Brother US still denies that Su-27UB and F-15B did a dogfight in 1992.
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One big thing is extreme altitude performance, ramjet on meteor will not work past a certain altitude while conventional AAM has no problems. Also, the whole rocket motor thrust at altitude thing
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… they did?
Who won?
Well. Actually, since I don’t know about it, I assume the Su-27UB won by a wild margin.
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It’s a rumor, it was a goodwill meetup at Langley right after the Cold War, new beginnings and all that
I see.
I did know about the Russian Knights performing in the U.S, but I never heard of any dogfighting.
In US. It’s weird that Russian pilots even knew the name of a US representative that sat in a seond seat of Su-27UB, right? Another cool part is when US escort literally abandoned Su-27 that had both engine shut-off because it was fueled by fuel with less density and US wanted to fly at 13km to save fuel. Su-27UB was gliding down 10 km until engines were able to restart at around 3km of altitude. While US ecort just flew away without a single care in the world
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What do you want them to do, go over to the Su-27 and start the engines themselves?
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Yeah just hit the F-15’s burner directly into the Su-27’s intakes to force the engines to start spinning.
That will work great.
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At least be in the area. Or abandoning people in troubles is a US approved strategy?
A student pilot in a Cessna is taught to be able to safely find a place to land in the event of an engine failure at an altitude of about 1km.
I’m sure a Su-27 pilot could do it gliding down from 13km
Su-27 isn’t a Cessna and can’t simply pick a place to land, expecially in a different country. Ecort was literally there to guide Su-27s. They failed their duties and they weren’t even punished for that
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As @GitGood said, Landing a Flanker would probably be slightly harder to land than a Cessna. Plus any damages would cost a LOT more.
Also, If the F-15 was there specifically to escort the Su-27, and abandoned them after an engine failure, it doesn’t seem like a very good escort…
When did this even happen anyways, I can’t find anything about it
maybe deviating from flight plan was considered worse
They have 13x the altitude and time to find a place to land as well as a far longer gliding range
From the words of one of the Su-27 pilots he literally asked F-15s to not abandon them and to send the crash coordinates to the rescue team if they wouldn’t be able to restart engines
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That would probably be the main issue.
Flankers are REALLY Big. So you would need much more space than a Cessna.
Assuming this is related to the Langley afb meetup, there are 3-5 public airports per 1000 square miles in that region of the US
This is not counting private airstrips
Stopping distance of Su-27 is quite short with parachute so every public airport in the region should be able to handle it, and the majority of private ones as well
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While it is obviously true that ramjets need sufficient oxygen in the air to function, it is not entirely clear how much of a problem that poses in practice.
Astra Mk 3 (a ramjet missile very similar in design to Meteor - almost the same dimensions and general layout) claims a max launch range of 340 km, when launched at an altitude of 20 km (it’s maximum launch altitude). So it almost certainly lofts to an altitude a fair bit above 20 km, without much problem.
Bayern-Chemie also say they have tested Meteor’s motor at altitudes up to “about 30 km”, though they (unsurprisingly) don’t say how the motor performed at that altitude.
So between what is known about those two missiles, it seems likely that ramjet missiles have a max flight altitude somewhere between 20 to 30 km, probably in the 25 - 30 km range when you account for lofting.
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Ah yes, the moment where a minute and a half is 100s. Perfect
“About”
You’d be surprised, Kh-31PD only tops out at around 50000ft. It may very well cruise at 20km, maybe 25km, or even drop to a lower altitude
For Astra, meteor is used as the bottom end of size/weight estimates
France uses both dual-pulse (which is what China’s PL-15 uses) on their MICA-NG which is supposed to be mass-produced for cheap (for use on ships, air, and ground) while using ramjet for their own domestic air to ground ASMP missile and co-developed Meteor missile, as well as the future Stratus-RS.
The fact is that missiles that are supposed to be mass-produced in significant numbers, which is what the US and Chinese prioritize for future conflicts, do tend towards using cheaper methods such as dual-pulse while the missiles that are of higher importance and focused on penetrating defenses as well as targeting high-value targets are using ramjets. When you look at a country like France that is using and developing both dual-pulse and ramjet, the narratives you’re stating doesn’t make any sense.
Important expensive missiles = Ramjet
Cheap mass-produced missiles = Dual pulse
And using China/US as a measurement of whether or not how good something is, is faulty. PL-10 and AIM-9X Block 1 doesn’t have datalink while MICA-IR does. Does this mean datalink isn’t important? Or is it because the US and China are focusing on cheap mass-production?