For an aircraft such as J-8II, did you realized how high the AoA was for J-8II at the time of the accident in order for it to keep at the same pace of EP-3. EP-3 was flying at 180 knots which is very close to the stall speed for aircraft such as J-8II. Then you tell me how agile J-8II is at that speed.
As for Su-27 case, whether Tsymbal did it accidentally or intentally, he did successful forced P-3B to abort its mission and return base with little damage to his own aircraft and without a major international incident.
That is an absurd argument. Your fellow Chinese will give you a pass simply because they do not know any better, but try that in company of real pilots, even civilian ones, and they will laugh you out of the room. Might as well say that the J-8 was not agile because it was parked on the ramp.
Here is the definition of piloting skills...
SKYbrary - Pilot Handling Skills
Manual Flying Skills are typically thought of as pure core flying skills, where manoeuvres are flown solely by reference to raw data obtained from the heading,
airspeed,
attitude,
altitude and
vertical speed instruments, and without the use of technology such as
auto-throttles, auto-pilot, flight director or any other flight management system. This might extend as far as requiring manual trim inputs and navigation using basic systems.
Pilot Handling Skills will include all the above manual flying skills, but may also relate to combinations of manual flying, speed and directional control together with combinations of automatic speed and direction control and guidance. Such combinations may occur through pilot preference, operational or procedural requirements, or when some automated systems are no longer functioning.
We can assume that Cdr. Wang Wei passed the minimum standards set by the PLAAF, which may or may not be the same as the other air forces, but we can be assured that Wang was trained and competent enough to manhandle a Mach 2 jet fighter.
But here is the definition of airmanship...
SKYbrary - Airmanship
"Airmanship is the consistent use of good judgment and well-developed skills to accomplish flight objectives. This consistency is founded on a cornerstone of uncompromising flight discipline and is developed through systematic skill acquisition and proficiency. A high state of situational awareness completes the airmanship picture and is obtained through knowledge of one’s self, aircraft, environment, team and risk."
Note the two items are not the same. Airmanship is about the judicious applications of piloting skills to accomplish a mission, even one as mundane as flying cargo from airport to airport, like how UPS and FedEx pilots does it. Airmanship for nuclear bombers like the old SAC's B-52s is not the same as for the old TAC's fighters. Then airmanship for the Goodyear blimp is not the same as the other two. Airmanship does not specify basic skills like coordinated turns or how much flaps to let down for TO/L. Airmanship assume that you already know these things.
The PLAAF in general and Cdr. Wang in particular were rightly criticized by the international aviation community for poor airmanship, not poor basic piloting skills. The collision could have been avoided if Wang had simply exercised basic formation flying, which involves aircraft separation...
FM 3-04.203 Chapter 6
FORMATION SEPARATION
6-24.The space between aircraft in any given formation represents a tradeoff between the previously mentioned formation characteristics. The capability of all members of the flight to navigate and avoid obstacles without the excessive concern of colliding with other flight members is a primary factor in determining formation spacing. METT-TC considerations drive spacing between aircraft. For example, low illumination nights usually require close spacing, while day flights can assume large separations, enhancing lead’s ability to maneuver. In choosing a sound tactical formation, lead should consider the following factors and how they affect the formation:
lThreat.
lTerrain.
lIllumination,
lTime of day.
lVisibility.
lCommunications environment.
lCapabilities of the crews and aircraft in the flight.
The wingman is ultimately responsible for maintaining adequate separation to prevent collision by anticipating (and providing clearance for) maneuvering by lead.
Any --
ANY -- interception that require visual identification of the suspect aircraft involves formation flying. It does not matter if there is a lead or not. All pilots in the immediate vicinity are essentially flying in a formation.
So what if Wang had to throttle back and maintain high AOA in order to maintain formation with the EP-3? Every pilot know to get out of a stall: you either increase throttle or initiate a nose down attitude, which inevitably add speed. The collision occurred because both aircrafts were flying too close to each other.
In Oct 10, 2001, the US Congressional Research Service published a report that said...
Before that time, there were interceptions that the Pentagon characterized as common and numerous. The U.S. military has flown reconnaissance missions around the world, including along China’s coast for the past five decades, and has expected interceptions in international airspace.62 About one year before this incident, on April 27, 2000, the Pentagon confirmed that two PLA F-8 fighters approached a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea. The Pentagon’s spokesperson said that the interception was “not at all unusual” and non-threatening toward the U.S. plane, with the F-8 fighters at a “considerable distance” (“several kilometers”) away.
Those PLAAF pilots had no problems seeing and knowing that they were eyeballing an American military aircraft from
KILOMETERS AWAY. They do not need to know the specific make/model of the suspect. They just know that it was not Chinese and with purpose that is of foreign interests. For the Hainan Incident of Apr 2001, the EP-3 was a lumbering four engine prop jobber and it was flying straight at that time. The interception was during daylight. So what need was there for Wang to fly so close to the EP-3? Did he forgot his glasses?
If Wang had to reduce throttle and maintain high AOA in order to both maintain pace with the EP-3 and be airborne, wise airmanship dictate he should have stayed far enough from the EP-3 to give both aircrafts sufficient separation space to execute any maneuver by anyone. If the American decide to turn into Wang's flight path, Wang would have enough room to either throttle up or dive, as in how he must have been trained in basic piloting skills by the PLAAF. Same if he felt could not have maintain that slow of an airspeed -- throttle up and/or dive. There is nothing that say Wang must fly in formation with the suspect in order to have a valid intercept of the suspect.
Months before the Hainan Incident, the US had lodged protests to the Chinese government about many incidents of poor airmanship exhibited by PLAAF pilots in over 40 interceptions. Pilots the world over are all the same. Behind closed doors, they have no problems laying aside their ideologies and be critical of each other, and I do not mean critical of only pilots in the room. If they read/hear about a pilot who did something that made the news, even from the other side of the world, you can bet your life that in every pilot lounge in every country's air forces, pilots will be talking and dissecting that event based upon their individual skill levels and experiences. You can also bet your life that those PLAAF pilots who ID-ed the RC-135 from several kilometers away were negatively critical of Wang and Tsymbal on what they did.
Why you also ignore that fact the KAL 902 and Kal 007's accidental path was also close to the path what US recon plane used to fly into Soviet air space? Based on the sophisication of the soviet radar at the time and the mistakes of the pilots, it won't come to a surprise that the ground commands of Soviet air force mistook it as an US spy plane? Was it coincidents that both are from the same airline and both come from US?
Do not distort history. The US recon flights in both events were not in Soviet airspace.
You accuse me seeing things this just because being Chinese, then I can assure you that if the stituation is reversed let's say a PLAAF ELINT aircraft is flying around US air space and when it is intercepted and escorted, it still continues its flight path after being shown unwelcome. I won't blame US pilot pull some aggressive manuever against it at all.
You may not blame the American pilot, but our own pilots will.
After all, it is doing electronic surveillance on foreign soil(Oh, wait! US government actually doesn't believe that there is anything wrong with electronic surveillance on foreign soil even it is its ally.
China is an economic ally with US, but you see no problems with China committing espionage of all kinds on US.
