Thread: Su-30 Versus RAAF alternatives

At least as far as the Canadians are concerned, the CF-104s were worth their weight in gold. They were nuke delivery platforms (makes me wonder why we ever trained CAS with them).

And let's look at the other side. MiG-19s and MiG-21s. Hardly, Rolls Royce of the fighter world.

The problem of Matching Su-30MK is now all over Asia... US Millitary luckilly helped to Sukhoi by leaking information about Cope India Mock Fights. The original goal was to support F-22 but strong by side result was killing F-15 - US currently second major export warplane....

The problem is that too few may afford F-22 which is in range of US$100-142 m, and only few of those who may expect any deliveries by 2010......

So the situation may bring a handfull of new orders for Su-30MK.
For Sukhoi this is a unique chance to get enough resources for a developing new generation fighter with the cash brought by this opportunity.
- develop new engine with supersonic cruising
- develop and apply new antistealth radar
- upgrade frame to increase payload
- newer weaponry
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Shooting down F-15 to save Raptor?

By Peter Spiegel The Straits Times (Singapore)Asia News Network
800 words
11 August 2004
The Korea Herald
English
(c) 2004 The Korea Herald

It started as one of the dozens of military exercises the Pentagon conducts with friendly governments each year - operations that are as much about bilateral diplomacy as about testing military capabilities.

However, the exercise carried out in February, involving mock combat between the United States and Indian air forces over the skies of Madhya Pradesh in central India, has taken on a life of its own. The reason? The U.S. lost.

Not only did the U.S. aircraft lose, but they lost repeatedly. According to one member of Congress briefed on the exercise, the U.S. Air Force's top fighter, the F-15 Eagle, was defeated more than 90 percent of the time in simulated dogfights with Indian pilots.

As a result, reports on the exercise have not only reached the highest levels of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill but have traveled around the world to military procurement agencies in Singapore and South Korea. As details gradually leaked out, the exercise has become one of the prime topics of gossip at global air shows and arms fairs.

It has also opened a rare window into the overlapping loyalties and increasingly cut-throat competition that mark military procurement in an age of shrinking defense budgets.

The exercise, known as Cope India, was conceived almost two years ago as part of thawing relations between New Delhi and Washington. Some Pentagon officials saw improved diplomatic ties with democratic India as a way to balance the growing strength of communist China. It was the first combat training exercise between the two air forces in more than 40 years.

However, Pentagon planners also had an important military goal: U.S. air force pilots had never gone up against the Su-30 Flanker, the latest Russian-built fighter designed by Sukhoi, which India began to acquire in 1997.

Many Cope India details remain classified. Accounts conflict: Some say the F-15s lacked the U.S. Air Force's most sophisticated radar, others that the Indians used special helmet-mounted targeting systems unavailable to U.S. pilots, and yet others that the Americans were outnumbered at least two to one.

Whatever the reasons, the U.S. Air Force might normally be expected to keep such a defeat under wraps. But in recent weeks, senior officers have begun leaking information about the exercise, freely admitting their technical inferiority. "We may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were," said General Hal Hornburg, head of the U.S. Air Combat Command.

The reason for the sudden candor has little to do with the F-15, and much more to do with another high-performance aircraft: the $72 billion F/A-22 Raptor, a new stealthy combat jet the U.S. Air Force is desperate to save from congressional and Pentagon budget cutters.

The craft has come under fire from those who say the U.S. no longer needs a fighter originally designed to fight the next generation of Soviet MiGs. So senior officers have decided the risks of revealing the inadequacies of the F-15 are outweighed by the opportunity to convince the government to keep buying the higher-priced fighter.

"Something like Cope India, when we find some of our advantages aren't as great as we thought they might be, leads me to remind people we need to modernize our air-to-air capability," said Gen. Hornburg.

Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor on the F/A-22 Raptor, has been more than happy to play along. In recent briefings, senior executives have made thinly veiled references to Cope India.

"The bottom line is, the U.S. no longer has a technological combat advantage, based on aircraft versus aircraft," said Mr. Ralph Heath, the Lockheed executive overseeing the F/A-22 Raptor.

It would seem only natural that the F/A-22 Raptor's largest sub-contractor, Boeing, would play along too - except for one problem: Boeing makes the F-15. The company recently won a competition to produce F-15s for South Korea and is engaged in a heated contest to build 20 for the Republic of Singapore Air Force.

"We were concerned," said Mr. George Muellner, head of Boeing's air force business.

In an effort to save the F-15 from the Pentagon's self-inflicted wounds, General John Jumper, the air force chief of staff, recently briefed Singapore officials on the Indian exercise.

Caught in between is Sukhoi itself, which does not seem to know what to make of the mixed American messages.

"We feel part of a game," protested Mr. Alexander Klementiev, Sukhoi's deputy director-general. "But we are not participants in that game."

Document KORHER0020040810e08b00007