You mean Falcon Strike 2015?
Yes, Chinese pilots were found to be rather deficient when it came to situational awareness especially in BVR combat, and Falcon Strike 2015 served as a harsh lesson which led to major reforms within the PLAAF regarding pilot training, creation of DACT exercises such as Golden Helmet, and moving to realism-based approach rather than just fixed scenarios.
Though to be fair, the participating Chinese fighters were J-11As, which were fitted with the old N001 radar, RWR, and R-77s. The Thai Gripens had access to a better radar, lower radar-cross section, and the AIM-120. So losing in BVR is not really a surprise anyway. J-11A had the advantage in WVR because of R-73 while the Thai Gripens were using AIM-9L.
Also it’s interesting to see the Chinese assessment of the Gripen to have “quite strong” sustained turn performance, while the Flankers has “strong” sustained turn performance. The Flanker in the other hand is noted to have “average” instantaneous turn performance versus “strong” instantaneous turn performance on the Gripen.
Reportedly, J-10As which were used in future Falcon Strike did much better than the J-11A, and later China brought fighters such as J-10C, and even J-11BG in Falcon Strike 2024, so it’s pretty clear that China views this exercise as being very important.
It doesn’t say that at all. The Swiss study still puts the Gripen E/NG as the worst compared to upgraded Eurofighter/Rafales. It simply was saying that the Gripen E/NG had the most numerous upgrades, but those upgrades still did not put it on par with the Rafale/Eurofighter. If anything, it’s saying that the Gripen C was abysmal.
The J-11 was hampered by single target lock and firing for RVV-AE for BVR, made worse by the early systems dating back to the 80s Su-27’s.
The Gripen-C on the other hand had much better modern avionics and RWR. The Gripen also had access to electronic warfare features such as “ghost-style lure” whatever that implies. They also had night vision whereas the Chinese did not.
A combination of factors resulted in the loss of the Su-27’s in BVR conditions. It can be expected that the WVR performance was supported mostly by the helmet mounted cueing system and off-boresight capability of the Su-27. The Gripen obviously lighter than the Su-27 is more nimble and has better instant turn performance at higher speeds - worse at lower. The sustained turn rate on average is better than the Su-27 but as we know - worse when the Su-27 has shed some of the fuel mass.
Overall, not a good situation and it has very much been remedied since with the incorporation of modern J-11B, J-15, J-16 into the Chinese air and naval forces. The implementation of modernized J-10’s, and the J-20 support the remaining vacancies in their doctrine for now.
Exactly, I’m surprised people are astonished that the j-11a lost at BVR. Like, if it was a bs or a b model with pl-15s, then I would be surprised. But, the j-11a doesnt even get pl-12s. Ofc it’s gonna lose, its basically a su27sk with r-77s.
The J-11 with PL-12’s would have lost too, it’s a 15-20m2 RCS plane going against one with a better radar that is also 1-1.5m2, maybe 2m2 when equipped with a full air to air load.
The difference in detection ranges alone give the Gripen first shot advantage, let alone the fact that it would still have multi-shot advantages over the Su-27.
Beyond all that, the Gripen had an internal jammer and a modern decoy available to them.
It has the worst overall performance. Overall performance = the ability to carry out multi-role missions (varied A2A missions, varied A2G missions, flight efficiency, electronics and so on…), there are several charts comparing the planes scores. What I posted is literally just the flight efficiency of a delta canard, nothing more. I limited myself to saying that’s the only thing it’s actually the best at because that’s what the study showed, lol
It’s just reading and understanding, there’s nothing to unravel here…
At least WR won’t be near 0% for beyond 50km, PL12 is much better at range compared to R77 and also J11B’s radar performance isn’t bad especially concerning that it is a 900mm radar.
To be fair, I wouldn’t consider Type 1493 to be a bad radar, if we’re talking about the J-11B. It’s an all-aspect improvement on the Type 1492 and common figures is > 150km search range against targets of 3-5 meters squared RCS, and engage six targets at the same time with PL-12.
Hey guys, I recently started researching the Russian tech tree. Which of the missing lines would you recommend I focus on, considering a potential future addition of the Su-30?