AIM-120 missile. This successfully struck the target, and the Syrian pilot ejected over Islamic State held territory.

Australia's first F-35s made their public debut at the Avalon Air Show. The two Joint Strike Fighters are currently based at Luke Air Force Base in the United States, but were flown to Australia for the first time by Royal Australian Air Force.

LIGHTNING WITHOUT THUNDER
The F-35A Strike Fighter carries no more than four air-to-air missiles in its internal bays. Less if it has to add air-to-ground weapons to that mix.
While the Lightning II can carry a much more extensive payload — including air-to-air missiles — under its wings, it does so at a significant cost.
It loses its stealth ability.
Without that ability to hide in the skies, its relatively poorer manoeuvrability, acceleration and speed puts it at a disadvantage to most modern Russian and Chinese fighter aircraft designs.
Which is why the F-35’s concept relies upon all air-to-air combat being conducted ‘beyond visual range’, where it is not required to manoeuvre. But long-range missile attacks are generally regarded as having less chance of success than those at close range.

And the F-35’s less than outstanding manoeuvrability also means it has less ability to ‘dodge’ in the final moments of an attacking missile’s approach.
A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation showed that, even assuming a 50 per cent offensive missile success rate and a 100 per cent successful defensive missile evasion rate, F-35 Strike Fighters would run out of missiles long before they ran out of targets.
F-35 proponents argued this warning was not relevant, as missile success rates were close to 100 per cent. Given Sunday’s performance, perhaps they were being optimistic.

This is the reason why I hated the response of most F-35 supporters when it was allegedly defeated by an F-16. Now the F-35 still suffers from the "can't turn, can't climb, can't run" narrative. It'll be years before that dies.

[arian]

BS article from the get go. Nobody claimed a 100% kill ratio for any missile. Certainly no one ever claimed so for AIM-9.

And if F-35 is in trouble because its AIM-120 missile has only an over 50% kill ratio in actual combat, I can only imagine how screwed Russian planes are with their 4% kill ratio R-27s in actual combat.

[botsing]

BS article from the get go. Nobody claimed a 100% kill ratio for any missile. Certainly no one ever claimed so for AIM-9.

And if F-35 is in trouble because its AIM-120 missile has only an over 50% kill ratio in actual combat, I can only imagine how screwed Russian planes are with their 4% kill ratio R-27s in actual combat.

Very interesting!

Do you have a source (or sources) where I can lookup those pK stats?

[pron]

BS article from the get go. Nobody claimed a 100% kill ratio for any missile. Certainly no one ever claimed so for AIM-9.

And if F-35 is in trouble because its AIM-120 missile has only an over 50% kill ratio in actual combat, I can only imagine how screwed Russian planes are with their 4% kill ratio R-27s in actual combat.

Very interesting!

Do you have a source (or sources) where I can lookup those pK stats?

The R-27 stats are from the wiki page I guess.
In the 1999 Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Eritrean MiG-29s fought Ethiopian Su-27s both piloted by Russian mercenaries.
There were possibly as many as 24 R-27s fired by both sides.
Only one R-27 fired by an Ethiopian Su-27 at an Eritrean MiG-29 proximity-fuzed near enough
the MiG that the damaged aircraft eventually crashed on landing, giving the R-27 a hit ratio of only 4%.

[hythelday]

BS article from the get go. Nobody claimed a 100% kill ratio for any missile. Certainly no one ever claimed so for AIM-9.

And if F-35 is in trouble because its AIM-120 missile has only an over 50% kill ratio in actual combat, I can only imagine how screwed Russian planes are with their 4% kill ratio R-27s in actual combat.

Very interesting!

Do you have a source (or sources) where I can lookup those pK stats?

The R-27 stats are from the wiki page I guess.
In the 1999 Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Eritrean MiG-29s fought Ethiopian Su-27s both piloted by Russian mercenaries.
There were possibly as many as 24 R-27s fired by both sides.
Only one R-27 fired by an Ethiopian Su-27 at an Eritrean MiG-29 proximity-fuzed near enough
the MiG that the damaged aircraft eventually crashed on landing, giving the R-27 a hit ratio of only 4%.

There's a ton of articles on the Internet (including russian sources) that contradict each other, regarding how many missiles were fired, the nationalities of pilots on both sides (including the staple russian-ukranian mutual accusations), number of aircraft, origin of the aircraft etc.. virtually every aspect of the story can be debated, and conveniently none offer sources (save for one russian book regarding weapons exports).

Only these things are certain:
Eritrea AF operated Fulcrums, allegedly 4x MiG-29 and 2x MiG-29UB (which makes sense since most sources agree they bought straight from MiG)
Ethiopia AF operated Su-27, allegedly 6x Su-27SK and 2x Su-27UB (which does not make sense, since most sources say Ethiopians bought from unused Russian stock, however SK version is export modification, why would a plane intended for VVS be downgraded export version is beyond me).
R-27 were fired by both sides (models uncertain, I've seen R/T/ER mentioned), none apparently found their target.
One Fulcrum was confirmed to be shot down, either by R-73 or gun.

[citanon]

Surely this is evidencve that the Russian EW tech was just too good. /Sarcasm

[arian]

Surely this is evidencve that the Russian EW tech was just too good. /Sarcasm

LOL. Excellent point, comrade.

[basher54321]

1998 - Ethiopia signed a USD150 million contract with Rosovoorouzhenie for 6 x single seat Su-27 & 2 x Su-27UB with 100 x R-27R and R-27T + smaller numbers of R-73 & R-60 from Russian AF stocks.

http://www.harpia-publishing.com/?q=nod ... iew=detail

[boilermaker]

That's often the case with lazy reporters; don't bother fact-checking, just hit the magic retweet button. Boom, report done.
Kind of reminds me how Solomon (yes, he again) reposted a "story" from Fars that Israelis sent a squadron of fightersm a couple of EW planes and a couple of tankers to Saudi Arabia or some sh*t. Fact check much?
Speaking of the devil, just went to check what he posted on this, and yep. He jumped the "-9X is sh*t " train as well.

That's funny since the F-35 is terrible since it doesn't have 9X internal

I thought the F35 was the only one with full 9X cueing capability internal or external. Block II has lock on after launch capability.

Does the Super Hornet really carry the 9X? The F22 just barely got wired to carry it but not yet cueing capable. In any case it cannot use its full cueing capabilities. Again, talking about BlockII, which is quite different than Block I in terms of aiming.