PAK FA vs F-22A

I heard this too (Red Flag 2008 results), but of course the Indians said differently.

The IAF for the most part just gave diplomatic responses along the lines of "it was a great learning experience for pilots on both sides." There were some Indian journalists who claimed that the MKIs dominated but they didn't provide any direct quotes. Obviously, the USAF and IAF are going to be very diplomatic in their comments.

I think what's great about Colonel Fornoff's remarks is that they were in a very candid setting as opposed to a press briefing and he wasn't using any filter. The video probably wasn't meant for public consumption and I'm sure he got into a little bit of trouble for his comments. He wasn't part of the exercise but surely he knew people who were. As an experienced fighter pilot, he has more knowledge about these things than most.

He didn't claim that the MKI was a bad jet. In fact he acknowledged that it was a little bit better than the F-15 and F-16. He also said that the Indians would get much better results once they learned how to fly the jet (a lot of the IAF pilots at the time were relatively inexperienced in the MKI). He also acknowledged the troubles that USAF pilots had against upgraded IAF MiG-21s so it wasn't just a big gloat fest....it seemed like he was giving a genuine appraisal.

Cope India results I dismiss given the ridiculous ROE's, but getting the real truth is difficult. What is clear is that advanced Flankers are a serious threat, with most pilots I've spoken to (F-15C pilots) saying that it's going to come down to the pilot. And to me, that's concerning. It seemed like during the 1980's our teen series held very obvious advantages over the Mig-21, 23, 25 threat and once the Mig-29/SU-27 emerged, those advantages were now much less.

The F-teens have faced MiG-29s plenty of times. On every single occasion, the F-teens were victorious. The -29 has many losses and zero wins vs. the F-teens. The new Flankers are certainly an upgrade capability but it's not like the US military hasn't been preparing for this threat.

Because we truncated the F-22 buy, air superiority is no longer guaranteed. Sure, I think it'll ultimately be achieved but at a much higher cost.

We truncated the F-22 buy but remind me how many Su-35s the Russians have? According to Wikipedia, it's about 68 although more are going to be built. The USAF has 180+ Raptors, hundreds of upgraded F-15Cs and also upgraded F-16s. Now the F-35 is really starting to ramp up as well.

It's not just about the aircraft....the supporting infrastructure is just as important. How many electronic warfare aircraft do they have? How many AWACS aircraft? How many tankers?

The Indians have made clear that the maintenance of their Russian aircraft has been much more difficult compared to their Western aircraft (they have had a much easier time maintaining their Mirages as compared to their Flankers and Fulcrums). In an actual war, this will have a huge impact on the outcome.

I just hate seeing our country send to war pilots in machines with no clear cut advantages.

I agree that with the latest upgraded Flankers, the Russians are starting to narrow the gap. This is why it is vital to procure the F-35 in sufficient quantities. There are a number of critics in the media who seem to think upgrading the F-16s an F-15s should be enough to maintain the United States' edge. I think we can agree that this won't be enough.

Or at least a lot of them. Hopefully, the F-35 will bring us back to a qualitative edge. I do think it's going to revolutionize air warfare. I think this time, it's going to happen...

I think the F-35 will bring about a major advantage. The program certainly had some problems along the way but it looks like most of the major hurdles have been cleared. There is every reason to believe that thousands of them will be built in the coming years. All other 5th gen programs are in their very early stages.

"We truncated the F-22 buy but remind me how many Su-35s the Russians have?"

Yes, I'll concede they're only producing a hundred or so. I'm not so concerned about a US vs Russia standoff as I am a US vs. China scenario. The Chinese have taken delivery of their first SU-35's and we all know how they'll license produce (or not, lol) Russian hardware. If it comes down to a PLAF SU-35 and an American Super Hornet, the advantages favoring the SH aren't obvious to me. That in and of itself is concerning, but I guess it's not 1987 anymore, and we'll make sure Raptors are nearby.

I hope

"We truncated the F-22 buy but remind me how many Su-35s the Russians have?"

Yes, I'll concede they're only producing a hundred or so. I'm not so concerned about a US vs Russia standoff as I am a US vs. China scenario. The Chinese have taken delivery of their first SU-35's and we all know how they'll license produce (or not, lol) Russian hardware. If it comes down to a PLAF SU-35 and an American Super Hornet, the advantages favoring the SH aren't obvious to me. That in and of itself is concerning, but I guess it's not 1987 anymore, and we'll make sure Raptors are nearby.

