Gomig-21
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When Russian Su-35S fighter jets intercept U.S. F-22 Raptor flying over Syria - Fighter Jets World
Russian Su-35S fighter jets intercept U.S. F-22 Raptor flying over Syria. According to defence-fighterjetsworld.com
When Russian Su-35S fighter jets intercept U.S. F-22 Raptor flying over Syria
I read about this a few days ago and while they don't say what the range the Su-35s was at when they first detected the F-22s, the max range on the OLS-35 IRST is around 50 km in frontal aspect and somewhere between 80km-90km at tail chase ranges, but either way, I think it's safe to say that the Su-35S can detect any aircraft's heat signature at that range and the fact that it was a pair of F-22s is interesting not because they heat signature was detected (since like I mentioned, it's relatively easy to detect any aircraft's heat signature at range) but because rather why would they allow themselves to be within that range of the Su-35s IRST? Since the F-22s impressive radar will also notify it that there are 2 Su-35s at anywhere from 150km to 500km ranges, they could've changed vector and kept out of that radar circle which actually shows up on the F-22's HUD. That's how easy it makes it for the F-22 pilot.
Given the Su-35's leading wing edge AESA radar, it could also quite possibly detect -- to a reasonable extent -- an object that its IFF could read out a symbol close to an F-22 and at least give the Su-35 pilot coordinates to follow until he gets to within his IRST's range. Perhaps not just the wing AESA radar, but he could've very well have been using that in combination with the powerful IRBIS-E radar which has an optimal max range of around 400 km. Using them both to narrow the enemy down to within the IRST's closer range and then get it on camera is very realistic, IF the US pilots didn't care and allowed that to happen. A lot of interesting stuff at play here, for sure.
