Ex Flying FIsh: HMS Sea Harrier vs RMAF Mig-29

last SG · 2003-08-30T09:08:54+00:00

Not surprised, BVR aside, in a dogfight, the Harrier proves to be an extremely capable infighter with excellent handling at low speeds, plus the ability to V...

|-|05| SG

Ahh ok....but for the harrier wont it be a 1 dimensional VIFF that wont have much effect to it's AoA unlike the F-22 and planes with 2 or even 3 dimensional VIFF???I mean apart from sudden decceleration i doubt it does much since the harrier no plane can afford to lose too much forward speed during combat

Joe Black SG

I believe Singapore at one time (sometime in the 80s) was entertaining the idea of getting Harriers. However, Harriers was considered too difficult to fly and at that time, too many accidents cause this idea to be seriously considered. Furthermore, the AV-8B and Harrier 2 used today was not widely available then, so AV-8A was deemed too expensive as the A-4 replacement. The Skyhawks then went and got a new life with a new engine and avionics to boot.

Well, when and if RSAF obtain F-35, it will not be inconceivable to get some the VTOL version as well. Getting say a sqn of VTOL F35 and 2 sqns of CTOL (land based version) will be more palatable as there will be common parts (important for logistic pov) and infrastructure (maintenance and cost benefits) between the 2 different versions.

I also read that F35 might be considered as one of the possibility for the NGF program, huh, is RSAF going to be 1 of the first to adopt a new generation and unproven fighter? Anyway, I hope Rafale will win and Singapore reap the many technology benefits. Of course, that also means Singapore will have to pay a hefy financial cost to this choice. My guess is the Block 60 Viper or the F15 will come through as the winner. No points for guessing why.

NathanG5 SG

errr..i think ur in the wrong thread..tis thread is abt Harrier vs Mig29..not guessing wat plane will RSAF get Very Happy

IAF SG

Happy RSAF Open House Day all! Mr. Green

Tweeker SG

No experienced fighter pilot would slow or lose speed of their aircraft in mk I eyeball dogfight unless he is extremely desperate to shake off the enemy aicraft behind him before his brain is being gun off.

VIFFing is a powerful deterence to the adversary not to get too close to a harrier when u are fighting one. You may get chewed by them if u are not careful. Remember, they are mounted with some cool cannons which is very very effective when they applied VIFF on the their attacker! Very Happy

I don't think if the harriers were to apply same tactics to the same F14 crew, they would get the same results today!

On the other hand, most modern engagements do not get this close any more, and normally your enemy would try to cripple u when u can't see them under normal ROE. So jocks today would try to keep a good distance from their targets and knocking them outta sky before they go into furball.

(Same for Flanker with their fanciful "cobra". Having two of the most powerful engines mounted on them, all they need is to fight u high speed vertical fight, and it is already highly lethal!)

my 2 cents

Very Happy

Shotgun SG

I don't believe Viffing is be used in such a way. To make full use of viffing, u don't vector ALL your forward airspeed to slow down. But instead, use an extra bit of thrust down the right direction to achieve a tighter turn, w/o the extra G's.

One thing though, will the harrier stall due to high AOA? Cos, if it can withstand that, it extra thrust down the right direction can actually help to decrease the AOA while still being able to tighten the turn.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

VIFFing is great for making abrupt changes in direction. I dunno why so many here have the misconception that Harrier pilots would use it to slow their plane down dramatically to make the bogey overshoot, which I do not think is any standard VIFF manuver they learn.

