USAF pilot critiques Red Flag action

[ATFS_Crash]

Not that wargames are entirely accurate like many seem to think. Though they can be useful and thought provoking. Remember which ever side of the fence you’re on, never take anything for granted and never underestimate a potential enemy.

F-15 pilot opinion about the SU-30 MKI at Red Flag

New working links
Indo-US Red Flag Air Force Exercise Lecture 2008 Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEa-R37PeU

Indo-US Red Flag Air Force Exercise Lecture 2008 Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibgAQ7lv0w

Old Bad/broke links
part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRIr2ak2IM0

part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBEfUUoUC4k

[SpudmanWP]

Damn... I wish he could have expounded on the F-35 at the end.

Great vid.

[Guysmiley]

28 deg/s sustained @ 20,000 ft for the F-22?

[ATFS_Crash]

28 deg/s sustained @ 20,000 ft for the F-22?

I’m an old fuddy-duddy but that’s a cat that I would just assume stay in the bag/OPSEC.

Perhaps the statement is meant to be misleading, it could turn 28° sec, but perhaps that’s not the maximum.

Either way I still think it’s saying a little much. But then I’m not in the loop and I’m an old-timer.

The guy seems to know what he’s talking about for the most part but seems to make some glowing errors. Perhaps as part of the PR game.

Still a very interesting video

[tmofarrvl]

For me, the comment made about French participation in Red Flag (in Part 2 of the video) was yet another enlightening moment:

Ninety percent of the time they followed the Indians in, and when the Indians shot, or got shot, or whatever, the French took a shot and left. And they never really came to any merges.

Nice to know who's got your back.

[tmofarrvl]

I’m an old fuddy-duddy but that’s a cat that I would just assume stay in the bag/OPSEC.

I have to agree on that one. Does anyone know how this video was released? Sounds as if it might have been leaked.

[SpudmanWP]

In the video, the pilot specifically states that any info he releases re: F-22 has already been released in Janes Magazine.

[Guysmiley]

Exactly, he didn't say what the MAX turn rate was, but that the F-22 can sustain 28 degrees/sec, which is pretty dang sweet. He said basically that the wet behind the ears pilots would decide even THAT wasn't enough and they'd bog down the jet by yanking for even more. That's pretty impressive.

[ATFS_Crash]

In the video, the pilot specifically states that any info he releases re: F-22 has already been released in Janes Magazine.

Just because something is referenced in a public source doesn’t mean that it has been cleared for release or is accurate. Janes often guesses (uses ballpark figures). One of the tactics spies have a history of using is to quote a figure that is a guess, and then listen closely as experts correct them with more exact figures (a fishing trip). So one must be careful that they are not verifying information that was not cleared for release, or verifying educated bluffs/estimates.

During some of the early F-22 testing some of the test figures were released at the top speed for the test was something like1.2 M. So some of the flanker fanatics assumed that that was the top speed or played dumb and criticized the F-22 for being slow; for some it was just plain ignorance for the smarter and more dubious it was a tactic to try to gild/tease more accurate information out of people in the know. Similar things can be said about the turning radius, weight, range, RCS, wing loading, etc…

Even things that are in the public domain can become classified. During World War II nuclear physics students were openly speculating on building a nuclear bomb, after government decided to build a nuclear bomb it put a gag request on all schools and students and other professionals in the field; and asked them not to discuss any details or even publicly speculate, hypothesize, or theorize on a nuclear bomb.

[biffbutkus]

Not that wargames are entirely accurate like many seem to think. Though they can be useful and thought provoking. Remember which ever side of the fence you’re on, never take anything for granted and never underestimate a potential enemy.

F-15 pilot opinion about the SU-30 MKI at Red Flag


part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRIr2ak2IM0

part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBEfUUoUC4k

Fascinating stuff

[F16guy]

Skins is a great guy.
Talk your ear off for hours about all the stuff he's done.

It was a local media and DV event at Nellis. Nothing Classified.

[tmofarrvl]

Skins is a great guy.
Talk your ear off for hours about all the stuff he's done.

It was a local media and DV event at Nellis. Nothing Classified.

Thanks for the insight. It's good to know that this was planned as a media event, and not a briefing for internal use only. A lot of briefings - while not classified - are not intended for outside consumption.

