Su-30 vs F15,F16,F18

NOt many people see why the cobra maneuver is very practical, but when you think about it, it's very useful: pitching up suddenly in a banked turn and having the persuing aircraft fly right past.
 
Well the problem with the cobra is you bleed energy rapidly and in a dogfight that usually means death.
A bad guy on your six will probably have shot you already if you've had the time to realize you had someone on your six and should do the cobra manouver. It's faster to fire off a sidewinder or let off a burst of cannon fire than to pull off that kind of move.
Not to mention, if you do pull it off, you'll in the sight of the enemy while you do it, while you will lose sight of your enemy until your nose pitches down. Very dangerous.
 
There is a very easy way to defeat the Cobra; don't get close enough to your opponent for him to use it in the first place! As for the better aircraft, I would go with the latter three. They aren't "hyperaerobatic" fighters, but they are very technically advanced and flown by some of the best pilots on earth. A plane is only as good as it's pilot.
 
I would also trust the F-15, F-16 and F-18.

There's a lot of attributes of aircraft that aren't immidiately apparent just by reading raw data about it's G pulling ability.
 
Well it is better than the F-15, Maybe well yess the F-16, And maybe the F-18, Ive read that Indian SU-30's (sold to them by russia) Beat our F-15's in a wargame pretty bad...
 
The cobra enables the pilot to shoot backwards somewhat. So it *can* be useful, but if you're using it, you're pretty much screwed anyways.
 
Shoot backwards?
I remember they had an experiment on firing missiles backwards but it was never really reliable.
 
Seems like kind of a moot point in the age of Beyond Visual Range missile systems. The F15 equipped with that would be able to engage an Su-30 before the pilot even knew what was going on. But I believe the BVRAAM was designed for more current aircraft like the F22, EF2000, F35, etc. I'd still go with the US equipment over Russian.
 
Yup.
Often these Soviet Block aircraft have had their abilities grossly inflated.
The MiG 25 is one example.
The West were s***ing bricks when an Israeli F-4 failed to chase it but when a defector flew one of those things to Japan they realized it was a really lousy jet with a hideously high top speed.
 
that's a cool link. someone brought up the high cost of the F22 in international relations class last semester. they failed to realize that the production numbers have been cut drastically since it's beginning. so it only makes sense that each aircraft costs $152million per plane. same goes with the B2.
 
well maybe we can look at it as a conspiracist and say the reason the ATF program went $7 bil over the budget was to fund black projects and our new spy plane. or we could look at reality and say the planes were priced at X amount of dollars and since we kept updating the avionics, delaying the program, and lowering the production numbers, it was inevitable that they'd cost more. it's ironic that Congress was worried the program costs too much so they delayed it to evaluate the situation and cut production numbers when in fact it only made it more expensive :)
 
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