Sukoi SU-30MK

Hi,

Thanks to member Tailgunner_joe again, a really SPECTACULAR movie of the Sukoi SU-30MK showing off.... incredible:

Sukoi SU-30MK →

Read more to see the full story...
This is a very cool vid of a Sukhoi SU-30MK fighter showing off its amazing supermaneuverability - how its vectored thrust (the engine exhaust nozzles can swivel around) enables it to stop dead in midair, make impossibly tight turns, flip over and tumble while actually flying backwards, fall belly-first while in a flat stall/spin, roll around and turn even whilestalled, make sharp 90-degree turns at any point in a loop, and still maintain full control. (Normally at very low airspeeds the control surfaces have no bite on the air and the pilot just becomes a pathetic passenger in a falling plane.) This guy trails smoke (red, of course) so you can see exactly how crazed his aerodynamics are.Includes the famous "Cobra" maneuver and some mighty snappy aerobatics thatare utterly impossible without vectored thrust and those forward canards. In the Cobra, the airplane pulls throttles to idle thrust, pitches up and slows to a dead stalled stop with its belly flat forward, slides backward and down tail-first, and then pitches the nose back down and flips itself into a stall-recovery dive almost within its own length. This guy is so good he even throws in a sexy ultra-low-speed roll during his second Cobra recovery! The Cobra is deadly in a dogfight because if you are on the SU-30's tail and it does this, there is no way you can avoid flying right on past him while he's stopped in mid-air. Then he's gonna recover into forward flight and send you a fast Vympel R-73 AA-11 Archer heat-seeking missile greeting right up the as... umm, tailpipe. Check out how he even deploys his big speed-brake panel to slow down while still in the air on landing approach.