The real Red Flag facts...USAF briefing about IAF participation

[blain2]

Unofficial response from a Pilot who was involved in RED FLAG got unofficial response from from Indians who were involved in RED FLAG. Indian media is hawkish about this. Another such reaction could be found here (posted earlier)

Profile of the colonel and Indian journalist (present at RED FLAG) response - LiveFist: Profile of "that USAF Colonel"

Red Flag is DACT - its designed to force events for training requirements - and the sides exchange roles. Its not some competition.

Red Flag: US Air Force says sorry for pilot’s comments

LiveFist: Profile of "that USAF Colonel"
Profile of that USAF Pilot is in a disgracefully bad taste. It seems like many Indians are going overboard with their hyper-jingoism and are showing an utter disregard for the guy's privacy and have him plastered over the blogs so every Tom, Dick and Harry from India can come and put derogatory comments about him. How low can this go? I doubt any Indian would like something like this posted about an IAF officer on the net where all sorts of derogatory and insulting comments were being made about him. After all, the guy is entitled to his professional opinion and can back a lot more of it (having been a test pilot and involved with developing the Nellis program and tactics) than the Indian fanboys leaving idiotic remarks about the USAF Col.

Red Flag is DACT - its designed to force events for training requirements - and the sides exchange roles. Its not some competition.

A part of Red Flag entails DACT. Its certainly not the core of the exercise. The point is to have an OPPFOR presence in the air so it can make the experience of the participants more realistic. The OPPFOR Air mimicks Soviet style tactics and hinders LFE missions. Also sides do not switch roles. There is a cadre of aggressors and participants do not fly on their sides. The roles for the participants are split between escort, SEAD, air to surface etc.

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

a blog can never measure up to the words of a colonel. sure the USAF itself may apologize for the comments, they were unnecessary, but it's funny to see all these indians go overboard in trying to defend their MKI.

 

[blain2]

a blog can never measure up to the words of a colonel. sure the USAF itself may apologize for the comments, they were unnecessary, but it's funny to see all these indians go overboard in trying to defend their MKI.

Well a blog is fine to debate/counter the points being made, however to paste someone's pictures as "investigative journalism" and then allowing the pilot to get ridiculed is as bad as it gets.

The USAF did the right thing by sending a letter to AHQ India clarifying that the Col spoke in personal capacity. However the Indian fan boy egos have been hurt and to assuage the hurt egos, the poor Col's pictures and background are being abused.

 

[Goodperson]

LiveFist: Profile of "that USAF Colonel"
Profile of that USAF Pilot is in a disgracefully bad taste. It seems like many Indians are going overboard with their hyper-jingoism and are showing an utter disregard for the guy's privacy and have him plastered over the blogs so every Tom, Dick and Harry from India can come and put derogatory comments about him. How low can this go? I doubt any Indian would like something like this posted about an IAF officer on the net where all sorts of derogatory and insulting comments were being made about him. After all, the guy is entitled to his professional opinion and can back a lot more of it (having been a test pilot and involved with developing the Nellis program and tactics) than the Indian fanboys leaving idiotic remarks about the USAF Col.

Its a normal reaction or what else do you expect when you leak your own video the pilot should know his limits. The inputs are from famed Journalist with good knowledge and having regular interactions with IAF pilots.

Now please stop generalising to all Indians.

A part of Red Flag entails DACT. Its certainly not the core of the exercise. The point is to have an OPPFOR presence in the air so it can make the experience of the participants more realistic. The OPPFOR Air mimicks Soviet style tactics and hinders LFE missions. Also sides do not switch roles. There is a cadre of aggressors and participants do not fly on their sides. The roles for the participants are split between escort, SEAD, air to surface etc.

First of all, no one should say that any air force kicked another.

The RED FLAG is not for that kind of things.

This said,the 64th 65th aggressor squadrons SIMULATE the tactics of the POSSIBLE(mostly inferior in matters of gear and tactics) opponents in a LIKELY scenario.

AFAIK they don´t even have the support of AWACS,and also have very limited ROE in matters of their use of weaponary and tactics.
So,again,no one can say that IAF,HAF kicked *** any other air force during RED FLAG.

