[PeaceSells]

More specifically...

I guess a 33 pilot can try to drag the fight to the 33's domain: very low speed tight turning, where it's significantly superior to the 27. But at the same time, a good 27 pilot will probably try to avoid that and bring the fight to where the 27 is much better: sustained turns at higher speeds. I guess a 27 pilot would have the advantage at avoiding the 33's domain, more than the other way around.

Against AI, I can fly a 33 in its domain and win, but I can also fly a 27 in its domain and win. But I suspect that if I did that against humans, I would get beaten pretty hard in a 33.

[GGTharos]

A 33 pilot has a tiny advantage in high AoA regimes - you already have to be in position to take advantage of it. That's it.

Aside from that, it is disadvantaged or equal in almost all other measures (acceleration, sustained/instant turn rates, roll rates).

So is the 27 the better dogfighter? Yes. Do people know how to take advantage of this? Probably not; the differences are not razor thin, but they're not huge either.

[esb77]

The Su-33 does have one gigantic advantage over the Su-27 for the average DCS player, that I suspect is illustrated by this quote that gets the physics very, very wrong:

Originally Posted by mangaroca

- Increased weight allows the Su-33 to accelerate faster in a dive.

The advantage being that if you carrier launch the Su-33 the new flight model forces you to stay under a certain payload limit in terms of fuel and weapons, and strongly encourages you to burn up some fuel at the start in full AB.

As opposed to the Su-27 taking off from an airfield, which people tend to load up as if it's an An-124, and then complain about sluggish performance.