Kobra and Tail Slide maneuvers in F/A-18C

[DmitriKozlowsky]

According to NASA and legacy Hornet pilots state that Hornet does not have a critical max AOA. Meaning that if pilot has the chops, he or she can get Hornet to do a Kobra or Tail Slide. All without over-G or flaming out engines.  Back in 1989, after Soviet first showed Mig-29 post-stall or near stall maneuvers, a Marine F/A-18 , not sure if it was A or C, showed that Hornet to do those tricks. Well that is the urban legend story. Second part of that story was that Admiral in charge of NAVAIR then forbade performing those maneuvers due to excessive G and safety.

So I have been trying to replicate it , in empty Hornet with less then 50% fuel. No ammo, no stores, no pylons. Tried with and without AOA limiter at 12K MSL. Not quite got it. Has anyone  pulled it off?

NASA HARV F/A-18A has showed stable sustained AOA of 70-75 AOA .But that was with custom thrust vectoring paddles. But no mods on LEXR or inlets.

[oldcrusty]

I haven't tried it myself but I would imagine you'd have to assault the limiters to pull off a true 'Kobra'. You have to bypass the limiters in the Flankers also. Well, the ones w/o TV 

TBH I was more impressed watching a Hornet (well, a SuperHornet) loaded with 6 Amraams and full fuel doing the complete airshow routine including pirouettes. It was fun to watch.

[kengou]

An AoA of at least 90 would be required to pull off a Cobra plus the instantaneous nose authority to do it. I haven't seen anything in our Hornet that shows it can do quite that well for itself. I think it would just end up with a really sharp climb leading into a stall.

[Fri13]

6 hours ago, Gripes323 said:

I haven't tried it myself but I would imagine you'd have to assault the limiters to pull off a true 'Kobra'. You have to bypass the limiters in the Flankers also. Well, the ones w/o TV 

TBH I was more impressed watching a Hornet (well, a SuperHornet) loaded with 6 Amraams and full fuel doing the complete airshow routine including pirouettes. It was fun to watch.

 

IIRC you didn't need to, as you have the stick shaker that you just pull through to perform the Cobra. But in DCS you can't have players with it so it was added behind a limiter / special button to be able pull Cobra.

 

12 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

According to NASA and legacy Hornet pilots state that Hornet does not have a critical max AOA. Meaning that if pilot has the chops, he or she can get Hornet to do a Kobra or Tail Slide. All without over-G or flaming out engines.  Back in 1989, after Soviet first showed Mig-29 post-stall or near stall maneuvers, a Marine F/A-18 , not sure if it was A or C, showed that Hornet to do those tricks. Well that is the urban legend story. Second part of that story was that Admiral in charge of NAVAIR then forbade performing those maneuvers due to excessive G and safety.

So I have been trying to replicate it , in empty Hornet with less then 50% fuel. No ammo, no stores, no pylons. Tried with and without AOA limiter at 12K MSL. Not quite got it. Has anyone  pulled it off?

NASA HARV F/A-18A has showed stable sustained AOA of 70-75 AOA .But that was with custom thrust vectoring paddles. But no mods on LEXR or inlets.

 

Shouldn't be possible.

 

To pull a proper Cobra, it is not about AoA but about the maneuver. But while doing the maneuver, you are pulling high AoA.

 

In the Cobra you do not pitch up, but you drop your tail down.

If pilot wants, they can use it as effective air brake to stop down for air shows crowds:

 

 

 

Or they can use it tactically in the combat to just drop behind you while maintaining the speed. It is just question of the timing and how long it is done @ 4:39.

 

 

 

@ 1:33 for similar.

 

 

 

The key thing is that you do not gain altitude but maintain the flight vector almost same.

 

 

So while Hornet can get to high AoA, it is more about maintaining controllability so when you are falling or you are doing the tight loop/turn, you can recover from it. But for Hornet to pull the Cobra, not by the design.

 

 

 

 

[oldcrusty]

1 hour ago, Fri13 said:

 

IIRC you didn't need to, as you have the stick shaker that you just pull through to perform the Cobra. But in DCS you can't have players with it so it was added behind a limiter / special button to be able pull Cobra...

 

 

 

I forgot about the 'button'. Haven't flown DCS Flankers for a while. So... the stick shaker is sort of a limiter you can pull through.

