Now we all know for a fact that in no way is indian AirForce stronger or larger than US's military might.

Remember the frequesnt articles and newsitems on the failures of MIG 21s.

This article was an interesting read. And just wanted to share with you all.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/745557.cms?headline=Aging~IAF~shoots~down~USAF~top~guns

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What can be imagined, can be achieved.

The F-15 lost for a reason. It is not a dogfighter, which the MiG-21 and Su-30 are.

The F-15 are long-range, fire and forget type of planes.

The idea behind the F-22 is to have a plane that can do both.

what happened to our LCA, is it in production?

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I once made a mistake, but I was wrong about it.

Ahem ahem ....Dear Mishter India & Mercury Ji

May i say something....the F 15 is an all weather low level strike capable aircraft - just as the MIG is. What the pilots practised in this - is not quite as typical as the dogfights of WW I or II - but flying procedures to be able to get into a position which enables you to fire first with a lock on. The indian pilots who flew are pilots actually instructors and pilots, trained at a place called the TACDE Tactical defence establishment - where they are taught how to lead a squadron in flight and action. Its sort of a school for officers being groomed as officers in charges of squadrons. And yes these people are good.
Fire & forget capabilty - means the capabilty of a weapons system to "lock on" to a target and the pilot fires off his missile from as far as in some cases 90 miles - then the missile either by self guided radar homes on to the target - which means that the pilot fires and forgets about the missile as the radar on the missile will guide it to the target.
There is another way by which th epilot fires at the target from a distance but the missile doesnt have a built in radar so the pilot has to keep his aircraft in line with the target - so the radar waves from his aircraft form a wave over which the missile rides to the target - this has to be done till the misile is in close proximity of the target - 2 miles in some cases - till its heat sensors detect the source and go towards it.
The US pilots have so much of tech in their aircrafts that they usually do these things and very raraely - get close to any enemey aircraft - if yousee all their missions and achievements are by either extremely high level flying or by stealth - neither of which require close quarter maneuvering - they realise this too - and have set up Topgun - even ehile they were in vietnam - when their pilots were losing badly - first instructors in topgun were british veterans. It is said that pilots from topgun who went to viet- fared better. God only knows.Its pretty difficult to decide whether US ever tells the truth. They have been kicked bad so many times yet they smile and say we did it man yeaaah that we say in oour minds - hey its the US after all - must be true.
But then again - as regards the recent excercise - these are pretty well covered by senior level directives - no side shows it full prowess - as these things will be diagnosed in detail- afterwards how the indians reacted - how the us reacted - which reflects on training.
In the academy, the foreign and US guys were allowed to sit in class - but things which became somewhat critical they were given a jeep to go the market and have fun while certain maneuvers were taught only to Indian cadets. Each country is very careful not to allow these to be shown. In countries where foreign pilots fly that country's aircraft - US does for Pak - they usually do not allow pak pilots to fly alongside them on sorties - though with pak they are allowing. (ghar hi ki baat hai )
So this is really not an indicator - that we won and can really win with the US - remember those guys fire from 100 miles and just yawn - all the dogfighting skills in the world wont help the indian pilot with a locked on missile ! Yo ucan never be sure of how canny US guys can be.
Thers an incident which is 100% true - and US wanted to find out about our atomic programme - which was inida's closest secret - there suddenly appeared an advertisement in the papaers that "scientists with this background ...bla..bla" salary was astronomical. These scientsists with - i wont name the agencies - appeared and blabbed all the things they knew to the "recruiters" - some even had official govt NOCs- and off went the Recruiter.
The LCA project was jinxed from the start - what aircraft producers do is that they make an airplane and then select and engine - what happened ib case of the LCA is that India had started developing a fighter in 1965 0r so - they developed an engine too - the figheter was a mismatch with the engine - as the airframe couldnt bear the stress of vibrations and all - so they thought - we have an powerful engine - lets make a plavne - this may sound funny the way i am saying it - but sadly true - so started the GTX project which has now been delayed - well it was supposed to fly in 1982 and be in production by 1996 with the naval variant too.
The engine which they were so proud off has also been discarded - thank God - and they are using a GE (USA ) engine - and avionics - which furthered delayed due to US sanctions. Yes the LCA flew 2001 - 20 minutes and is under testing at ASTE.
Good news is that the Armed light helicopter (ALH ) has been tested and tried - and found to be very good - and there are orders for that. So thers the silver lining

regards
It was nice to see such things on th enet

How are you doing mishter ? YouMercury - hows the new appartment ?
can we talk more -

Regards

SF