Hello all,

I was looking at some interesting comments you guys made about the Raptor F-22 on one of these forums. And since I’m from Venezula and some of you might know the specimen that we have for president bought some SU-27. I guess more than for political reasons just to irritate the US. People from the other side of the aisle said that is because the US was refusing to sell to Venezuela parts for the F-16 that we have.

Whatever reasons, now we end up having SU-27 and F-16 on the same air force which doesn’t make much sense to me. I was reading a little about the SU-27 and seem to be a great plane and very maneuverable, maybe more than a pilot can stand on a high G environment, but also appear to be a plane that has not been able to prove what can and can not do much in combat. There is also some discussions about if in reality all that performance have really any advantage for the modern combat. And finally I understand this plane have been related to some wired accidents, some of which have occur during air shows.

In any event I want to apologize for the thing that we have for president, which insist in imitate Castro’s steps and keeps insulting this great nation of yours.

Carlos A.

It's hard to say which airframe is better. Both the F-16 and Su-27 have their advantages. As example, the F16 is a much smaller aircraft and will be harder to spot. Once spotted though, the F16 is much more fragile than the Su-27.
Of course there are countless of other things which you can compare, and finally you may come to a conclusion that one is slightly better than the other one.
But then, the winner would be most likely the one who has the slight advantage in circumstances of that moment.
In other words, it greatly depends on the individual pilot skill and of course the teamwork with other pilots.

I will try to give a short opinionated answer. Being an OPFOR member of the US ARMY and studying SOVIET DOCTRIN I am obsessed with Red Aircraft and have tried to learn as much about them as possible when I started an OPFOR aggressor squadron in Falcon.
But based on Actual Data you have to weigh a lot of pros and cons in both aircraft. I will sum it up as best I can.

In a BVR (BEYOND VISUAL RANGE) engagement, the FLANKER has an advantage because of the BURN THROUGH distance being at least 8 to miles to 10 miles greater than the Vipers, so those extra 5 to 10 seconds extra to acquire and burn through a jammer means he is able to get the first shot off almost 10 seconds faster.

But once you are WVR (WITHIN VISUAL RANGE) and in the merge, the Viper can use its speed to jump all over the Flanker like a spider monkey. During the merge the Viper should get up to 480 to 550+ knts. Because of its small wings it can turn a lot faster and turn around quickly at those great speeds... The Flanker cannot. If it passes 430 knts because of its larger wings and greater size, it cannot turn around fast and is a flying pig. So it's crucial for the pilot to fake out the Viper pilot by keeping his merge speed up to 450 or greater until about 5 miles before the pass and speed brake down to 380knts.

The FLANKER can turn tighter at slow speeds because of greater THRUST TO WEIGHT ratio and larger wingspan. The FLANKER can dominate in a LOW Altidude and Slow Airspeed fight. That's where the pilot would have to keep the fight. The VIPER PILOT can dominate in High altitude High Airspeed fights, but because of the spool up lag for the FLANKERS engines being greater than the VIPERS, the VIPER is able to "ZOOM" or hit his afterburners and extend away from the slow fight and recompose and re-initiate. The Flanker would not have this luxury if he found himself in trouble it takes longer for engines to spool up to burner. The Flanker wouldn't have to extend because he can still pull his nose around harder in a slow fight, and because of his greater T/W ratio, he could keep his aircraft from stalling and would start to offset the turn of the VIPER and the VIPER would be forced to disengage and extend and re-engage if able.

Phewww... so all in all both aircraft have alot of pros and cons... TOO MANY TO LIST LOL, but it comes down to the pilot and if he is an ENERGY FIGHTER or an ANGLES FIGHTER and if he can use his aircraft's PROS to exploit his opponents CONS.

It's a constant 3D game of chess.

To answer your POST QUESTION, yes this platform is very good. "F POLL" fighter... one of the best actually, but needs to be in the hands of a capable pilot to be effective.