F-22 - Cobra Maneuver

as far as us (the us.) we are usually second best to the RAF. the (royal air force) we are good but the raf usually beats us in wargames held each year. fortunately they are not a threat to us.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Video of an F-22 doing a Cobra:
Click Marvel of Engineering

I see two tailslides (or is it bell... meh whatever) but no cobra...

[edit on 1-4-2005 by Taishyou]

This is from somewhere else: "for a good cobra manoeuvre the plane must 'want to fly.'" That means you throw a plane in any direction it automatically pitches its nose right back to the flight path. You can't have any instability on the plane corrected by FBW. The plane must fly "naturally"

[edit on 1-4-2005 by Taishyou]

Originally posted by f23ghost
as far as us (the us.) we are usually second best to the RAF. the (royal air force) we are good but the raf usually beats us in wargames held each year. fortunately they are not a threat to us.

What? I don't remember the last time the US had an excercise with the RAF.

Besides, the US always has some set of restrictions on their aircraft when they do wargames.

Originally posted by f23ghost
as far as us (the us.) we are usually second best to the RAF. the (royal air force) we are good but the raf usually beats us in wargames held each year. fortunately they are not a threat to us.

lol you do realise for saying that 100's of americans are gonna go mad now.. hehe.. anywayz.. the RAF and USAF hold regular red flag exercises in the nevada desert.. Airforces from all over the world come to practice.

The RAF are the ones who usually come back with the trophys and there always commended for flying insanely low at very fast speeds..making the dust move off the ground.

Before this turns into a brawl..remember..were both allys..and these red flag exercises are just training together.

Most of the pilots that train a the Mojave desert or at Nellis AF Base are cadets looking to earn their wings, so the Brits can beat our rookies?
Oh yeah they also fly F-16's which is not meant to be a great A2A fighter.

Next time please post some links to back up your BS.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Most of the pilots that train a the Mojave desert or at Nellis AF Base are cadets looking to earn their wings, so the Brits can beat our rookies?

Oh yeah they also fly F-16's which is not meant to be a great A2A fighter.

Next time please post some links to back up your BS.

See my point? Anywho..i was waitin for you to post westy

So your saying the f-16 isn't a great A2A fighter?? i think you'll find about 90% of the people on this board will disagree with you there..

Also as good as the jaguar is at dogfighting, the f-16 is a better aircraft. i remember hearing once how an RAF pilot actually bent the wings on a jaguar trying to out-turn an F-16.

In fact.. as far as western fighters go, i'd say the F-16 is probably the best A2A fighter of it's generation..but that's just my opinion.

I wasn't aware that they were rookies who trained there.. but like you said..if you can back that up...please do..and for all we know the RAF guys are rookies... so let's wait till we have all the facts

Man you gotta love the ATS forum. How did a discussion about whether or not the F-22 can do a cobra manoeuvre turn into an argument of US vs. Brits at Nellis?

The F-15 is a better A2A fighter than the F-16. The F-16 is a multi-role jet the F-15 was designed for A2A combat. And at Nevllis USAF pilots after graduation the academy often go to Nevllis to train against export fighters and the pilots of the export fighters are the instructors. Don't know who the British send over.

Here is a link form the Nellis AF Base website about REd Flag.

[edit on 3-4-2005 by WestPoint23]

The F-16 is arguably the best A2A fighter in the USA arsenal. The F-15 though my personal favorite and the original standard of American A2A capapbility, has been oversadowed by the younger F-16 due to constant upgrades which the F-15 has not had. The F-16 is also the standard of U.S. fighter maneuverablity though it may not be the best in all areas.

As far as the Cobra maneuver is concerned, the F/A-22 can do that maneuver quite easily. It only takes two-dimenshional thrust and very powerful engines, two things the F/A-22 has.

Additionaly, the USAF has not puch much stock in the move which tells me it's use in tactical warfare is irrelevant and counter-productive. And the super-cobra only magnifies the weakenesses of the Cobra.

Third, the notion that the F/A-22 is not maneuverale needs to end. The fact is that maneuverabilty is not the sole and dominant capability of the Raptor, it's stealth, speed, and avionics are. In maneuverablity, the Raptor will likely outperform most if not all rival aircraft. Coupled with the best BVR capablilty in the world due to stealth, speed, and avionics, and the world's most powerful airforce and tactical communications network, dog fighting wil be increasingly slim. Oh yeah and the kill envelope of an AIM-120, yeah basically game over.

Originally posted by Laxpla
Joe,
Here's an answer to your question from our chief test pilot:

Yes we can do the cobra maneuver. It is in fact part of the Advanced
Handling Training the new pilots get. In essence, from level flight,
300 KCAS you abruptly go full aft stick, the aircraft will pitch nose up
to 90 degrees of pitch. You then abruptly push the stick full forward
and the nose pitches back down to level flight. It's an interesting
maneuver to watch but has questionable tactical utility (except in the
movies) as you bleed off a significant amount of energy during the
maneuver and pretty much make yourself a sitting duck.

