SU-30 vs Eagle and viper in Red Flag

[shawn a]

I remember reading somewhere very recently that the IAF Flankers did poorly in Red Flag because the pilots relied too heavily on what was described as "post-stall thrust vectoring maneuvers", which if used every time they were detected, could be easily countered by certain tactics.
  Yesterday, I got the current isssue of AFM magazine with a very interesting letter from India stating that there was no 1vs1 combat at Red Flag involving Flankers, and that thrust vectoring was not used there.
The letter went on to say that 1vs1 WAS flown at Mountain Home AFB where the Indians went initially for familiarization. The claimed kill ratio, according to this letter was 21:1 in favor of the Sooks (my personal nickname for Flankers)
My question is-Who's right?
(Remember, I'm the guy on dial-up, so don't send me to you toob)
Shawn A

[SukhoiLover]

I remember reading somewhere very recently that the IAF Flankers did poorly in Red Flag because the pilots relied too heavily on what was described as "post-stall thrust vectoring maneuvers", which if used every time they were detected, could be easily countered by certain tactics.
  Yesterday, I got the current isssue of AFM magazine with a very interesting letter from India stating that there was no 1vs1 combat at Red Flag involving Flankers, and that thrust vectoring was not used there.
The letter went on to say that 1vs1 WAS flown at Mountain Home AFB where the Indians went initially for familiarization. The claimed kill ratio, according to this letter was 21:1 in favor of the Sooks (my personal nickname for Flankers)
My question is-Who's right?
(Remember, I'm the guy on dial-up, so don't send me to you toob)
Shawn A

I think both are bullshitting.

Its impossible that the Indians did all that bad at Red Flag, after all, the IAF pilots had enough time to get familiar with the Flanker and to develop effective tactics. Not only that, common sense together with some basic maths shows us that its impossible that the Su-30 is a lousy dogfighter, thats just bullshit.
Notice that i´m talking WVR, not BVR, in BVR the big RCS of the MKI together with the BARS working in downgraded performance should make the MKI an easy target.

Now, 21:1 against who? Old F-15´s and F-16´s?Against the Rafale? Certainly not against the Raptor with Top USAF pilots.

Either way both sides are, in my opinion, exaggerating a little bit.

P.S- I have good English but, what does sooks mean? And why do you call them that?

[shawn a]

Yep, I concur. Let's not forget that deception is a very important part of military tactics. And let's not also forget that Red Flag is a learning exercise designed to expose pilots to new experiences in the arena of combat flying. I think both sides were surprised a bit. It was the USAFs first chance to fly against the Flankers and I bet they were a bit startled to see first hand the aerodynamic capabilities of the MKIs. I'm also pretty sure the Indians were impressed by the aggressiveness and tenacity of the USAF. Being an "older" guy, I've learned that by asking carefully crafted questions, one can get a person to reveal more than just the answer to the question. In posing qestions of that nature to USAF fighter pilots at airshows, I've come to the conclusion that they would willingly fly Sopwith Camels against the PAK-FA if they had to. And be confident about making kills!! I'm sure every air force has some people like that, Our air force seems to be full of them.
As far as RCS goes, I can see where the sooks might be more visible than their pilots would desire, but no more or less visible on radar than a -15, -16, or legacy Hornet. The USAF seems to always go into combat with AWACS doing the spotting anyway and they probably have more range than the BARS at full power.
 The -22 didn't fly at this year's red flag as far as I know.
And the 21:1 kill ratio at Mountain Home air base doesn't sound right to me either, unless we were trying to lull the Indians into a "false sense of security" so they could be pounced upon at Red Flag.
I think you're right that both sides were "exaggerating", but I'd call it "deception".

Ok-"sooks", Well, have you talked to many Australians? They have a nickname for everything, even each other, and can't use the full, proper name for anything. They're not Australians, they're "Aussies", It's not Australia, it's "OZ". Aussie surfers don't go to Indonesia, they go to "INDO" , they wear "wetties", not wetsuits, and don't eat breakfast, they have "brekkie". Being a surfer, I've picked up the "lingo" and call Sukhois sooks. I also call it Indo, as do most American surfers, now.

I've got a video I made of the SU-30 and MIG-29 at MAKS '07, the Raptor at Nellis also in '07, and the Raptor at this year's (well, LAST year's, now) Nellis and Miramar and Salinas shows. If you'd like DVDs of them send me an e-mail, I'll send you copies.
I was in Portugal in '74, and had a great time surfing Peniche. A lot of the coastline was quite similar to central California ("Cali", to Aussies).
I'm going to try to go to the MAKS '09 show where the BARS radar and lots of other stuff should be displayed along with it's unclassified specifications.

Shawn A

[AviaL2]

I remember reading somewhere very recently that the IAF Flankers did poorly in Red Flag because the pilots relied too heavily on what was described as "post-stall thrust vectoring maneuvers", which if used every time they were detected, could be easily countered by certain tactics.
  Yesterday, I got the current isssue of AFM magazine with a very interesting letter from India stating that there was no 1vs1 combat at Red Flag involving Flankers, and that thrust vectoring was not used there.
The letter went on to say that 1vs1 WAS flown at Mountain Home AFB where the Indians went initially for familiarization. The claimed kill ratio, according to this letter was 21:1 in favor of the Sooks (my personal nickname for Flankers)
My question is-Who's right?
(Remember, I'm the guy on dial-up, so don't send me to you toob)
Shawn A

the IAF pilots had enough time to get familiar with the Flanker and to develop effective tactics.

According to some vids i posted in an other thread,Indians were good pilots but they still learned the MKI.