Of what use is thrust-vectored supermaneuverability?

[shawn a]

To me, TV superagility would only be useful in a furball. Guns only, or perhaps a very quickly-cued missile. A missile that could have it's target designated for it in a second or two, what I think is called a snapshot. As far as I know missiles like Sidewinders and the Russian R-60 can pull 30g turns, but their high speed will make such a turn have a large radius. Could a superagile TV fighter manage to evade such a missile?
When you try to swat a fly with your hand, you are just not quick enough to do it. The fly senses your hand coming toward it in what the fly sees as slow-motion, and flies away. A missile must view a target aircraft much like the fly views your hand - moving in slow motion compared to the missile's speed and electronic reaction time. I feel that TV superagility will be usefull only in the case of "a knifefight in a phone booth"- ie, a furball.

[osuorsa]

TVC is without a doubt designed with greater agility in mind, but it brought also other benefits...

Russians realized while developing the TVC versions of the proven AL-31F family, that when flying at low level, the engine gave more stability and controllability for the pilot. And this of course made the plane safer/easier to fly at low level....TVC engines gives the pilot very good control of the plane at slow speed flight and especially during/after stalling the plane (see some of the Su-37/30 videos), thus making it a safety issue....If you remember the Su-30MK prototype's crash in Lebourget air show in 1999, (or see a movie clip of the accident on youtube.com) one  thing that saved the lives of the two pilots was the TVC...Averyanov (the pilot) was able to pull the Su's nose over the horizon, and thus making it possible to gain a little bit of height to eject...

...But yes, TVC gives the pilot unparallelled and 'unrestricted' controllability of the plane, making it possible to 'swing' the plane like it has never been possible. And yes, this capability for the pilot, to fly the plane through very (normally) adverse 'moves', gives him/her the edge in a close in, dog fight and knife endge engagements...

Indian Su-30 pilots have also demostrated the TVC's use in BVR fight. They competed against USAF F-15s in a simulated air combat and while the Eagles were closing for radar lock, the Su pilots  made some rapid turns to leak the energy and with the use of canard foreplanes and TVC engines 'dropped' below the Eagles radar to force the Eagle pilots to use doppler mode....So, the doppler mode utilises the differense in speed s between an object near ground and the ground itself (which is 0 of course)....Like this, the Su's flew below the Eagles radar near zero speeds, making it almost impossible for the Eagles to make a proper radar lock....Now, the Su pilots were free to use R-27ER/ET missiles in good respects...

There's only two fighters in service at the moment that utilises the TVC capability...The Raptor with 2-D TVC and the Su-30MKI/MKM with 3-D TVC.....

[iluveagles]

It was my understanding that in that mock engagement between our 15s and their Su-30s, that the 15s were not allowed to use their Aim-120s at long range. Which would make the whole engagement pointless.

[SukhoiLover]

[shawn a]

SukhoiLover,
That article basically describes a "furball"
Of even more concern is the Russkies typically novel approach to get an enemy plane to willingly turn off it's radar so the Sooks can get to within knife fight range. They are developing, or have already developed an anti-radiation version of one or more of their air to air missles. Sharp thinking. The main porpose of which is to get the enemy aircraft to turn off their radar. Once having done that, the Sukhoi could close to "furball" range where it may very well have an advantage.
Remember, the cold war air to air missles of the Soviets usually came in both IR and radar versions of the same missile. Sharp thinking.

[Raptor]

I think the reason why the Russians and the US have utilized TVC at different levels comes down to combat doctrine. (i'm neglecting other countries for pretty obvious reasons. Makers.) The Americans have a spare-no-expense, spare-every-life doctrine, while the Russians are only just pulling out from the "mob" mentality. Still, the main idea with the Russian aircraft is pilot skill. (i know, i know, russian technology is impressive, but honestly. Have you seen their cockpits? They're just not rich enough) the Americans, on the other hand... Love their computers and overall hardware. Which i tend to agree with, but don't critisize me for that it's just an opinion. 

I'm with Shawn A on this. The Soviets and Americans were always trying to one-up each other, and when that didn't work, they either copied or they tried to bring the playing field down to their level. A "furball" would be exactly the field the '30s perform best in.