SU-30's Cobra Maneuvers - A Treat for PAF Shaheen

[paritosh]

Lets take the example of Python 5,ASRAAM. They have "imaging" Infra red seeker.They can now see an aircraft and match it with its records in order to differentiate it from a flare.

Other WVR missiles have Infra red counter counter measures as well.

while my knowledge of missiles might not be as up-to-date as yours...but I know that most modern missiles have better on-board computers that run more efficient algos when having to face multiple heat-emitting targets...such as aircraft emitting flares...here's what I know..multiple flares are emitted in a rapid fashion as missile is closing in...and the pilot tries to maneuver the plane to fly in a helical path...this is supposed to fool the heat-seeking missile...

Many good air forces now have better missiles in their inventory.

many third world countries even now operate the older missiles in bulk.

 

[paritosh]

what if you've got 2 on your tail...? with one at a distance...? moment you stop in mid air; you're a sitting duck against the 2nd aircraft

we always have the 'what if' scenarios...

 

[Tang0]

Hi,

Just a question----when and under what condition the cobra maneuver be made???

Although the Boyd comment is interesting, the first reference I ever heard to the cobra maneuver said that it was a way to quickly lose airspeed in some type of emergency high speed landing situation. It also had a caveat about it being "mostly for show".

Can't remember what book I read it in, though I think it was a piece of well researched fiction. Day of the Cheetah maybe?

 

[Tang0]

You can add the F-100...

John Boyd - USAF, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of Air Warfare

He tied once or twice though...

 

[Zulfiqar]

many third world countries even now operate the older missiles in bulk.

You are talking best case scenario. SU-30s will have to face missiles like A-darter,R-darter( according to P Shamim Shahib we have them with modified seekers) and Aim 120 C-5s

 

[gambit]

Lets take the example of Python 5,ASRAAM. They have "imaging" Infra red seeker.They can now see an aircraft and match it with its records in order to differentiate it from a flare.

Other WVR missiles have Infra red counter counter measures as well.

I would like to see a credible technical source for that claim. I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that you have the incorrect context for 'imaging' here.

BVR weapons like AMRAAM and others have "Home on Jamming" capability.




Many good air forces now have better missiles in their inventory.

Flares are not 'jamming' in the strict sense. It is seduction.

The way a flare works is:

1- Present to the missile a greater than IR source compared to the aircraft that launched it.

2- Saturate the missile's field of view (FoV), which is limited due to space constraints.

Other factors to consider, regarding your claim, is if the IR sensor is of the scanning type, whose weaknesses are complexity, which would require a larger missile body, and low frame rate. If the IR sensor is of the staring type, then its weaknesses are poor spatial resolution, require multiple arrays to have effective coverage in the event of a maneuvering target, and because of this, the staring type have a high processing load. Either types affect fusing distance, which is another can of worms.

Early IR sensor technology had difficulties distinguishing multiple IR sources on a body. Today's sensors are able to discern these multiple sources and so the intention is to focus in the largest IR source, which would be the engines. But this would make the missile useless in anything situation other than a chase as in a frontal view, the target aircraft has its leading edges as IR sources and they are nowhere distinct as a jet engine.

So if the missile is designed to focus in on the largest IR source it could find, odds are better than average that it will be seduced by a flare even though there might be spatial separation between aircraft and flare. If the missile is designed with target adaptive guidance (TAG) algorithms that uses multiple IR sources on a body, then it will be vulnerable to saturation tactic, which would involve multiple flare launches.

Remember, this is not active like radar but passive, meaning the missile is totally reliant upon the target itself for target information based upon an emissivity type that is target control, not missile control. Currently we do not 'beam' an IR emission towards the target like we do with a radar beam, do we?

What type of 'lock-on' are we talking about? IR emission intensity is inversely proportional to distance and that inevitably involve signal-to-noise ratio. With lock-on-BEFORE-launch missiles, human intelligence is required, meaning the pilot must remained focused on his target until the missile signaled him that it has acquired an IR source, which lead us back to sensor type, scanning or staring, and their associated weaknesses. With lock-on-AFTER-launch missiles, low SNR is an issue and the system is most vulnerable to saturation tactic. The American anti-tank Maverick missile is lock-on-after-launch (LOAL) but it is against ground targets, whose domain is two-dimensional, hence limited in maneuverability.

Not as easy as you think for a passive sensor system to avoid seduction.

 

[Patriot]

Gambit,
PAF used old generation AIM9 back in 1980's i think for shooting down Soviet Jet fighters when they violated Pakistan Air Space.None of them missed their targets (Su-25) despite the fact that soviet pilots tried counter measures (flares and manovors).In fact one time a soviet pilot released a lot of flares at once..the pilot could not believe that he got shot down by AIM9..he said he thought it was AIM7 Sparrow.PAF currently operates AIM9M and soon to be inducted AIM120C5 and maybe AIM9X..how many G's can it sustain Gambit?

 

[blain2]

what if you've got 2 on your tail...? with one at a distance...? moment you stop in mid air; you're a sitting duck against the 2nd aircraft

TVC is not much comfort in 1 v 2 fights. This was one of the key results derived from the F-16 MATV project.

 

[Kamakazi 69]

@Tang0: Dale Brown?

But considering that the Su-30 has got such a HUGE radar signature, it won't really take that sophisticated a misslie to get e lock on it.

 

[paritosh]

@Tang0: Dale Brown?

But considering that the Su-30 has got such a HUGE radar signature, it won't really take that sophisticated a misslie to get e lock on it.

it also has a very capable radar of it's own...which till date is not matched by any on-board your fighters....so it will see yours earlier than it would be seen and your BVR capability is questionable...whilst SU mki's not.