[Fri13]

Just now, Gripes323 said:

 

I forgot about the 'button'. Haven't flown DCS Flankers for a while. So... the stick shaker is sort of a limiter you can pull through.

 

As far I know. As in the real flanker that switch that we use, should be to disable the FCS for emergency. And it shouldn't be used as you basically disable all the safeties.

 

And you can see in one of the videos above the pilot pulling the Cobra, grabbing the stick with both hands and pulling back and holding there as long wanted to do it, and then pushing forward to come back out from it.

I don't remember now where I saw the video but it was about someone at the backseat, possibly was a foreigner pilot or something, and he wanted to do the cobra. So the pilot first did show how it is done so the backseater got the feeling to the stick, and then he got to do it after that. And said that it was very easy as just pulling stick backward and be ready to just push forward so you don't lose all speed (especially at low altitude etc).

Someone here as well had the information about the force you needed to pull, and I have faint memory it was fairly high one, so you really need to mean to do that maneuver.

 

But in Hornet you have the FCS denying to do such things, and then after even disabling and doing those high AoA, it is more about flying circles and such as the Hornet can't maintain altitude in high AoA but pitch up. So while you get high AoA readings and tight turns and you can stall and start falling down, it is still not the cobra as it is about that 110-120 degrees while maintaining that direction of flight.

 

Maybe year ago I put lot of time training the Cobra in Su-27 and it became very effective tool to in 2 vs 1 scenarios as you could easily control the two adversaries so they can't apply the common tactics. If doing it wrong, you can only take one as you give the other one opportunity to get to you, but properly done it is extremely deadly. And when going for a fair 2 vs 2 situation, then it is childs play like 2x Su-27 vs 2x F-16CM or F-15C. And those can pull crazy maneuvers as AI doesn't have the physics limitations, but Cobra maneuver becomes more effective than AIM-9X with JHMCS or HMS with R-73 even for just the gun fight.

 

I then spent two months focusing just for a Hornet. Utilizing it JHMCS and AIM-9X and going against F-16's or F-15's and it is not same thing at all. I likely couldn't transform to the Hornet way of thinking after the Flanker, but what I found was that it was best thing with Hornet to just use the speed and JHMCS but when you are against those two speed demons, you are the underdog.

When ever I tried to utilize the high AoA capability in Hornet, I got missile on my face from the another. I don't even know really does the AI apply different flight properties when fighting against F/A-18C, but I didn't notice such obvious thing in tacview.

 

Going against single F-14 in Hornet was as well more challenging than with Flanker. It is so easy with Hornet to lose speed and and just your opportunities that it requires careful timing and skilled flying. While with Flanker it is like a Muhammad Ali dancing around.

 

Long story shorter, in the Su-27 it is easy to fight even against three opponents if you can scatter them around in BVR and then close to the WVR for a kill. It is little like a Kung-Fu where you put punches to all directions to keep targets further.

While in F/A-18C it is great to go for the BVR combat, shoot down the enemy missiles with AIM-9X and then get own AIM-120 on them while in pure intercept toward them. Something that you can't do with Flanker.

 

Simply put, it is amazing how great Hornet is in high AoA situations. That you get that control. But it is so easy to end up to such situation.

So if I would say by the experience from the Hornet, Eagle and Viper, I would say that Cobra is useless and will just get you killed. But that is only because those can not perform such AoA capabilities that Flanker has. Why I sign as well that you do not want to be in the dog fight with MiG-29 or Flanker on any aircraft without JHMCS and AIM-9X.

 

If by the numbers Hornet has high AoA capability, it is not the same thing. It lacks the fluent and agile flying like Flanker has. As Flanker really is like a ballet dancer that is stiff as stick but yet looks performing so gentle and light maneuvers.

 

And this is why I prefer F-16 over F/A-18 in these WVR as it has little bit that same thing. A difficult to say what exactly it is but it just handles the flight better. Even if it is same AoA values etc.

[oldcrusty]

16 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

As far I know. As in the real flanker that switch that we use, should be to disable the FCS for emergency. And it shouldn't be used as you basically disable all the safeties.

 

And you can see in one of the videos above the pilot pulling the Cobra, grabbing the stick with both hands and pulling back and holding there as long wanted to do it, and then pushing forward to come back out from it.

I don't remember now where I saw the video but it was about someone at the backseat, possibly was a foreigner pilot or something, and he wanted to do the cobra. So the pilot first did show how it is done so the backseater got the feeling to the stick, and then he got to do it after that. And said that it was very easy as just pulling stick backward and be ready to just push forward so you don't lose all speed (especially at low altitude etc).