I hope

The super hornet will be flown by a highly trained naval aviator. The Chinese fighter will be flown by a hack, who was selected for his family and or political reliability.

Ironically the best pilots who are the blue collar nobodies get the "bad fighters" and all the "prince's " do their minimal hours in the good fighters.

All my info is based on talking with P-3 guys who get very antsy when the lesser trained flankers take up escort positions.


There are some interesting notions floating around out there about the Chinese and their air tactics, harkens back to the USSR stuff we used to hear

The Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than the PLAAF Flankers and a superior radar. It has AMRAAM and AIM-9X and JHMCS. It should also have the backing of Growlers and a good AWACS platform. Certainly the Chinese are narrowing the gap but the Navy and AF still have qualitative edge. The advantage should increase with the wide scale introduction of the F-35.

The Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than the PLAAF Flankers and a superior radar. It has AMRAAM and AIM-9X and JHMCS. It should also have the backing of Growlers and a good AWACS platform. Certainly the Chinese are narrowing the gap but the Navy and AF still have qualitative edge. The advantage should increase with the wide scale introduction of the F-35.

They also have NIFC CA/SM-6 for targets outside of AIM-120 range.

The Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than the PLAAF Flankers and a superior radar. It has AMRAAM and AIM-9X and JHMCS. It should also have the backing of Growlers and a good AWACS platform. Certainly the Chinese are narrowing the gap but the Navy and AF still have qualitative edge. The advantage should increase with the wide scale introduction of the F-35.

The Super Hornet may have a smaller RCS than the Flanker while flying "clean". Yet, they never do under combat conditions. So, I don't see that aspect as a benefit.....

The Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than the PLAAF Flankers and a superior radar. It has AMRAAM and AIM-9X and JHMCS. It should also have the backing of Growlers and a good AWACS platform. Certainly the Chinese are narrowing the gap but the Navy and AF still have qualitative edge. The advantage should increase with the wide scale introduction of the F-35.

The Super Hornet may have a smaller RCS than the Flanker while flying "clean". Yet, they never do under combat conditions. So, I don't see that aspect as a benefit.....

An armed Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than a clean Flanker.

The Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than the PLAAF Flankers and a superior radar. It has AMRAAM and AIM-9X and JHMCS. It should also have the backing of Growlers and a good AWACS platform. Certainly the Chinese are narrowing the gap but the Navy and AF still have qualitative edge. The advantage should increase with the wide scale introduction of the F-35.

The Super Hornet may have a smaller RCS than the Flanker while flying "clean". Yet, they never do under combat conditions. So, I don't see that aspect as a benefit.....

An armed Super Hornet has a smaller RCS than a clean Flanker.

Do you have a source to support that???

" the advantages favoring the SH aren't obvious to me. That in and of itself is concerning,

here are the words of a Rhino pilot regarding that question:

“Any of the Sukhoi products (‘Flanker’ series), it would be pretty fun to turn with those guys and see what they can do. We’re definitely not going to keep up with those guys in drag race, but it would be nice to mix it up in the BFM environment.”

“The biggest advantage the Super Hornet would have against the ‘Flanker’ would be the pilot-machine interface. I mean that was great on the Hornet, but even better on the new aircraft. It fuses your radar information, your link information, all the different sources are brought together for the pilot. This is combined with the HOTAS capability, allowing you to do anything pretty much. There isn’t voice control though and I don’t know if there are any plans to integrate that. But I’m pretty happy with the way the interface is now.”

https://hushkit.net/2012/07/13/hushkit- ... inal-word/

To me another big advantage the Navy has with their Hornets would be numbers. The VVS has what, 200+ Su-27s about 100 Su-30s and Su-35s. While the navy has close to 500 Rhinos alone, not counting Legacy and Growlers that will also act as support assets.

I'm pretty comfortable with the USNs abaility to beat down any opponent single handedly.

Doc. Kopp, a famous Australian fanboy of Sukhoi jets, had a ride on F/A-18F in 2001.

This maneuver, the pirouette, obviously astonished him:

According to him, the most significant advantage of Superbug is BFM:

http://ausairpower.net/SuperBug.html
"Flying the Pirouette
The pirouette manoeuvre was developed at the request of operational pilots, as a high alpha low speed reversal, akin in its purpose to the classical yo-yo. In a high yo-yo, the pilot unloads in a tight turn, climbing and decelerating, then rolls 90 degrees and pulls through 180 degrees to reverse direction, leaving the aircraft pointing at the target with an altitude advantage. The pirouette is an in-plane reversal manoeuvre which resembles a conventional stall turn or hammerhead in a piston aircraft.
...
In a low speed post-merge manoeuvring fight...the Super Hornet will be a very difficult opponent for any current Russian fighter, even the Su-27/30...a much more experienced pilot will be required for the Russian types to match the ease with which the Super Hornet handles high alpha flight regimes..."