VIFFing as I have said, it great for cutting corners in a turning fight, where the Harrier does not have to go through all the energy sapping manuvers of his high energy opponent in order to get his plane around the right way. This is of course very useful in a turning fight because the AV-8B can make turns with a lot less time and gees normal air superiority fighters have to strain through.

|-|05| SG

I honestly do not see how directing your trust downwards will help with you turning......unless you're doing negative gee turns then alright.But the harrier is not the F22 or even that experimental flanker with 2D trust vectoring but only has a 1D vectoring....and that is downwards!I admit though VIFFing is an extremely good thing to have and i'm not sure how the Harrier pilots are trained on it.From what i can guess other then allowing them better handling at lower speeds and making enemy planes overshoot i really do not see how they can benifit.
And i believe trust vector turning does put more stress on the airframe.Not to sure about all this though.Havent really read up on this topic and i'm just making guesses from the stuff i learn abt in school.If you have any nice reports or even books on VIFFing in a harrier could you provide it for me to go check it out??That would be nice Smile

Tweeker SG

The harrier pilot in control can do various angles of thrust vector from full downwards vectoring to what u mentioned selective angle of vectoring.

When he do a quick and full downward vectoring, he would suddenly have a very quick "deccelaration" of his airspeed from 280 to 320 knots to almost as slow as 50 to 70 knots, and at the same time he would get a lot of height (ballooning in his own plane altitude), this is extremely great for the harrier if he has a close enemy fighter at six. The enemy have no choice and to prevent a overshoot at 350 to 400 knots (eg F16 vipers), the viper pilot would do a reverse to separate more distance from the harrier. which now the harrier pilot would yaw and point his nose against the separating enemy pilot. (Harrier is very good at pointing nose to whatever direction they want when they are at low speed). This is also probably the time the Harrier pilot would try to gun or aim9 the Viper. If the viper jock is not experienced, he would be trying to go extreme G turning at this timing to get back his advantage over the harrier, and he would be doing full burner to point his nose against the turning harrier, which make it a perfcet target for the heat seekers...

If the pilot choose to use only selective angle of Viff, what u mentioned is right and he is just making it tighten turns for the enemy. And for the fighter behind, the harrier can still be defected since the enemy pilot can anticipate his turns with various tactics, like Hi-yoyo or scissors to counter tighter turns.

I assumed harrier can control better AOA since they do not really depend on their wings, but rather the huge RR engine they have. That is why they can point their nose anywhere they want!

Harrier jocks know that fighter CAPs don't work alone, and normally in pairs. So we come back to point one, when a harrier is being engaged by enemy aircraft, they know that they are not fighting aginst one platform, they have no reason to slow down at all unless when they are checkmated.

Hope this is not too longwinded!

Tweeker

|-|05| SG

Could you explain how he could get a tighter turn radii??
Anyway in WVR the F-16 will be too close to do much when the harrier does suddenly take a tight slow turn.....so it'd be hard for him to anticipate though still possible.Your explaination aint long.... Smile it's ok..

Shotgun SG

Disagree on some points. It depends on the altitude which the harrier is at. A harrier will NOT vector thrust downwards at higher altitudes cos the air up there is A LOT thinner. And that amount of thrust vectored downwards won't keep the harrier up in the air at all.

1. Not enough lift from wings at 50-70 knots.
2. The compressors would have to turn extra hard to keep sucking air in at 50-70 knots at high altitude. If there isn't enough despite that, the harrier will STALL.
3. At a low altitude dogfight, suddenly pointing the thrust straight down is DANGEROUS. What do you think will happen if that was done when the plane is not stabilized?? Flip, Crash n Burn.

VIFFing does not include a vectored thrust to drastically reduce airspeed. IMO, the thrust is only vectored down when the plane lands, or at least not to the point where it slows down to 50-70 knots.

Another thing, why would a pilot try to make a max g-tight turn to engage an aircraft which is a sitting duck at 50-70 knots? The F-16 or MiG, or whatever conventional fighter can simply afterburn UP and away, take his own sweet time to turn and come back and catch the harrier TRYING to accelerate AGAIN. I'd like to see the harrier Pitch up n try to take a potshot at my PW229, while trying to stabilize his aircraft enough to DE-stabilize it by pitching up n yawing and praying the FCS doesn't roll over n topple. How many pianos do you want to play at the same time??

