LAXintl From United States, joined May 2000, 12089 posts, RR: 22 Posted (1 year 2 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 5666 times:
Some interesting comments about the recent Red Flag exercises.
-Praising the Indians and their SU-30
-French seemingly solely on an intelligence gathering mission at Red Flag.
-F-22 great, but with some small faults
EBJ1248650 From United States, joined Jun 2005, 1532 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 12 hours ago) and read 5295 times:
It certainly sounds like the Indian AF is well run. Their professionalism made a distinct impression on US pilots and that says a lot for them. It's fair to say they learned a lot from the Red Flag experience and next time they show up (and I suspect they will) they'll come better prepared and the results will be most interesting.
LMP737 From United States, joined May 2002, 3910 posts, RR: 26 Reply 5, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 5295 times:
Informative video's to say the least. Being a former Navy jet engine mechanic I found the part about the Indians having to send their engines back to Russia to be worked on very interesting. Not very conducive to fleet reliability. It also means your technicians are going to have limited knowledge on the very aircraft they are supposed to work on.
BarfBag From India, joined Mar 2001, 1883 posts, RR: 9 Reply 6, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
This is an interesting video from an American perspective. However, not all statements from the speaker can be viewed as accurate - there are technical inaccuracies in what he says.
For example, the MKI's don't use Tumanskys but Lyulka-Saturn AL-31FPs. The N011M Bars tracking capability was degraded because IAF required the personnel to only use it in training mode, and to never activate its full capabilities at Red Flag, considering the French actions.
The Bisons (HAL-upgraded IAF MiG-21s) do not have an 'Israeli radar/jammer' but a Russian/Indian one. The MKI has an Indian mission computer and radar controller, with other avionics components from Russian, French and Israeli sources, tailored to IAF requirements. The combined suite makes the MKIs qualitatively superior to the PLAAF MKKs (which don't even have the Bars radar, since the Russians declined to give it to them) or any other current MKx variants.
The MKI's engines are not FOD-prone - they operate fine off less well maintained IAF and RuAF bases, and IAF has not had any MK/MKI operational concerns other than wear and tear in the decade they have been in service. Further, HAL Koraput has an AL-31FP overhaul/repair facility - even their website mentions as such.
Overall, though, it is an interesting video indeed, though the technical inaccuracies must be kept in mind.
Pyrex From Portugal, joined Aug 2005, 2348 posts, RR: 18 Reply 7, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
Quoting BarfBag (Reply 6): IAF required the personnel to only use it in training mode, and to never activate its full capabilities at Red Flag, considering the French actions.
Wrong. The IAF never had plans to turn on the radars because of American snooping, months before the actual exercise. It had noting to do with French so-called snooping.
In any case, it is just the words of a fighter jock palying Top Gun, still thinking he lives in the 80s ("Oh, the bad Frenchies, why are they so mean to us?"). The day they do a Close Air-Support Red Flag call me.
Read this very carefully, I shall write this only once!
BarfBag From India, joined Mar 2001, 1883 posts, RR: 9 Reply 9, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
Quoting Pyrex (Reply 7): The IAF never had plans to turn on the radars because of American snooping, months before the actual exercise.
It is true that the IAF generally do not have the Bars on for training exercises with other air forces. They rarely even agree to field the MKIs, and typically will field the MK-1s (as they did at Cope India). However, IAF sources do claim they had the Bars activated on occasion at Red Flag, but only in training mode.
Here's an interesting email from IAF sources that I came across, in response to the above videos:
On Ex Red Flag-the You Tube video- The other side of the Coin!!
Posted by: *** ***
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 11:51 pm ((PST))
These are comments by a friend of mine-one of our top grade professional youngsters, and a participant in the recently concluded Red Flag Ex in Nellis AFB.
1. No 1vs1s were flown during the Flag,nor did they engage in Thrust Vectoring(TV) then.IvIs were flown during the sorties in Mountain Home AFB and that too on the first day only! In none of these ex were the Su ever shot down or become vulnerable(This can of course be checked on the ACMI Pod films/casettes).
2.The data rates of turn and TV with regard to the Su is grossly out- the ones on the F-22 may be closer to the truth!! The figures for the Su are very much more than that referred to in the video!!
3.The Radar of the F-22 is superior to the Su presently!
