steve2267 wrote:For all youst real fighter pilots out there (maybe some simmer, not sure):
I understand that gun opportunities are fleeting... but when you take a gunshot... are you typically unloaded or lightly loaded? Or does it all just depend? Or is it just as likely that you are pulling max G (5g / 7g / 9g) at whatever part of the envelope in which you find yourself?
The reason I ask is... with CLmax for the F-35 occurring way up at 35º alpha... would that high nose attitude be an advantage, a hindrance, or "just depends" when trying to gun an opponent in a hard turn? If the gun solution requires such a nose high position that the bandit is below your canopy rail, even with the Sauron helmet... that would seem problematic?
Don't think your question was answered very well so I'll try and boil down why and how we train to employing the gun in BFM.
Generally speaking, all US fighter aircraft (F-15/-16/-18A-F/-22) all train to employ the AIM-120/-9X/Gun during BFM, whether that is perch BFM (offensive or defensive) or high aspect. The point of BFM is sight picture development and recognizing opportunities to employ a weapon to achieve a first shot, deny a first shot, or maintain or deny a positional advantage. I will stay somewhat vague here for reasons but generally speaking, BFM is not representative of how real life combat WVR air to air engagements will occur. Today, one can expect that if you survived to the merge, or had an unobserved entry to an advantageous merge because weapons effectiveness or ROE dictated you could not kill the adversary at range, then the the first valid employment post merge will likely result in the first kill, or even more like a mutual kill considering advancements in threat capabilities.
With this, BFM is still valuable because it will allow for you to take advantage of that fleeting first shot opportunity, but weapons do not have a 1.0Pk, so you have to be capable of continuing to maneuver your jet to gain and maintain the positional advantage. Assuming that fuel and overall threat environment allows, balancing that with your mission objective and a million other things, you could find yourself in a fully developed fight. This is where that sight picture development for where "launch acceptability regions" (LARs) that you develop in BFM comes to play.
The gun, in a fully developed fight is as useful and effective weapons as any other weapon if you know how and when to employ it. It can be used in a high aspect fight or if you have a positional advantage. However, employing the gun required the pilot to commit some form of a BFM error, which needs to be balanced with his overall position in the fight. Additionally, your question about heavily loaded or light loaded or high G over low G doesn't factor into if you will use the gun. It is all about angles and energy. GENERALLY speaking, most fights become low G fights after about the 2nd merge, missile defenses and max performance pulls for shots dictate as such.
For the F/A-18, the gun is canted at 2° up, which means in an "in-plane" or 2 circle fight, the amount of lead required to employ the gun is less than say an F-16s with is 0° gun can't. This however becomes detrimental when level with an adversary on the deck in weave or 1C fight where you now need to lower the nose considerably to employ it which means you now need to honor the deck. As with anything, there are trade-offs. The biggest thing to remember about the gun is if you are in the positional advantage, "snapshot" employments will present themselves frequently, you just have to ensure you recognize them early and plan them out so that you don't sacrifice your position for it.
Being able to "throw the nose around" is great, but it's more useful for gaining a high off-boresight shot rather than a gun employment. Believe it or not, nothing about the F-35s EM diagram or maneuvering capabilities are really that impressive to a Hornet pilot, I can do it all. Plus I have a gun that works that's not in a pod and I have -9x's that I don't have to worry about carrying because of RCS concerns. And believe me, that's important because I KNOW everyone sees me so I need every advantage I can get until we get to the merge. Then I'll eat you F-15s/-16s/-35s and yes even the occasional Raptor (that blows his load too soon at the first merge) alive.
25 Dec 2020, 22:00
