The Cobra Maneuver

with the picture of the f-22 you can see that the engine has moved from a straight to slightly downward.


i also think that you got the angles the wrong way round

If that photo is all the evidence that some people need to prove that an aircraft can 'do a cobra' then im afraid that, given a chase plane with a competant midair photographer, most aircraft, including gliders, can 'do a cobra'.

I have to agree with Waynos on this one. That picture to me is merely a Raptor reaching the top of a loop.

I was thinning of that Raptor picture first time I saw it... It's strange... The "heat" shouldn't go strait down...

Blah...maybe I was wrong about the photo. Either way, it is not a photo of a F-22 doing a Cobra. A proper Cobra is where the plane goes to 120 degrees before going down. Maybe the photo is genuine, I don't know, but what is so significant about the exaust pointing parallel from the fuselage? A Cobra should have it in fact pointing at a 45 degrees away from the aircraft, as Taishiyou describes.

My point is, the picture does not really mean anything. I was just stating how easy it is to fake one. And don't mention the vertical mountains :lolI'm feeling dumb now...), crop the plane out, stick it on to any background and you can get a climbing or looping F-22, not one doing a Cobra.

BOTTOM LINE: The picture is not one of a F-22 doing a Cobra.

You know now that I look at the exhaust, I do think that that its probably the Raptor doing an inverted loop and not the "Cobra".

Go to this site and click on Marvel of Engineering, I recommend the large version for optimal viewing. Its not a "Cobra" but the video is nice

Marvel Of Engineering





[edit on 17-6-2005 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
I was thinning of that Raptor picture first time I saw it... It's strange... The "heat" shouldn't go strait down...

the f-22 has 2D TV engines. that means they can move up or down. if you look closely you can see that the eninge is moved downwards.

chinawhite the visible thrust line is in perfect alignment with the airframe, where you are seeing a slight deflection I do not know. Yes, the F-22 has 2D vectoring, but it is not using the facility in that picture.

That solves it than. The F-22 is not doing a Cobra in that picture. Btw Westpoint, I seen that video on discovery channel. There was a video of a Typhoon doing a sort of imcomplete cobra, where the aircraft was going to 80 degrees AoA then dropping back. And for that F-22 picture, the AoA was actually about 105 degrees and not 70 degrees, you guys got it upside down, or else the F-22 would be able to do a Cobra backwards

Yess, that Raptor isn't doing a cobra, just by looking at the engines you can see taht the "crap" is going out in wrong direction...

What about the F-15E can it do a cobra? I herd that it can perform a limited one but not the real thing.

Take a look at this from this site aeroweb.lucia.it...

The two basic reasons that the Cobra is doable in MiG's and Su's are tolerance for inlet distortion from the engine and very clean exterior aerodynamics. The Russian engines and inlets are designed to tolerate an amazingly distorted airflow into the engine. With the F-100's and F-101s in F-15s and F-16s, the engine has a very real possibility of stalling at these flight attitudes. At low altitude and in the Cobra attitude, it would be a pronged aircraft!

The very clean external aerodynamics basically means that the Russian aircraft simply "want" to fly. To get the same (approximately anyway) maneuverability the F-16 is a dynamically unstable aircraft; without its flight control computers (quad redundant) it would rapidly go out of control. That is why they did not even bother with a manual backup for the flight controls. The first Migs' and Su's were essentially "fly by wire"; that is if you include twisted strand steel cables! They are both inherently very stable flyers (as I understand it the recovery from a cobra is to advance the throttle and let the stick float!) Since this is a _very_ unconventional flight regime, the control surface scheduling program in the F-16s computers just don't have the algorithm. (of course if they did, you would still be flying a glider since the engine would be out!)

The F-18 "hornet walk", if we are talking about the same thing, is the high AOA, very slow pass down the flightline used in the Blue Angles show? That is a very stabilized "tail stand" on the engines' thrust. The Cobra is a violently dynamic maneuver. Close, but no cigar. I'll have to admit though that if any US aircraft had a shot at doing a full fledged Cobra, the F-18 might be the one.

OBTW, there was an interesting writeup on US aircraft and their capability to do the "cobra" in Aviation Week several months ago. To me it sounded a bit like "sour grapes", i.e. that the maneuver really wasn't useful so why bother! Well, maybe not so useless if you had the opportunity to figure out how to use it!