I'm not putting the Harrier down. Its an excellent little VSTOL. But its no doubt ageing, and there is only so much you can do with the limited technology that is designed with. Its thrust vectoring system is great, at its time, no doubt break thru technology. New Thrust vectoring like those on the F-35, where the computer plays a greater part in its usage will no doubt over take the harrier faster than a MiG-31 zipping pass a Piper Warrior 2.

Tweeker SG

Imagine u are turning your harrier at 5g with 300 knots, assumed it take 20 sec to complete one full turn. Now, if I have applied maybe 30 to 40 degree nozzle deflection with reduced throttle power at the same time, I would cut into my own turn radius ahead, with airspeed dropping, and I would put back my nozzles to full level and full throttle again and pulling more g to mabe 7 g, I would reached my circle in a shorter period of time, exiting my turn maintaining 300 knots.

Actually, the Viper should point toward mother earth and let gravity pull him down faster disengaging himeslf competely out of the fight and reset himself to fight on his term again, while a F15 would point nose up and full throttle to reach for the sky. This way, the harrier do not get any advantage from his trick. Harrier would want to fight u closer than u want to, so fight him from a distance with vertical or high speed in/out. Evil or Very Mad

Tweeker

Shotgun SG

Actually, the harrier might not even pull more G's just to make that turn. The reason why there is so much Gs in a tight turn is becos the thrust from a conventional aircraft is NOT pointing the right direction. Thus the turn would generate a LOT of centrifugal forces. With the thrust pointing somewhere closer to the direction of turn, it might actually help reduce the G-load while tightening the turn. Not too sure about the rate of turn though.

That is about it for the advantage of the system. The good thing is, though the rate of turn may not increase (unless there is a forward nozzle), it still pisses to hell the tail chaser, cos he'd have to pull a high -G yoyo in order to avoid overshooting. Tire out the attacker by making him pull lots of Gs, and he will slip up somewhere....

Tweeker SG

Well, for a start, I was trying to say that VIFFIng is not longer a first way of life for Harrier jocks! A re-read of my first post would be appreciated.

Now, as far as I know, most aircrafts operate in the 25,000 to 35,000 ft fligth level while strike work lower. I don't think u would catch a harrier at 45,000 ft and above. So, for a harrier to work on full deflection is completely weithin the airframe/engine flight envelope at 30,000ft.

1. When the aircraft goes into that slow speed, the engine become the lift and the wings are more to stabilise the plane from departing from their flight envelope.

2. When i go into the 50 to 70 knots, I would point my nose down immediately! to recover some of my lost speed and l would be rolling my aircraft at the same time to see where is the viper heading, and pitching the nose back to the direction of the departing aircraft when I have reached my safe speed level. So there is no way I would stall my aircraft.

3. This exact dangerous move is what the harrier pilot is doing to save his brain being gunned. Yes, he do face a real dangerous environment and if he do not executed well, he would be dead. Do u know that pilot that lower gears and flaps at low altitude and do aileron roll is having the same level of risk? So, if a pilot can do such dangerous flight on airshow, why not harrier pilot in combat scenario?

If u know that the harrier pilot is going to have his nose pointing back to you faster than u can say mayday, do u think u would not pulled high G to get outta his way? U know why the F14 crew get thrashed? Becos they all thought that the harrier is a sitting duck when they are at low speed!

I guess when u need to play a few pianos to come back in one piece, then it make sense to play all the painos u have to play just to survive. Smile

I am sure the new gen fighters like F35 or even F22 have some cool stuff under their sleeves. But really I have no idea now how good they are until they are in combat.

Tweeker

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

Aiyoh, you all never study VIFFing properly, but can tok so much about it. General ignorance on subject matter thrown in with disbelief equals lots of noise.

Most seem to think here that VIFFing equals Harrier slowing down to 50 knots and pinwheeling around to face an opponent like an airborne turret. I doubt this is workable, let along anybody even trying it at all.