[cobzz]

Hello;

It's Cobzz here, or as my Youtube name is, "Arnaage". Although the free advertising for my account was nice, I decided to delete the video; apparently many people thought it reflected badly on the United States Air Force. Obviously that is something that I see as unacceptable, whether I, or you, agree with it or not. Furthermore, you have no idea about the amount of personal attacks I have received - although I have more videos, I am sure not going to upload anything, ever, again.

If you must view the video, search for "IAF lecture" on youtube. It is on another users account who stumbled onto the same video.

Thanks.

In retrospect, had I of seen this thread earlier, it would likely of stayed up.

[ATFS_Crash]

Thanks for your post Cobzz. I’m sorry you decided to remove the videos for because of personal attacks. Regrettably it appeared to degrade into the typical flanker fanatics flameing the F-22 and Americans comments. They seem to be nothing but ignorant trolls, and haters; I usually block anyone like that.

My opinions that I expressed here about possible security concerns was not meant to be critical of you. Like I said I am officially out of the loop and only offering my personal opinion of concern as a semi-ignorant private citizen.


New working links
Indo-US Red Flag Air Force Exercise Lecture 2008 Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEa-R37PeU

Indo-US Red Flag Air Force Exercise Lecture 2008 Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibgAQ7lv0w

[Asif]

Interesting read.

USAF Pilot Critiques Red Flag Action

Nov 5, 2008
David A. Fulghum and Graham Warwick

Indian pilots flying Su-30MKIs are extremely professional, but they're still learning how to best fight with their new aircraft.

That opinion comes from an unidentified, senior F-15 pilot taped while briefing senior retired U.S. Air Force officers about the most recent Red Flag exercise. The video was made available online at YouTube.com.

The French pilots flying the new Dassault Rafale appeared to be there to collect electronic intelligence on the Indian aircraft, contends the USAF pilot, who wears an Air Force Weapons School graduate patch.

The French were originally going to bring the older Mirage 2000-5 until they discovered the Indians were bringing their new Su-30MKIs, the pilot says. They then switched and brought their Rafales with more sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment.

Once at Red Flag, "90 percent of the time they followed the Indians so when they took a shot or got shot" they would take a quick shot of their own and then leave," he said. "They never came to any merges," which starts the dogfighting portion of any air-to-air combat. He asserts that French pilots followed the same procedure during Desert Storm and Peace Keeping exercises. When U.S. aircrews were flying operations, the French would fly local sorties while "sucking up all the trons" to see how U.S. electronics, like radars, worked, according to the pilot.

He praised the Indians as extremely professional and said they had no training rule violations. However, they "killed a lot of friendlies" because they were tied to a Russian-made data link system that didn't allow them to see the picture of the battlefield available to everyone else. The lack of combat identification of the other aircraft caused confusion.

But the U.S. apparently isn't ignorant of the Su-30MKI's radar either.

The Su-30 electronically scanned radar is not as accurate as the U.S.-built active electronically scanned radar carried by the F-22 and some F-15s. Also, "it paints less, sees less" and is not as discriminating.

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.

Against the much larger RCS Su-30MKI, the F-16s and F-15s won consistently during the first three days of air-to-air combat, he continues. However, that was the result of trying to immediately go into a post-stall, thrust-vectored turn when attacked. The turn then creates massive drag and the aircraft starts sinking and losing altitude. "It starts dropping so fast you don't have to go vertical [first]. The low-speed tail slide allowed the U.S. aircraft to dive from above and "get one chance to come down to shoot," the pilot says. "You go to guns and drill his brains out." The Su-30 is jamming your missiles so...you go to guns and drill his brains out."

U.S. pilots conclude that the Su-30MKI is "not [an F-22] Raptor," he further says. "That was good for us to find out." But when the Indian pilots really learn to fight their new aircraft - "they were too anxious to go to the post-stall maneuver," he says-- the USAF pilot predicts that they would regularly defeat the F-16C Block 50 and the F-15C with conventional radar.

A final weakness in the Su-30MKI was its engine's vulnerability to foreign object damage which required them to space takeoffs a minute apart and slowed mission launches.

For commentary on this item and embedded video at our Ares blog, click here.

source: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... g%20Action