The Cobra Maneuver.

**wabpilot** · 08 Aug 07,, 03:27

Originally Posted by avon1944

That is a 'you understood', the AoA limiter is turned off!

Not only did I "understand" the AOA limiter was off, I verified it. BTDT.

**kompikos** · 20 Aug 07,, 15:42

I've seen the cobra at an air show and seems the aircraft is leaking lots of energy to perform this maneuver, it's drastically slowing down and when done, kinetic energy is built up slowly to keep the fighter going.

Air show maneuver, small chances to be successfully used in a dogfight.

**omon** · 20 Aug 07,, 16:49

cobra will sure make your opponent think " what the hell is ths moron doing??", or" he can't be that stupid".

**jhenthorne_3** · 14 Nov 07,, 15:29

the whole point of the manuver was to demonstrait the manuvorability of the sukhoi su 27 or similar aircraft..its a russian manuver.. the americans use it now with the f22.. it was NEVER ment of combat..!!!

**~~Rossiman~~** · 14 Nov 07,, 20:43

Ya, very little actual scenarios stick to the airshows.

**nutter** · 24 Nov 07,, 17:07

All the cobra is, is a demonstration of pointing the nose at extremely high angle of attack.

Stuck in lag pursuit and need to get the nose around quickly to point weapons? *yank* ... nose around... (not a "cobra" but same principle... nose pulled around at extremely high AoA)

Sure, you just bled heaps of airspeed, but if it means you have weapons pointing at the target for a kill-shot, it could be worth it.

Its not like "oh here's the cobra, it's the latest in dogfight manourvres!"

It's more like "see how the plane can fly at up to 90 degrees AoA and maintain control". The ability to do *that* could come in handy in some limited scenarios... you might not need the full 90 degrees AoA... maybe you'd only need 50 or 60 to get the noise around far enough... but the manouvre demonstrates that the ability to fly high angle of attack is there if you need it - all the way up to 90 degrees.

edit:
As to trying a Cobra at 100 feet AGL.... lol

You've seen what happens (or can happen) at the end of the cobra, right? Totally out of airspeed, plane slides backwards towards the ground....

My suggestion would be that pulling cobras down in the weeds = suicidal.

**GGTharos** · 24 Nov 07,, 18:11

Actually, it's not a demonstration of *flight* at 90 deg AoA. It's a demonstration of control in a stall condition, because at 90deg the flanker ain't flying.

The F-22 on the other hand, can sustain a 60 deg AoA in a fight, and is probably the only in-service combat fighter that can do so (although it's posisble that the TVC migs and su's can as well, it depends on their TWR)

**wabpilot** · 24 Nov 07,, 18:31

Originally Posted by nutter

It's more like "see how the plane can fly at up to 90 degrees AoA and maintain control". The ability to do *that* could come in handy in some limited scenarios... you might not need the full 90 degrees AoA... maybe you'd only need 50 or 60 to get the noise around far enough... but the manouvre demonstrates that the ability to fly high angle of attack is there if you need it - all the way up to 90 degrees.

Wrong. See my posting above. In the cobra maneuver, AOA peaks at about 38 units. The point is not to pull a lot of Gs or reach an insane AOA. The result of executing the cobra correctly is flying at minimum controllable airspeed, NOT entering a stalled condition. Recovery must be initiated in a timely manner so as not to enter a stall.