*** Posted by TIGER ***
Hi RUN
The Cobra maneuver can be used to make an opponent to overshoot and to disappear from the radar screen due to Doppler effect. Am I right?
Do you think you can find another use for The Cobra maneuver ?
How you compare in terms of maneuvrability Su-27 and F-16?
TIGER

*** Posted by Run ***
[Hi RUN
The Cobra maneuver can be used to make an opponent to overshoot and to disappear from the radar screen due to Doppler effect. Am I right?
Do you think you can find another use for The Cobra maneuver ?
How you compare in terms of maneuvrability Su-27 and F-16?
TIGER
]

Look cool at airshows.

The flanker would only disappear from the radar for a short while and most modern radars would be able to pick it up again.
If the Flanker uses the cobra maneuver in a dogfight it would be a sitting duck afterwards until it gains speed, so maybe not so smart a move. I don't know if they would use it.

Flanker vs F-16 speeks for itself.

RUN

*** Posted by Rapier ***
[Hi RUN
The Cobra maneuver can be used to make an opponent to overshoot and to disappear from the radar screen due to Doppler effect. Am I right?
Do you think you can find another use for The Cobra maneuver ?
How you compare in terms of maneuvrability Su-27 and F-16?
TIGER
]

Hi Tiger,

The Cobra does look cool at airshows but dont let this manuver fool you. It gives the illusion that it will make an attacking fighter overshoot. A pilot who's chasing could probably tell when the SU is going to do this but the speed loss is so great that it would leave the SU in a very bad situation because the plane is litrally hanging in the air for you to take pot shot's at it either with cannon or an AIM missle. I have never beleived this manuver is good although it looks impresive.

I dont think the Cobra was designed as an air to air combat manuver, I just think it was designed to test how far the thrust vectoring system could be pushed as it was invented by a famous russian test pilot. The cobra can only be performed at a certain speed so if an attacking pilot was to hang back slightly and predict when the manuver is performed it would be an easy target.

Dont get me wrong I think the SU-27 is great and if you compare the SU and F16 well this is a tough question. The SU-27 has massive power plants giving it awsome power but it needs this because of it's weight because it is an all metal aircraft so it's heavier than the F-16. The SU-27 is probably better at manuverability but the F-16 has superior avionics.

Hope this helps

Rapier

It is possible for the Cobra to be useful in dogfight, but the conditions have to be so exact that it doesn't seem realistic to me to be thinking about it during a dogfights.

run what do u mean that the Su f-16 speaks for itself?

Surely they have their advantages over each other in pure ACM envioment. I would fancy the viper in the 450-550 knot regime and the Su at lower end of the flight envalope.

At high altitude the SU-27 will outperform the F-16 in a dogfight. At low altitude I would put my money on the F-16. The SU-27 like the F-15 is more a long range killer than a dog fighter.

The guy who designed the Su-27, Simonov is a world-renowned scientist, his contribution to the advancement of aerospace technology is recognised from Russia tu the US. One of his fields of reserch, before he worked in the design of military aircraft was "wing in ground effect" and glideres. The Su 27 has engines taht can change the way they are pushing the aircraft, just like the F-22, but 20 years before it.

No doubt about the SU-27 being an impressive aircraft for its time. Dogfights are not that likely in today's scenarios, so technology/ability to fight beyond visual range is what is going to determine the outcome of future air battles, and in that respect the west is in far advance.

That may be true, but I don`t know wht makes you so sure that the "west" is so far ahead.
The US may be, but UE is not...i think the EF is 4+ generation, not five, and it`s not being produced. I don`t now what BVR will be for stelth fighters, as useing them would give them away, but for now I haven`t heard of a real fight with Su27`s and fighters from US(or Israel). The Su-27 has electro-optical devices for targets as far as 40 Km(not dogfight range) and it`s termical signature is low.

>>"I don`t now what BVR will be for stelth fighters, as useing them would give them away"<<

Careful.

1.  The F-22 radar is very frequency agile, has very high bandwidth, has very very narrow beams with almost no side lobes, and uses very unusual waveforms.  It is a very low probability of intercept (LPI) design.  So the F-22 can actively transmit without "giving itself away".  The B-2 stealth bomber also uses very low LPI radars and comm gear.

2.  The F-18E is just now getting a similar radar, and the F-16E us supposed to get one too.  The F-18E has a couple of advantages relative to the F-16E on this score.  First off, in it's redesign from the C/D to the E/F, the F-18 nose and surrounding structure was specifically optimized for the new radar.  The F-18E/F also has much more powerful electric generators to power this new high power radar.  And during the redesign, the F-18E/F got a lot of stealth treatment in the forward aspect.  The F-16E with it's conformal tanks and avionics pods has INcreased rather than decreased it's forward aspect radar cross section (RCS).  In a BVR engagement, having an active elecronically scanned array (AESA) radar is a BIG advantage.  Having reduced forward aspect RCS is also a big advantage.  Having both is even a bigger advantage.

3.  Even if two aircraft have identical old style radars, but one aircraft is stealthy and the other is not, the stealthy aircraft has a HUGE advantage.  He can not only detect his opponent first, but can track and launch on his opponent way before his opponent can.

are you a guy or girl?

a guy

The SU-27 has its advantages, and I think that in a combat situation between the SU-27 and the F-16 the SU will probably be victorious. But the SU-27 also has its flaws. Most of them (like the thrust in comparison over its weight and its form) was fixed in the making of the SU-37 SuperFlanker. The SuperFlanker would probably be a good matchup with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet these days. But in a private view of the matter I think putting up aircraft in a physical matchup would not be fair. The machines has to be more and less on the same scale, but I think that its due to the pilots training and where he/she was trained that gives a difference.

You can't compare the F-22 to anything, currently there is no aircraft like it. It would probably not be involved in dogfights that easily and long range is the most effective these days.

As for the Cobra maneuver, it is not involved in any tactics and is simply a way to show the power of the Flanker and SuperFlanker's engines and flexibility.
When this maneuver is performed most of the body of the aircraft is in sight and for a few seconds it is an easy target for an enemy aircraft.
But it can have its advantages. When being followed by an enemy aircraft this maneuver with help the pilot to reduce speed rapidly.

For more information about the Cobra maneuver go to this URL: http://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/RAFAQ/cobra.html