Su-37 Terminator

Sunny

That stall trick is amazing

Another good one, Sunny.... thanks...

Charles

Nice inside loop. I only wonder though about how angular that design looks on radar. Pretty "sparkley" I bet.

Nice airshow tricks, aside from that its Raptor bait!

FLYBOYJ said:

Nice airshow tricks, aside from that its Raptor bait!

Click to expand...

Thats what I think too but I want a educated counter-point..

The Russians aren't stupid... and they never over-design.

what are they thinking?

all the pretty tricks in the world wont fool a missile. Perhaps they're just trying to impress the export market so they can make more money?

.

comiso90 said:

Thats what I think too but I want a educated counter-point..

The Russians aren't stupid... and they never over-design.

what are they thinking?

all the pretty tricks in the world wont fool a missile. Perhaps they're just trying to impress the export market so they can make more money?

.

Click to expand...

Bingo!

I've heard several different arguments about this one, ever since the famous (infamous?) "Cobra" maneuver at Le Bourgte in 1989; the bottom line is that the aircraft is in a near-zero state of energy, even with it's 30,000lbs.+ engines. In any universe, this is a bad place to be in when you're in combat with an enemy aircraft. More likely, it's a "stunt" manoeuver; even the aircraft's pilot, Viktor Pugachev, more or less said so: "Western commentators immediately assumed this to be a valid combat manoeuvre, signifying pointability for a missle shot, and also a means of forcing an overshoot in a close combat situation. As the present writer is on record as saying at the time, no spatial displacement was evident, therefore the Cobra could not be used to avoid a missle shot, while if the attacker was in gun range, all it did was to present the largest possible planform target. Of course, if the attacker was close, the most likely outcome was a mid-air collision! This notwithstanding, a great deal of rubbish eventually found its way into print on the subject. What was the truth? Some seven years later, the writer questioned Sukhoi test pilot Eugene Frolov. His answers were unequivocal: For my first Cobra I was given priority for the rear seat in a two-seater flown by Mr. (Viktor) Pugachev. For the pilot it is quite easy; you pull back on the stick before switching off the FBW (and with the angle of attack limiter), so there's no great problem. I first flew the Cobra in public at Le Bourget in 1989. At first we regarded this manoeuvre as a showpiece, but as we thought more and more about combat requirements (inspired by Western comments) we started to improve and refine it.

There ya go! As stated before, my father in law said he'd take one of those guys out in a F-106 with it's "half assed gun" if they tried to pull that crap in front of him!