However, there are air forces out there which have REAL expirience in daily dog fights in engagements which have already turned from daily simulated dog fights into real air combat.

Well a blog is fine to debate/counter the points being made, however to paste someone's pictures as "investigative journalism" and then allowing the pilot to get ridiculed is as bad as it gets.

The USAF did the right thing by sending a letter to AHQ India clarifying that the Col spoke in personal capacity. However the Indian fan boy egos have been hurt and to assuage the hurt egos, the poor Col's pictures and background are being abused.

Welcome to world of blog, The pictures are available easily on the net plus they may not be from exercise. The journalist from the exercise came out with his side of story with obvious inputs from IAF pilots, Now what do you expect Indians to keep quite?

USAF had clarify its position in obvious denial of the pilots claim did you hear anything more from the pilot after his leaked video?

 

[zombie]

After all, the guy is entitled to his professional opinion and can back a lot more of it (having been a test pilot and involved with developing the Nellis program and tactics)

Actually I have to agree with Blain here. The level of Indian journalism has taken a new low..only kept higher by some other south asian idiotic articles posted in abundance here.

Having seen the video I can say that there is little or no point to be aggrieved over. Hell there is more things to be disgusted about hearing the speeches of insipid indian political leaders than what the colonol said.

There were so many areas where the colonol praised the IAF...did the journalist miss all that? And lets not forget that the Indian media's childish reporting during the Cope exercises where the ones which in the first place created the only possible retort from the Colonol. Even then he acknowledged that in due course the youngsters flying sukhois in IAF with learning would supersede against the legacy fighters(without AESA).

When the first "analysis" started pouring in (i am sure initially mostly from russian posters than indian) about tukhmansky and kpyo radars and all that, it was quickly evident that the analysts had no clue as to what to take away from the video instead of nitpicking about things completely irrelevent to the larger message. Damn it he is a fighter pilot not your plane technician. So we all here know that kopyo radar is used..how many of us know to fly a mig? does one mean the other?

Does the journalist know which company made the refill of the pen he uses to write. If not he must be a bad journalist isnt it?

Definitely hope the IAF sees it a lot differently from the journalist.

Are people so much insecure that even the smallest comment not in complete approval is seen as a serious slight and offense?

There is much to take from the video when looked at in a larger context. As usual(but not unexpected) some have shown that they will make it a point to not see the woods from the trees.

A lot of growing up to do!

 

[Goodperson]

Actually I have to agree with Blain here. The level of Indian journalism has taken a new low..only kept higher by some other south asian idiotic articles posted in abundance here.

Having seen the video I can say that there is little or no point to be aggrieved over. Hell there is more things to be disgusted about hearing the speeches of insipid indian political leaders than what the colonol said.

There were so many areas where the colonol praised the IAF...did the journalist miss all that? And lets not forget that the Indian media's childish reporting during the Cope exercises where the ones which in the first place created the only possible retort from the Colonol. Even then he acknowledged that in due course the youngsters flying sukhois in IAF with learning would supersede against the legacy fighters(without AESA).

When the first "analysis" started pouring in (i am sure initially mostly from russian posters than indian) about tukhmansky and kpyo radars and all that, it was quickly evident that the analysts had no clue as to what to take away from the video instead of nitpicking about things completely irrelevent to the larger message. Damn it he is a fighter pilot not your plane technician. So we all here know that kopyo radar is used..how many of us know to fly a mig? does one mean the other?

Does the journalist know which company made the refill of the pen he uses to write. If not he must be a bad journalist isnt it?

Definitely hope the IAF sees it a lot differently from the journalist.

Are people so much insecure that even the smallest comment not in complete approval is seen as a serious slight and offense?

There is much to take from the video when looked at in a larger context. As usual(but not unexpected) some have shown that they will make it a point to not see the woods from the trees.

A lot of growing up to do!

The said pilot should not have leaked video that lead to USAF had to regret about later, there was bound to be reactions. AFAIK there is no control on blogging and neither I do not justify what is being showed / said about the person.

The does not matter whether the pilot praised or questioned IAF as there was no competition.

