Reaction Of F 16 Pilot After Seeing SU 27 Doing Cobra Maneuver

[waqasmwi]

You're going to break a radar lock... by presenting the entire unstealthy underside of an SU-35 to an oncoming radar guided missile?

The Cobra maneuver has been cited as a potential countermeasure to Doppler radars, which have difficultly tracking objects with near zero velocity, often ignoring them as clutter. Most fighter radars are pulse-Doppler.

In practice that kind of fancy dancing just gets you shot down.

You are right but some points need clarifications.
First of all I'm talking about dog fight and not BVR fight. In dogfight, being stealthy doesn't matter much. As far as exposing unstealthy side, see pic below wether sukhoi is exposing it's unstealthy side or covering it???

I m not 100 percent sure but when sukhoi will behind the other jet after performing cobra, is it possible for a jet to lock and fire missile at the other while other is in backside?????

Please correct me if im wrong as im not an expert.

 

[Wow]

Woop Dee Dooo

 

[Aasimkhan]

View attachment 551841 View attachment 551839
You are right but some points need clarifications.
First of all I'm talking about dog fight and not BVR fight. In dogfight, being stealthy doesn't matter much. As far as exposing unstealthy side, see pic below wether sukhoi is exposing it's unstealthy side or covering it???
View attachment 551839
I m not 100 percent sure but when sukhoi will behind the other jet after performing cobra, is it possible for a jet to lock and fire missile at the other while other is in backside?????
View attachment 551841 View attachment 551841

Please correct me if im wrong as im not an expert.

If the other jet is armed with OFF BORE SIGHT missiles like aim9x then sukhoi will not be saved even if it performs cobra.

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

I love this maneuver. It's beautiful. I can't think better than cobra maneuver in air shows. It's fantastic.

 

[Aasimkhan]

I love this maneuver. It's beautiful. I can't think better than cobra maneuver in air shows. It's fantastic.

Another glaring disadvantage of cobra is that you lose all kinetic energy of the plane as it comes to a stnad still. In dogfight losing energy is fatal. yet another drastic issue is the altitude loss, normally the plane which is higher is at an advantage in dogfight so all said and done Pugachev's Cobra maneuver is very very double edged. But it looks beautiful in air shows, just my 2 cents

 

[Safriz]

Great maneuver but how useful is it in an actual battle?

The cobra maneuver was a Russian invention to show off thrust to weight ratio, maneuverability and easy handling of their jets ..
It looked so impressive that many Western pilots tried to replicate the maneuver on their jets.
Swedish even lost lives and planes trying cobra..
However it has no value in actual combat and no airforce academy teaches their pilots cobra maneuver

 

[Aasimkhan]

The cobra maneuver was a Russian invention to show off thrust to weight ratio, maneuverability and easy handling of their jets ..
It looked so impressive that many Western pilots tried to replicate the maneuver on their jets.
Swedish even lost lives and planes trying cobra..
However it has no value in actual combat and no airforce academy teaches their pilots cobra maneuver

Cobra had only one utility in close combat. It provided an opportunity to come behind a chasing aircraft, in order to target him with gun and short range AAMs, by instantly stopping in mid air. Since only Russia had thrust vectoring aircraft (with exception of Harrier) in those days and Off Boresight missiles and Helmet Mounted Cueing systems were not available thats why Russians had a slight edge in close combat. Since no one else had those planes, obviously they could not teach them in academies. But in actual combat i never heard a plane shot down as a result of Pugachev,s cobra move. Indians (as always) boast about it in international exercises but i have never seen any american or european impressed by it.