I'll concede the SH is great at high alpha, but the SU-35 looks to be at least its equal, if not moreso. What concerns me more is the Flankers speed advantage over the SH, something the SH driver acknowledged. So if they're similar performing machines at low speed and the Flanker holds the edge in acceleration/straight line speed....

I hope the SH's radar/AMRAAM combo can take the SU-35 out BVR. That's not a given though, and the platforms seem very evenly matched WVR. Not like the old days when F-14's held clear advantages over the SU-22's and Mig-23's it handily dispatched. Hopefully, we'll never have to find out!

I'll concede the SH is great at high alpha, but the SU-35 looks to be at least its equal, if not moreso.
What concerns me more is the Flankers speed advantage over the SH, something the SH driver acknowledged. So if they're similar performing machines at low speed and the Flanker holds the edge in acceleration/straight line speed....

In order for the Su-35 to be "an equal" compared to the SH at high alpha the Su-35 needs to have TVC engines. Without TVC I would say that the Su-35 is inferior to the SH at high alpha.
I'm not sure how many Su-35's will actually be equipped with TVC engines and how many will be equipped with non-TVC engines.
However TVC is not an "end all - win all" solution (or else every modern fighter aircraft would be equipped with TVC which is clearly not the case). TVC also has it's own drawbacks such as making the aircraft losing more energy when performing those high alpha maneuvers compared with a SH performing those same high alpha maneuvers (since the SH doesn't have TVC engines and as such the energy loss would be less). TVC engines also increase the aircraft's weight (in the case of the Su-35 not by much but by something, that's for sure).
So and as I said above, it's quite possible that the Su-35 ends up loosing more energy when performing high alpha maneuvers compared to the Super Hornet which means that the SH could still have the advantage here.

I hope the SH's radar/AMRAAM combo can take the SU-35 out BVR. That's not a given though, and the platforms seem very evenly matched WVR. Not like the old days when F-14's held clear advantages over the SU-22's and Mig-23's it handily dispatched. Hopefully, we'll never have to find out!

That's an unfair comparison. The F-14 is a 4th generation fighter aircraft while the Su-22 and Mig-23 are 3rd generation.
In the case of the SH and Su-35 both are 4.5th generation fighter aircraft. It's obvious that the SH and Su-35 are much more evenly matched compared to the F-14 Vs Su-22/Mig-23 and that's perhaps one of the reasons why the F-35, namely the F-35C when speaking about the US Navy is being developed and fielded, right?

TVC is a nice to have as the F-22 and Russian fighters show but it is not essential for ACM. It does however mean though that their opponents should avoid the slow speed regime where these high AoA TVC effects really come into play. However in slow speed mock combat none of the TVC fighters have proved invincible although they definitely have the edge but more importantly the consistent trend for the last few decades has been for combat to become more BVR so legacy F-16s would benefit more from AESA updates than TVC ones. The F-35 also has pretty mean high AoA maneouvering without needing TVC so the Russian advantage will not be so great against the most common US fighter going forward once F-35 starts replacing F-16. Finally the PCA looks like it won't have a tail for long wave stealth reasons so it will need 3D TVC if it's planning to turn tighter than a B-2/B-21 .

Do you have a source to support that???

A clean Flanker has an RCS in the 15 to 20m^2 range. As soon as you start hanging ordnance, it just gets worse. A clean Super Hornet has an RCS in the .5 to .1m^2 range. In an A2A configuration, a Super Hornet could easily stay in the 5 to 10m^2 range (and likely smaller.)

I'll concede the SH is great at high alpha, but the SU-35 looks to be at least its equal, if not moreso. What concerns me more is the Flankers speed advantage over the SH, something the SH driver acknowledged. So if they're similar performing machines at low speed and the Flanker holds the edge in acceleration/straight line speed....

I hope the SH's radar/AMRAAM combo can take the SU-35 out BVR. That's not a given though, and the platforms seem very evenly matched WVR. Not like the old days when F-14's held clear advantages over the SU-22's and Mig-23's it handily dispatched. Hopefully, we'll never have to find out!

Due to the difference in radar performance, and RCS, the Super Hornet should have first look, first shoot advantages over Flankers.