4.Fratricide by our side did take place, more due to not being networked-it occurred when the AWACS was not available(u/s) and a very poor standard of controlling by USAF controllers( terminology and accent).This was mentioned in the debrief.Surprisingly, Fratricide was present for the F-15C as well as other allied A/C. Considering that they were better networked( Link-16,IFF-Mode 4 etc), while we had nothing,it should be a matter of concern for them and not us!!
5.FOD-Take-Off separation-was 30" at Mountain Home but extended to 1min and known to all participants before the start of the Ex!!
6.Incidentally,Mission achievement ratio was higher than 90%, whereas the mission success rates were significantly lower for the USAF, inspite of us op some 20000 kms away!!
7.Our level of experience was a standard Sqn cross-section and our youngsters performed very well in the new environment and not one rule was violated.Our professional approach was very favourably commented upon.
8. In the ultimate analyses, we had a significant edge all throughout and retained it.
It appears that this video was to pep up the US industry, showing that the F-22 is the answer to the Su-30MKI and one never knows-this will be the pitch for larger orders!!
Standard jock talk disclaimers apply for the above as well...
Overall, I think the IAF did extremely well in terms of acquiring the ability to support operations ~20000kms away, with effectively drilled procedures in place to handle all aspects of logistics, including as aspect like the scores of picky vegetarians in the deployment.
UH60FtRucker From Afghanistan, joined Mar 2005, 2877 posts, RR: 67 Reply 10, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
Quoting BarfBag (Reply 9): Standard jock talk disclaimers apply for the above as well...
That email - if truly from an IAF pilot - is disappointing. Because it shows a lack of humbleness, and an inability to learn from these failures.
You don't go to Red Flag to wave your dick around, you go to get your butt kicked and to learn from the mistakes. That's the entire point: you don't have second chances in real combat, so learn from your otherwise deadly mistakes in a training scenario.
So they weren't invincible. GOOD! They weren't suppose to be. Everything that went wrong should have been thoroughly documented, reviewed, and improved upon. It does the IAF no good to attend these events, if this is the attitude they'll walk away with.
If they didn't come away with a little bit of a shock to their pride, then they didn't learn a damn thing. Which is truly disappointing.
BarfBag From India, joined Mar 2001, 1883 posts, RR: 9 Reply 11, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
Quoting UH60FtRucker (Reply 10): Because it shows a lack of humbleness, and an inability to learn from these failures.
Oh come on. It is all posturing, no different from the original Flight Global article - which was hardly an official statement of any sort either. Why are you responding to an explicit disclaimer with such a lecture ?
If the IAF were unrealistic, especially after past exercises like Cope India, they wouldn't have done as well as they did at Red Flag.
There's unlikely to be any official statement from the IAF - they have never commented on the Cope India, when the post event debates came from USAF or third parties.
I expect the IAF to quietly do their job, and continue with the professional performance they exhibited.
UH60FtRucker From Afghanistan, joined Mar 2005, 2877 posts, RR: 67 Reply 12, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 5100 times:
Quoting BarfBag (Reply 11):
I expect the IAF to quietly do their job, and continue with the professional performance they exhibited.
I do not doubt it.
But what I am arguing, is that the two posted youtube videos, were of a fair assessment! He was very gracious to the IAF, and praised their skills. But he was also realistic about their mistakes.
But the email response you posted, is anything but gracious. It's whiny and it makes excuses. So if it really is from an IAF pilot, then it appears he's not walking away with the primary intent: learning from mistakes made.
BarfBag From India, joined Mar 2001, 1883 posts, RR: 9 Reply 13, posted (1 year 2 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 5098 times:
I completely agree that the quoted email is overly glib. I have no attribution for it; it could just as well be from a teenage armchair jock. I just found it on a couple of Indian online forums. Overly legitimizing it, or worse, presuming that is IAF's view of the exercise, is exaggeration in the extreme. As I said, it's jock talk...
While the youtube videos are better, they're neither official, nor very technically accurate. There's also some degree of playing to the gallery, being as it is a USAF/vets gathering - absolutely nothing wrong with that. I see it as just an interesting US perspective, neither one to be treated as the official statement, nor to be discredited altogether - I just wanted to point out a few technical errors mentioned in the video.
