Not really wanting to feed or add to the debate... its been argued so many times and with the limited info we have, it would appear we are simply arguing opinions, and it seems a little silly.

One thing i would like to know is, what would be the maximum speed these fighters could fly into on of these stalling manourvers?

Originally posted by Daedalus3
But when any a/c encounter hostiles requiring WVR merge early on during mission clock, then I think it would be prudent for it to detach all the external 'heavies' (fuel pods, non-WVR missiles/mud-moving munitions) and reprofile its loadout for high-G WVR combat.

Keep on at least a pair of AIM-120s or R-77s on hand in case the enemy force calls in a couple buddies, nail 'em at range. You wouldn't want to get caught with your pants down after you've performed some breathtaking maneuvers and are about to blast your enemy into oblivion with style, would you?

The MKI can do most of its hi-g combat manuevering with full loadouts w/o losing much, though there is a definite loss of 'smoothness' in manuevering.

Also fuel tanks with asymmetric amounts of fuel may contribute to the lack of smoothness but I guess only pilots would be able to give testament to that.

Actually, one of the niftiest things about the Su-27 (and all other 30.34924 variants this month) is that most of the maneuvers that amaze us are inertia-dependent. (Super) Cobra, Kulbit, all those nifty flatspins, they're all tricks that require the aircraft to change attitude but not direction of movement. Which requires a lot of inertia. Which requires a lot of mass. That's one particular piece of equipment every Su-27 variant comes with off the line and is never caught without, as we've all probably noticed. I mean, have you seen the weight of a Su-27?! Go look it up, and try and figure out how the a/c manages to get off the ground, let alone pull some of the stunts we've seen!

On that note though, drag does have a pronounced effect on the way the maneuvers work. The aircraft can basically weigh as much as it wants so long as it flies, but the drag does muck around with how the a/c will act in the middle of a maneuver, and especially will change the rate of recovery after said stunts.

As for supersonic TVC manueverability; I believe the MKI can do whatever the Raptor can in the 'pitching' vertical axis at rated speeds esp since this axis is more forgiving towards the airframe at supersonic speeds(and it is the only TVC axis available to the Raptor).
However carrying out 'yawing' and 'rolling' TVC manuevers at supersonic speeds would be quite demanding on the airframe due to asymmetric forces on the wings.

And especially on the control surfaces. As has already been discussed, in here or another thread (I can't remember. Too early here on vacation ) the force on the control surfaces as they shift are very stressful at high speeds, which is why maneuvering options are so limited.

Sorry for the short and uninformative posts, but it's really early here and I've only got a couple minutes on the 'net.

I am pretty sure the su-30mki is very capeable of being more munuverable then the f-22

double post ..
my bad

[edit on 2.18.08 by toreishi]

From 4th generation fighters, the best would be F-15 and Su-27 equipped with thrust vectoring. There are prototypes as well as production models:

2D TVC

F-15S/MTD
Su-37 "Flanker-F"
Su-30MKI "Flanker-H"
Su-30MKM "Flanker-H"

3D TVC

F-15 ACTIVE
Su-35 "Flanker-E"
Su-35BM "Flanker-E"


I think that the F-15 ACTIVE has better maneuverability than the Su-35 because:
- the canards on the F-15 are bigger, this means better aerodynamic effect
- the nozzles on the F-15 can deflect up to 20 deg, on the Su-35 up to 15 deg
- if we compare the wing loading, we have:
F-15C Eagle 358 kg/m^2
Su-35 "Flanker-E" 408 kg/m^2