Someone here as well had the information about the force you needed to pull, and I have faint memory it was fairly high one, so you really need to mean to do that maneuver.

 

But in Hornet you have the FCS denying to do such things, and then after even disabling and doing those high AoA, it is more about flying circles and such as the Hornet can't maintain altitude in high AoA but pitch up. So while you get high AoA readings and tight turns and you can stall and start falling down, it is still not the cobra as it is about that 110-120 degrees while maintaining that direction of flight.

 

Maybe year ago I put lot of time training the Cobra in Su-27 and it became very effective tool to in 2 vs 1 scenarios as you could easily control the two adversaries so they can't apply the common tactics. If doing it wrong, you can only take one as you give the other one opportunity to get to you, but properly done it is extremely deadly. And when going for a fair 2 vs 2 situation, then it is childs play like 2x Su-27 vs 2x F-16CM or F-15C. And those can pull crazy maneuvers as AI doesn't have the physics limitations, but Cobra maneuver becomes more effective than AIM-9X with JHMCS or HMS with R-73 even for just the gun fight.

 

I then spent two months focusing just for a Hornet. Utilizing it JHMCS and AIM-9X and going against F-16's or F-15's and it is not same thing at all. I likely couldn't transform to the Hornet way of thinking after the Flanker, but what I found was that it was best thing with Hornet to just use the speed and JHMCS but when you are against those two speed demons, you are the underdog.

When ever I tried to utilize the high AoA capability in Hornet, I got missile on my face from the another. I don't even know really does the AI apply different flight properties when fighting against F/A-18C, but I didn't notice such obvious thing in tacview.

 

Going against single F-14 in Hornet was as well more challenging than with Flanker. It is so easy with Hornet to lose speed and and just your opportunities that it requires careful timing and skilled flying. While with Flanker it is like a Muhammad Ali dancing around.

 

Long story shorter, in the Su-27 it is easy to fight even against three opponents if you can scatter them around in BVR and then close to the WVR for a kill. It is little like a Kung-Fu where you put punches to all directions to keep targets further.

While in F/A-18C it is great to go for the BVR combat, shoot down the enemy missiles with AIM-9X and then get own AIM-120 on them while in pure intercept toward them. Something that you can't do with Flanker.

 

Simply put, it is amazing how great Hornet is in high AoA situations. That you get that control. But it is so easy to end up to such situation.

So if I would say by the experience from the Hornet, Eagle and Viper, I would say that Cobra is useless and will just get you killed. But that is only because those can not perform such AoA capabilities that Flanker has. Why I sign as well that you do not want to be in the dog fight with MiG-29 or Flanker on any aircraft without JHMCS and AIM-9X.

 

If by the numbers Hornet has high AoA capability, it is not the same thing. It lacks the fluent and agile flying like Flanker has. As Flanker really is like a ballet dancer that is stiff as stick but yet looks performing so gentle and light maneuvers.

 

And this is why I prefer F-16 over F/A-18 in these WVR as it has little bit that same thing. A difficult to say what exactly it is but it just handles the flight better. Even if it is same AoA values etc.

 

Jeez Fry13, it would take me a month to put all that info together then another month to type it...  you're just banging it away

 

One thing caught my eye... Aim9x to plink away the incoming missiles then Amraams away!  I don't think I'd have the nerve to wait till in range... good challenge for sim flying tho'

... runs to try it 

[Fri13]

1 hour ago, Gripes323 said:

 

Jeez Fry13, it would take me a month to put all that info together then another month to type it...  you're just banging it away

 

One thing caught my eye... Aim9x to plink away the incoming missiles then Amraams away!  I don't think I'd have the nerve to wait till in range... good challenge for sim flying tho'

... runs to try it 

 

You can see it here:

 

 

 

The key for that is that you need to know from where the missile is coming from.

So you need to fly steady and straight toward the assumed launching point so that you know where to aim.

This is fairly easy with the HUD as you get the radar lock and then you point your fighter in that position and keep it there. IF you maneuver, you will easily lose the missile as it will maneuver so that you don't really know from where it comes, unless you visually spot it.

 

Meanwhile you switch to AIM-9X and you have it boresighted so that it looks straight toward the missile coming direction.