Bret Luedke
F/A-22 Chief Test Pilot

Yes, I often wondeed about the tactical usefullness of this manoeuver. It would seem that the only use would be to cause a pursuing aircraft to overshoot and I would imagine that there are better and safer ways to do that. The risk of collision would be quite enormous.

But if you want to let national pride, hatred of the Raptor, and/or case-by-case ignorance rule you, be my guest, everyone's (or most) opinion is just as valid as mine.

and I would imagine that there are better and safer ways to do that. The risk of collision would be quite enormous.

No actually the risk of collision is not that big if the pilot behind you has good reflexes. The cobra is only performed at speeds around 450 km/h which is not very fast when you're talking about planes. Chances are, if you're flying at ~450 km/h, the pilot behind you will not fly too much faster, and he'll be able to pull away in time. Also, fighters are very small compared to the air combat environment. Unless the pilots are air show pilots doing close formation or near-miss type of stunts, the chances of two tiny planes colliding is not that big even if one is doing the cobra.

Originally posted by JamesBlonde
Yes, I often wondeed about the tactical usefullness of this manoeuver. It would seem that the only use would be to cause a pursuing aircraft to overshoot

It will only work if the enemy aircraft is very close to your aircraft, like under 100 m. Usually, even gun kills take place way further than that, around 1000m, not to mention dogfight missile kills. If the cobra is pulled at too far a distance, all you're doing is making a large and slow target because the top of your plane has a large surface area. Then the enemy will have an easier time shooting you. If they didn't shoot, then by the time your cobra is over, they'd be pretty close to you and probably were smart enough to reduce speed too, so then they'd end up around 200 or so metre away, where it's much easier to make gun kill.

The only use I can think of for the cobra (or more like the hook, which is a cobra pulled sideways or any other angle than the vertical) is to temporarily point your nose at or closer to the enemy so you can get a missile shot off them. Although the R-73 has decent off-boresight targetting ability especially when coupled with the pilot's helmet mounted sight, the hook will be useful if the enemy is way off your nose. It worked for me on a computer simulation (LOMAC) of Su-27 vs. F-16 where I used a hook when the F-16 is about 90 degrees off boresight, pointed my nose at it, locked on to it with HMS, then hit it with an R-73. Then it blew up.

Edit: but of course, simulations are just simulations. In real life, this probably won't be as easy. It might work, but there will be problems. For example, there's going to be a lot of G during the cobra, so it might be hard for the pilot to point his HMS at the enemy aircraft. Also the cobra only lasts a few seconds, so the pilot's going to have to work really fast locking on to the enemy aircraft and firing the missile. Also if the enemy manages to spoof the missile, you'll have a tougher time because the cobra will take a big chunk off your speed and if you did a hook, it will probably be a bit harder to recover than a standard cobra. Nevertheless, the R-73 is a very deadly missile and is pretty smart too at differentiating between planes and flares, so the enemy will probably not survive if you shoot an R-73 at them unless they're really really good.

[edit on 3-4-2005 by Taishyou]

here's what happened to an F-22 when it tried to do a Kulbit :












only a sukhoi can do a real kulbit.


and once again, i am still no tired of this pic:




some news on the F-22,form the washington post :

Washington Post.


The Air Force originally wanted to see the plane's sophisticated avionics, or electronics gear, achieve 20 hours of uninterrupted flying time without a software failure. When the plane couldn't achieve that, the Air Force changed its goal to flying five hours without a software failure. As of January, the plane could average no better than 2.7 hours.

In addition, the plane's microprocessor is an obsolete model no longer manufactured. The Air Force plans to switch to a newer type, including one created for the upgraded F-16 fighter jet, a type of plane far older than the F-22.

source


F-22 crash details >> www.reviewjournal.com...

I thought that F-22 crashed because of oversensitive controls during landing? Video of crash www.alexisparkinn.com...

Or was that the other F-22 that crashed...

Edit: Yeah sorry that was the other F-22.

[edit on 5-4-2005 by Taishyou]

I hate liars and misinformers, no offense. But that photo of the crashed F-22 happened due to pilot-induced oscillation.

Just thought I'd dust off this old thread because a new video has come to my attention, a video which I found very interesting, yes it's just as useless when the F-22 does it but it still looks rather nice. Enjoy.

F-22 Doing the "Cobra"

Now this thread can truly end.

[edit on 3-9-2006 by WestPoint23]

Niiiiice video

Looks quite slow in the pitch though - an OVT seems to do it much faster.


But the F-16 is superior to the F-15 in every area of A2A apart from radar performance.

Originally posted by kilcoo316

Looks quite slow in the pitch though - an OVT seems to do it much faster.

OVT's were made for increased agility- F-22 was made to be a BVR beast. That being said I like OVT's more than Raptors . I would LOVE to see a few 1v1 dogfights, Raptor against some of the new toys Russia has come up with. Particularly the Su-47 Berkut. Now THAT'S an airshow.