There is not a single fighter pilot in the entire USAF that thinks a Flanker can beat them. You selectively quoting the USAF doesn't change that. besides they'll only ever face monkey models remember?
Considering they were consistently slaughtered by the IAF during exercises, including admitting they got slaughtered in the very first exercise we had as well, by publicly claiming they lost 90% of the engagements in 2004.
In pre-Red Flag exercises, the Su-30s managed a 23:1 kill ratio against USAF F-15s.
The USAF has said plenty of unflattering things about Flankers, you choose to forget them, and then explain all short comings as "monkey models"
its the perfect excuse. if Russian gear wins then it is superior, when it loses, then it wasn't "real" Russian equipment. its a child's logic.
You are telling us combat is the only real test, and then dismissing combat when your team fails the test. Flankers combat record is nothing compared to F-15 which may go down in history as the most dominant air to air platform in history. So I agree with you, lets use combat as the metric, and watch F-15 win easily, while you talk about record setting Flankers like P-42 that are not even combat machines. lets use combat as a measurement oops! wait on second thought the true measure of a fighter is world record turning! Monkey model!
yes, much like how we are being told the F-35 which is an engineering example of "what not to do," and not reliable, but F-35 is loaded with French parts, uses French Software, and is made using French programs. the Superiority of the French F-35 will not be denied!
You have 100 percent captured the logic that will be applied. "if it can't be me, at least don't let it be him! and that will be a victory" but then of course, the Rafale loses to Super Hornet...
no no nothing can prove anything except for real combat, and even then the Russian equipment losses will be excused as "monkey models" so not even real combat can really show the superiority of Russian equipment. so pay no attention to the F-15s perfect air to air combat record, because the Chinese put an AESA on a Flanker, the F-15 is now second despite decades of evidence to the contrary. If they put a coffee maker in J-16 the F-15 falls even further behind
You don't really know much about the history of air power. None of the Western air forces have ever fought the Soviet Union or Russia and none of the Western air forces have yet fought the Flanker either. The only Fulcrums the West fought were monkey models that were exported without much electronics. And during exercises, the IAF Flankers have consistently overperformed against the Teens.
After the collapse of the SU, the only Mig-29s the West became accustomed to was the much better but still downgraded Warsaw Pact jets from East Germany. And even those slaughtered F-16s in dog fights, apparently the role the F-16 was made for.
Read the bit under "Positives", although I'd recommend reading the whole thing.
www.16va.be
Otoh, the SU versions were actual beasts, they were nearly unmanned, which was an incredible achievement at the time and had electronics that were a generation ahead compared to what was exported. It was only after the collapse of the SU and when Chinese and Indian invesments started coming in that the SU's actual capabilities became publicly available to a certain extent. Even in that case, some stuff was still downgraded and were replaced with alternatives in both Indian and Chinese models. You forget that while the US introduced electronically scanned radars in the early 2000s, the SU had done it back in the early 80s. Indian money put the radar on a Flanker or else it would have gotten the same radar back in the 80s under the SU, ie 20 years before the US did it.
Hell, their biggest achievement in demonstrating their industrial capability was the unmanned flight of their space shuttle, something even the US thought was impossible. The SU were also pioneers in ramjet/scramjet tech, the US had the tech transferred using blackmail and it was SU tech which kicked off American hypersonics. So is it any surprise that the Russians are so far ahead in hypersonics today compared to the US?
LM's VTOL design for the F-35 also came from the SU.
taskandpurpose.com
Just so you know, in the next few years, the Russians will be flight testing the world's first near space-capable fighter.
Russia’s future MiG-41 fighter will be quite a machine. It won’t just fly at supersonic speeds, but hypersonic as well. Even better, it won’t even operate on Earth. The MiG-41 will fly in outer space, according to Russian media, which has been breathlessly extolling the virtues of an aircraft...
nationalinterest.org
As for the F-15's combat record, nothing special really happened, the Syrians were more than a full generation behind the Israelis, so the result was obvious. No different over Iraq and Serbia, where the enemies had to contend with the full might of NATO, so they decided not to bother fighting back. Most of Iraq's air force was destroyed on the ground or was moved to Iran.
Only American rabid fanboys underestimate the Russians.
its the perfect excuse. if Russian gear wins then it is superior, when it loses, then it wasn't "real" Russian equipment. its a child's logic.
That is the case, genius. Because NATO's training is superior. So Russian gear, outside Russia, perhaps even India, will need to be better than NATO gear if it is to win. There are very, very few cases where the manpower of the adversary is potentially superior to NATO forces. How much dumber can your arguments get?