Then you need to just wait the seeker tone to signal detection and you have few seconds time to launch it. It is easy against AIM-120 or AIM-7, but the AIM-54 is so fast that 50-70% of the time you will get the missile on your face as there is like 2-3 seconds when you get the tone and missile will intercept you. So hearing tone, pushing launch and getting AIM-9X far enough so you don't fly to fragments.

 

If you can see the missile, then you can use JHMCS to lock on it off-boresight, but it is more lucky game.

 

 

 

Now what truly makes this fancy thing impossible is the scenario where you have a fighter behind the missile. As the AIM-9X will lock on to that fighter and it will gladly fly pass the missile and you are dead.

 

So if you can see a launch in time, get it cleared from the background, then you have a change to shoot it down with AIM-9X as it is like 100% accurate to do so.

It will not miss the missiles. So in dog fight with the Flanker or Fulcrum, and you see them launching a missile at you at proper distance, quickly look at the missile with JHMCS with AIM-9X selected and lock when you hear the sound and launch. If the AIM-9X doesn't need to pull too wide turn toward missile, it will destroy it.

 

My tactic became in tests to be that I shot one missile to either their missile or the fighter, and then second just couple seconds later.

This is possible with the Flanker as well when using IRST, as you can see on the HUD the missile launches and you can use the R-73 or R-27T/ET on them. But it is more challenging than with Hornet and its radar system.

 

This fancy method gave more courage and reasons to use AIM-9X when the JHMCS was implemented and it made possible to become far more aggressive. As you almost can laugh at the enemy launching missiles at you as you press on and you put them on defensive and be like a terminator. No requirements to go after them or end up to dog fight with them.

Of course this applies only to DCS, as no one would be so crazy in real life as to fly toward missile.

 

The JHMCS + AIM-9X truly made Hornet amazing dog fighter, just like what the MiG-29 was with HMS and R-73 decades earlier. The handicap in maneuvering capabilities is gone and it becomes more effective to use the high speed tactic when you can kill targets just by looking at them.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Fri13

[oldcrusty]

Hey Fri13, I know we're drifting off from "Kobra" a little but you just got my imagination going... 

I didn't have much luck with heaters as a defensive measure but the Amraams work wonders!   

I just used them against S300's.  As long as I timed the launch and didn't maneuver wildly before Amraams acquired the SAMs... 100% kill ratio!

The Hornet's radar did not pick up the SAMs so I maddogged all Amraams  

 

https://youtu.be/38mjVPHNjJ4

 

[Spurts]

I've shot down R33s with AIM-54s as well

[wilbur81]

On 1/26/2021 at 8:52 AM, Fri13 said:

 

 

And this is why I prefer F-16 over F/A-18 in these WVR ... it just handles the flight better. Even if it is same AoA values etc.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding... but the Hornet should always have the AoA advantage vs. the Viper since the Viper is AoA limited and the Hornet is not. The Hornet, as a result, requires stick-force discipline as a result so as to not over-pull and lose that airspeed. 

[SUBS17]

The Hornet can do a Cobra, it is all about CoG lol. The Super Hornet can do it as well. 

 

Ok how to do it, external fuel tank on the center line and do not feed fuel off it. Now you test pilots find the numbers.

Hint 2000lbs internal fuel. 

Edited February 5, 2021 by SUBS17

[Blinky.ben]

On 1/26/2021 at 10:44 PM, Fri13 said:

 

IIRC you didn't need to, as you have the stick shaker that you just pull through to perform the Cobra. But in DCS you can't have players with it so it was added behind a limiter / special button to be able pull Cobra.

 

 

Shouldn't be possible.

 

To pull a proper Cobra, it is not about AoA but about the maneuver. But while doing the maneuver, you are pulling high AoA.

 

In the Cobra you do not pitch up, but you drop your tail down.

If pilot wants, they can use it as effective air brake to stop down for air shows crowds:

 

 

 

Or they can use it tactically in the combat to just drop behind you while maintaining the speed. It is just question of the timing and how long it is done @ 4:39.

 

 

 

@ 1:33 for similar.

 

 

 

The key thing is that you do not gain altitude but maintain the flight vector almost same.

 

 

So while Hornet can get to high AoA, it is more about maintaining controllability so when you are falling or you are doing the tight loop/turn, you can recover from it. But for Hornet to pull the Cobra, not by the design.

 

 

 

 

I never realised the tail drops down first until you pointed that out