 

[wowgolds987]

of all, the americans decided not to use TVC until their technology had matured a bit more. hence, it was used only on the F/A-22 raptor.

second, there's a reason why India wants the MRCA. certainly they wouldn't be paying that much money just to replace their MiG

 

[zavis2003]

INDIANS ARE BAD MAINTINANCE CREWs

 

[Gokul]

I dont know which video you guys watched, but I watched the entire 20 minute video of his briefing on You Tube (2 parts)...

Even though he has said that the MKI is not upto the mark when compared to F22, it is reasonable, since both are from different generations...

Also, he has mentioned that in the SU30 was not in the datalink with the other pilots... what that means is that they had to manually speak to the people in control on the AWACS who would confirm whether the person on radar was a friend or a foe because at large distances the onboard radars can have trouble distinguishing...

Hence, this can easily attribute for the slower response time compared to other pilots and also possibly the higher number of fatricides that we had...

Also, he has mentioned that our pilots did not have enough experience with the Su30 and that when they got enough experience they would easily match the F15 and the F18....

So I think that we should take the positives out of this and try and improve ourselves...

But, clearly, I agree with some others that the response of the media by quoting him out of context was really cheap !!!

 

[PAFAce]

Something amazing has happened. I have found an Indian 'news report' worth being called a 'news report'. It is, as far as I can tell, quite neutral. Judge for yourselves.

(Ignore the title. It has clearly been uploaded by a fanboy)

I hope this has not been posted elsewhere.

 

[mean_bird]

that has been posted quite a few times (the whole video by that colonel)

hahaha
the indian channel is so funny 'disciplinary action against the officer'. what for? for stating what he saw in the excercise? was it a diplomatic press conference where he was supposed to be 'politically correct' and praise the indians?

If anything, they should gain from his experience and remarks to improve themselves rather than criticize him.

 

[nik007delta]

a blog can never measure up to the words of a colonel. sure the USAF itself may apologize for the comments, they were unnecessary, but it's funny to see all these indians go overboard in trying to defend their MKI.

The col. was trying to prove that the SU 30mki was wrongly estimated to be better than raptor.

"these indians go overboard in trying to defend their MKI"

yes we do bcos its proved to be EXTREEMLY potent. just comparing it with raptor says something. PAF will not be able to counter this for the next 20 years. dint u hear the col. say "they(IAF) are slighly better than we(USAF) are".

yes the has to be punished not because he insulted us , but bcos he gave handy info. on how to counter sukhoi

 

[pakpower]

Hi guys

I guess J-10B will give run for it's Money SU-30 MKI. Which PAF procuring from China in coming years. If not better it will be equal to SU-30 MKI in every espect from BVR, Close Combat etc.....

I am not that good in technical specifications of the jets overall it's my opinion. Is there anyone who thought it is right?

 

[nik007delta]

Hi guys

I guess J-10B will give run for it's Money SU-30 MKI. Which PAF procuring from China in coming years. If not better it will be equal to SU-30 MKI in every espect from BVR, Close Combat etc.....

I am not that good in technical specifications of the jets overall it's my opinion. Is there anyone who thought it is right?

yes j10b probably is the best way PAF can counter our su 30.
but the su 30 is bieng mass produced in india by the 100's and j10b...well...still has a long way.

 

[PAFAce]

yes we do bcos its proved to be EXTREEMLY potent. just comparing it with raptor says something.

No it has not been proven. It was compared to the Raptor because the Russians and Indians have claimed it to be as good as the Raptor. Unfortunately, the reality is, there is only one plane that can be compared to the Raptor, and that is its smaller brother.

PAF will not be able to counter this for the next 20 years. dint u hear the col. say "they(IAF) are slighly better than we(USAF) are".

No, he said the IAF Su-30MKI performed slightly better than the USAF F-16s and F-15s of the Aggressor squadron. For most aircraft that would be a compliment, but for all its claimed capabilities with advanced avionics and TVC, it is an insult to the Su-30MKI. We can counter the Su-30MKI through strategy and planning today, and in the next 20 years, we will most certainly counter it technologically. What we may not be able to do is to counter the IAFs numerical superiority.

Edit: I just realised nik007delta got banned. No wonder.