Everybody here has probably already seen those. Do you know the difference between "looking awesome" and military significance? Military aircraft design is about improving killing efficiency. The Flanker's airshow tricks to not contribute to killing efficiency, in fact they violate just about every known dogfighting principle, leaving its pilot very vulnerable. The Flanker is a pretty damn big target to begin with, easy to spot visually, and when it does either of those maneuvers, there is a huge miles wide circle in which any opponent get get off a guns or heater shot with a guaranteed kill.

super manouvre as a single attribute has limited utility though. we're looking at the same temporal flux that occurred in the 70's where the USAF and the Soviets decided that Mach 3 aircraft were of limited utility and were certainly lacking in survivability in contested and saturated air space (saturated as in IADS) it's pretty basic, in a no escape zone of a modern missile, the closer you are to the target, the more you tighten the "no escape zone" if you have a big interceptor the size of an Su-3nnn, then the chances of a platform limited to 9g manouvre (even with TVC) escaping a missile that can survive at 35g (and that doesn't factor in TVC on a missile) - then its chances of escaping intact are demonstrably unlikely. Hence why since the late 1970's the USAF focussed on stealth as a way fo closing the gap and narrowing the no escape options on the target. All the fancy flying in the world is not going to help too much if you have an aircraft that can close the gap and launch. On top of that, the USAF doesn't operate aircraft in a vacuum - all assets work in a co-operative environment. having these "my aircraft" can whip your "aircraft" is absolutely fatuous if scenarios don't reflect any of the likely reality parameters that will be in place. lets assume that the US starts it's stealth generations from Have Blue. That means that they are almost on their 6th generation of deliverable platforms. They abandoned high speed platforms years ago, adding manouvre to the equation is only relevant if you're fighting a 3rd world nation. The best manned platform is going to struggle against a missile that can exercise almost 4 times harder in a "G" envelope - especially if the launch window is narrower and the no escape options are correspondingly reduced with each final km/mile of the meeting engagement. A little bit of reality would be nice if we're going to continue to have these types of threads (and unfortunately never seems to occur as it should)

Nice!!! :)

Dropbear, what is it you're talking about that's "nice"?

Darth America's humour, what else? ;)

Great choice, and the NASA Dryden Flight Center Website practically has an entire library of video clips available of some seriously crazy stuff.

Why do people think that the F-22 isn't agile in a dog fight. It not only has thrust vectoring it also has a really fast acceleration (useful when you have just lost a lot of speed turning your aircraft) The SU-37 is clearly lacking here. And what is this with the F-22 not being "completely stealth". Sure, it's not some hideous looking, weird angled frisbee like the F-117, but stealth technology has taken quantum leaps since then. Just look at the Bird of Prey or the X-45. Clearly better recent designs then the F-117. But the basic fact about the F-22's stealth is: we simply don't know. That information is classified for obvious reasons. All we know is that the country that build the F-117 and B-2 so long ago, and the X-45 so recently has spent a great deal of money and time developing the worlds first stealth air superiority fighter. It must clearly be superior to the SU-37 because this Russian designs is not only HUGE (really bad for RCS) but also build by engineers who can't spell to stealth and in a country that has no stealth technology. Not to mention the fact that the SU-37 is likely never to see production. The SU-27 and SU-30 is still the ones bringing home the bacon, and when the day comes that Russia, India, China or some other wants a more modern aircraft the PAK_FA should be just about ready.

I agree on the stealth thing, it is certainly stealthy to a very good extent, but it's is mostly classified. The Su-37 has TV nozzles as well, it's more manuverable than the F-22, not more than the X-31, but that's completely experimental.

>>>The Su-37 has TV nozzles as well, it's more manuverable than the F-22, not more than the X-31, but that's completely experimental.<<< ---You missed the point. The SU-37 is indeed experimental. Just because it Looks like an SU-27 series doesnt make it operational. Also it is not more manuverable than an F-22 outside of very specific flight regimes. ie clean and probably with very little fuel and then only at low subsonic speeds. This is in addition to its inferior avionics and other performance parameters. Just please stop comparing this plane to the F-22 as the comparison is not realistic.