Further, I expect *no* official statement from either USAF or IAF on these exercises, outside of a canned 'it was a good experience' statement from the MoD. Any statement will be nothing more than unofficial posturing from other sources - some rather refined (like the video), some not (like the email). Any statement from the IAF will be only in the form of competent performance, which they have done. While I see the video as an interesting insight into what happened, I'm not willing to make any conclusion out of it.
Kaitak From Ireland, joined Aug 1999, 8552 posts, RR: 34 Reply 14, posted (1 year 2 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 4727 times:
Quoting UH60FtRucker (Reply 10): Because it shows a lack of humbleness, and an inability to learn from these failures.
Why do we expect different from IAF pilots than we'd expect from USAF pilots; humility is not a quality you expect (even want) from front line fighter pilots. While not being a great knowledge of the IAF, it's probably fair to say that being an SU-30MKI pilot with the IAF is as sought after a job in India as being an F-15/16/22 pilot is in the US.
I think it's great that these two countries are working together.
Can't help wondering, though; the experience gained by the USAF in dealing with SU-30s could be very useful if it ever became necessary to take on the Venezuelan aircraft in live combat?
"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" "Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world".
Trex8 From United States, joined Nov 2002, 2908 posts, RR: 18 Reply 15, posted (1 year 2 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 4639 times:
Quoting Kaitak (Reply 14): Can't help wondering, though; the experience gained by the USAF in dealing with SU-30s could be very useful if it ever became necessary to take on the Venezuelan aircraft in live combat?
it ain't the Venezuelans the USAF are worried about, its the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army!
sl OT but this whole business of "snooping" amongst friends is nothing new, the US sent SSNs to snoop on Taiwanese Mirage 2000 Mica firings in the late 90s. only to have the sub detected by a decades old S2 tracker forcing it to leave the area !
Acheron From Spain, joined Sep 2005, 831 posts, RR: 2 Reply 16, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4563 times:
Quoting Kaitak (Reply 14): Can't help wondering, though; the experience gained by the USAF in dealing with SU-30s could be very useful if it ever became necessary to take on the Venezuelan aircraft in live combat?
Who knows, there are a few differences between the IAF and the VAF.
For example, different radars and other system between the MKI and the MK2, also the operational doctrines on how to operate the Flankers may differ and their teoretical adversaries.
And of course, the cultural differences in training and the likes.
F27Friendship From Netherlands, joined Jul 2007, 1090 posts, RR: 6 Reply 17, posted (1 year 1 week 6 days 15 hours ago) and read 4412 times:
Quoting Pyrex (Reply 7): In any case, it is just the words of a fighter jock palying Top Gun, still thinking he lives in the 80s ("Oh, the bad Frenchies, why are they so mean to us?"). The day they do a Close Air-Support Red Flag call me.
I guess that wraps it up quite nicely! Exactly what I was thinking when watching it. Mind who the audience is: retired USAF officers that want to be entertained
@BarfBag, thanks for correcting those mistakes and providing us with insider info!
Quoting UH60FtRucker (Reply 12): But what I am arguing, is that the two posted youtube videos, were of a fair assessment!
ow come on! Please try to be a little less biased. That pilot was grossly patronizing; "the're all good boys but there no where near our level". According to barfbags fact sheet he was even making up stuff!!
Checksixx From United States, joined Mar 2005, 814 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (1 year 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 3269 times:
Quoting BarfBag (Reply 11): If the IAF were unrealistic, especially after past exercises like Cope India, they wouldn't have done as well as they did at Red Flag.
They flew clean jets...they are only fooling themselves.
Sponsor Message: 
From United States, joined May 2000, 12089 posts, 
From , joined Dec 1969, posts, 
From Romania, joined Oct 2009, 0 posts, 
From Afghanistan, joined Mar 2005, 2877 posts, 
From India, joined Mar 2001, 1883 posts, 
From Portugal, joined Aug 2005, 2348 posts, 
From Spain, joined Sep 2005, 831 posts, 
From Ireland, joined Aug 1999, 8552 posts, 
From Netherlands, joined Jul 2007, 1090 posts, 
From Philippines, joined Jan 2006, 3163 posts, 
From Sweden, joined Aug 2005, 8 posts, 
Sponsor Message: 
Printer friendly format