 

[Arsalan]

it also has a very capable radar of it's own...which till date is not matched by any on-board your fighters....so it will see yours earlier than it would be seen and your BVR capability is questionable...whilst SU mki's not.

what about JF being supported and coupled with the Erieye!??

 

[wtf]

Lets take the example of Python 5,ASRAAM. They have "imaging" Infra red seeker.They can now see an aircraft and match it with its records in order to differentiate it from a flare.

Other WVR missiles have Infra red counter counter measures as well.


BVR weapons like AMRAAM and others have "Home on Jamming" capability.




Many good air forces now have better missiles in their inventory.

Actually seems like even against a 40 G capable missile the Cobra will be pretty competitive. Assume the worst case -- the missile is 1 meter behind the aircraft and is about to explode. The pilot pulls a Cobra.

Remember that the acceleration experienced by the plane and the missile are very different -- for the aircraft it is flying at high speeds and then exposing the entire bottom of the aircraft to the airflow to stop it (plain deceleration) . For the missile it has to do a full circle turn.

If you assume that the missile is flying at barely supersonic (assume it can slow down from mach 2+ -- it is easier to turn at subsonic speeds ) and that it can take 40 G (400 m/s^2) of centripetal acceleration, it will take about 9 seconds to do a full turn. If the human being can take 10 G for a few seconds, then the aircraft can pretty well do a full stop within that time. The aircraft would have done a pretty full stop, while the missile would be about 2 kms off by this point. Now the missile can cover this 2km within a few seconds , but the aircraft gets time to react .

Basically the whole move gains about 10 seconds (Assuming that the missile was about to explode when the pilot used the cobra). But I agree, it will be rarely used against missiles. More likely use is against other aircrafts in tail fights. Nothing else stops an aircraft faster.

 

[Zulfiqar]

I would like to see a credible technical source for that claim. I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that you have the incorrect context for 'imaging' here.

Please see this PDF file, go to page two and see the images and the missile's features.

http://www.rafael.co.il/marketing/SIP_STORAGE/FILES/1/921.pdf

Conventional air-to-air missiles see targets as dots - a fact which makes it hard for the missile to tell between true or false targets. The Python 5's head seeker literally sees a clear image of the target and background, giving it an incredible advantage over other missiles by authenticating the target, thus reducing the chance of being mislead by counter measures. Using this technology allows the luxury of locking on a target after the launch.

http://www.f-16.net/news_article2044.html


I don't have janes subscription so help your self with the PDF file.I am not saying that 5th gen missiles are invincible but Sukhois are not invincible either.

Other than that here is a link for A-darter.

..:: DENEL DYNAMICS - Division of Denel Pty LTD. ::..

Assume the worst case -- the missile is 1 meter behind the aircraft and is about to explode. The pilot pulls a Cobra.

1 metre is like 3.3 feet,not much of a distance. A missile can also have a proximity fuse.

 

[gambit]

Gambit,
PAF used old generation AIM9 back in 1980's i think for shooting down Soviet Jet fighters when they violated Pakistan Air Space.None of them missed their targets (Su-25) despite the fact that soviet pilots tried counter measures (flares and manovors).In fact one time a soviet pilot released a lot of flares at once..the pilot could not believe that he got shot down by AIM9..he said he thought it was AIM7 Sparrow.PAF currently operates AIM9M and soon to be inducted AIM120C5 and maybe AIM9X..how many G's can it sustain Gambit?

I am not saying that flares will seduce %100 of the time. I am saying that there is much more than what press releases say for public consumption. Regarding what you say, we do not know the distances between launch and target aircrafts. If the IR missile is launched in sufficiently short distance, it will break through the IR saturated field of view and quickly reacquire the target while it is still in its early acceleration phase. If the missile was launched at further distance and the missile reached its maximum velocity, it will be seduced.

How many Gs can a missile turn? The mid-20s are average and mid-30s are used for after target lock. Any claim above 40 and I would be suspicious.

 

[gambit]

Please see this PDF file, go to page two and see the images and the missile's features.

http://www.rafael.co.il/marketing/SIP_STORAGE/FILES/1/921.pdf



http://www.f-16.net/news_article2044.html


I don't have janes subscription so help your self with the PDF file.I am not saying that 5th gen missiles are invincible but Sukhois are not invincible either.

Other than that here is a link for A-darter.

..:: DENEL DYNAMICS - Division of Denel Pty LTD. ::..




1 metre is like 3.3 feet,not much of a distance. A missile can also have a proximity fuse.

What modern 'fire-and-forget' missiles, for this time the IR type, does is to incorporate a well known feature called 'spatial-temporal' imaging...

Spatio-temporal filter and method - US Patent 6910060 Abstract

The spatial-temporal filter is able to combine multiple analog filters, both spatial and temporal, to perform complex spatial-temporal filtering operations implemented by Gaussian kernel filtering chips. It enables the use of analog spatial-temporal filtered data provided by the chip for computing scene motion energy.

In simpler language, what the seeker head does is to take a time stamped snapshot of the target with electro-optical sensor and one with IR. ST filtering or imaging have always been around but have have been constrained by processing power.

The seeker head remember the target's initial IR emission, which of course does varies, coupled that with a visual scene that include background and target, record the time index and predict the target's trajectory. If the target does not move, too bad for him. If the target does move, it is analogous to a motion video, although not as refined, recorded in the missile's memory. Little memory, limited predictive powers.

So if the missile sees a seduction flare, it will know that flares have highly predictive behavior -- down -- and will ignore the larger IR source. But if the missile sees its FoV saturated because of multiple flares, it will know to ignore this instant IR source, proceed through the flares, and try to reacquire the target again. The advantage is that now the missile, unlike previous versions, remembers a great deal of target information. For the most part, IR FoV saturation tactic is still a viable defense against IR missile.