gross overstatement
When did I claim they were notoriously bad? I simply stated that it’s easily possible to utilise the Flanker’s ability to pull extreme AoA in game to it’s advantage to cut inside a circle and get rounds on target, a factor that you seem to openly neglect in all of your statements
I mean, the general consensus is that NATO airframes have better electronics while Russian airframes have better flight performance.
I don’t mean that literally… I mean the advantages they bring to the table in a dogfight are the same thing that the MiG-21s have in game already on F-4s for example. The Flanker should 1. Pull more AoA and 2. Do crazy post stall maneuvers but otherwise the FM should not be that great… it doesn’t have good engines for its weight irl and it has too much drag doing those turns to be useful for more than a few seconds.
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Not really, that is still a myth based on a few flight evaluations after the war, do you think that if this was truly the case, that NATO airframes would’ve adapted to be more like the russian counterparts to emulate their manoeuvrability, or just stayed the same or utilised better designs (like the Rafale and Eurofighter)?
Not at all the general consensus.
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I never said you claimed they’re notoriously bad. And I didn’t mention the ability to pull a ton because it isn’t something that saves the Flanker, it falls right out of the sky after doing it. It isn’t some ace up it’s sleeve. The flight model is a brick at high speeds and when you go to slow down to pull, it loses any energy retention, it isn’t good ingame. It has too much drag.
If you aren’t managing the stall correctly then yes, it will, because guess what, you have just stalled the aircraft (committing to a PSM which bleeds speed in favour of AoA), you have to ditch the nose before completing the full PSM in order not to bleed all of your speed like you are suggesting
so is the F-15 though?
Well, irl, NATO jets just opted to beat the aircraft with longer range missiles, you don’t even need super good maneuverability for a dogfight when you prevent it in the first place.
Not to the same extent, and atleast with the F-15, when you get to a speed when you pull more, you actually have energy retention, it’s just always beating the Su-27 in a dogfight.
I hate to break it to you, but the fighter mafia and the rest of the dribbling idiots following that ideology successfully made sure that they did exactly the opposite, while retaining the BVR capability, they also had amazing flight performance in every fighter since the F-16 first released
Managing the stall… If you’re already stalling then the fight is lost. This won’t ever win in practice, there is so many jets that outrate you and outpull you. All someone has to do is just survive that little window the Su-27 can pull a lot and then kill it, and even then that time where the Flanker can pull a lot isn’t even special, because many jets can pull more while not sacrificing the drastic amount of energy to do so.
Yeah you’re right, idk why I am defending the flanker, can’t stand them anyway, would rather fly my J-10 in peace than go near the mess that is the J-11A
there isnt a single nato fighter aircraft with poor maneuverabilty, even the f35 which gets alot of misingformation spread regarding it is said to be very maneuverable by its pilots
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I mean, for a while I was kind of a Flanker defender. It was because I loved the jets irl and wanted them to be good dogfighters ingame like they are irl, but they aren’t, like the Mig-29’s (moreso the SMT), and that’s a big part of the post.
You’re correct, NATO doesn’t really have any fighters with bad maneuverability. I didn’t say it directly but that wasn’t the impression I was trying to give off.
really true since F-14A honestly, F-4 was kinda the first and last
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At least as I know it, because my knowledge of the Fighter Mafia is kinda lacking, they wanted a focus on lighter fighters that are good at dogfighting because they saw the poor performance of radar missiles in Vietnam and never thought they’d advance. Their philosophy sort of is responsible for, atleast as an example, the F-16’s maneuverability, but what made the F-16’s legacy as a great jet is it’s long range air to air weaponry and great air to ground weapons. And that’s sort of the story with a lot of US jets, they have good flight performance, but their radars and advanced weapons have made them kings, both things that the Fighter Mafia was against. I’d say, the only things they were right about was the need for dogfighting capabilities in Vietnam, and the energy maneuverability theory.
Now, atleast as I know, their influence is gone, because well, we realized that their philosophy of dogfighting to gain air superiority is outdated. It’s not to say they didn’t play a part in US jets, but I think they are largely overstated.