How VIFFing helps to make tigher turns is that it enables the aircraft to cut corners without having to go through the usual aerodynamic motions of the turn. And of course, where you nose points is also extremely important. With VIFFing, you can get extra twenty or thirty degrees on the nose angle even though you are already maxed out AOA in a turning battle.

VIFFing can also enable the craft to drop on into, or lift itself in or lift itself dramatically in it's flight path. Which Harrier pilots find useful in jinking and throwing off a high energy opponent. The applications of VIFFing as a combat manuvering tool are so many times wider then many know about, let along concede.

Of course, the most solid evidence of the abilities of VIFFing technologies in air combat overwrites that of all the theory you can every churn out here, which is the suprising ratio of Harrier victories against air superiority fighters in experimental dogfights used to investigate VIFFing.

If you ask me though, personally I would invest on omni aspect air combat weapon technology, missiles that can be launched from any direction, irregardless of the bogey's aspect from the seeker. There's little reason why you have to strain to get your nose to the right bearing to shoot.

|-|05| SG

What i have been trying to ask is how is this possible on the harrier??Granted on the F-22 F-35 and one of the flanker test beds with a 2D vectoring this is most possible and will be a huge advantage but the question here is how does the harrier do this when the only way he can deflect is down??This doesnt really allow him to snap his tail when he is yawing and thus cut the corners.All it allows him is to bleed his air speed away forcing an over shoot while increasing his AoA.

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

That's why people like you don't test VIFFing manuvers, you need a bit of imagination. The simple answer is, and is something you would have discovered had you bothered to think or read a little more, in order to VIFF like you said, the Harrier pilot has to roll his aircraft in the apporiate direction and then vector his trust for the resulting deflection in flight path.

Tail snapping or J turns like you mentioned are not possible with the Harrier, those are VIFF moves being developed for later gen. vectoring aircraft. However, the Harrier can still use trust vectoring in a turn in "drop" or "slide" his aircraft dramatically into the loop of the turn, enabling his to evade or aquire in a turning fight. VIFFing Harriers fly more akin to very high speed helicopters rather then actual so called modern vectors.

Before you raise any funky bizzare points on aerodynamics and energy management, please note that this has been sucessfully attempted and it's tatical usefulness explored before. There's absolutely no reason why the Harrier's vectoring should only be good for slowing it down and causing a bogey to overshoot.

Anyway all this explanation is moot, as the main idea here is the usefulness of VIFFing in air combat versus and with conventional aerodyamanic control surfaces, as we can see, is already proven and here to stay. The Harrier investigated these technologies and put them to pratical use for the first time.

|-|05| SG

Hey hey no need to sound so hostile man i was asking you a question!! Mr. Green Lighten up dude.
Now that you have answered my question on what kind of VIFFing the Harrier does it makes things better doesnt it?Since you would have 1 less detrector

Tweeker SG

It seems that you are pretty firm on your points raised, and I assumed you read all these infomation somehwere based on your replies. Have u actually fly in real aircrafts before?

I am impressed u can imagined that well how to do a "drop" or "slide" in the middle of a turn. May I know how in technical would u execute a drop or "slide" in a turn?

I can't and I would love to give it a try if u show me how. It would be great if u can be more specific to convince all down here instead of telling the rest here to go fly knite because u read too much and do none.

To me, aerodynamics discussion are not bizzare points, but the mother tongue used daily in flight community. If u think they are bizzare, then u would probably be very shortlived in flight community.

Tactical usefullness of the Viffing does not equal to tactical application. Cobra is a tactical usefullness thingy for Flanker community, but none of them would use them at all except airshows. Why?

Shotgun SG

Sorry for the late reply.

1. Yes the RR engine is powerful. But it ain't a rocket. at 25,000 ft, that vertical thrust is not gonna generate any lift at all. Unless it breaks the hold of gravity, then again, jets don't work in space.

2. Given a medium alt. lets say 5000 to 10000 ft. Dropping to 50-70 knots with a vertical thrust would actually req. the jet to point nose up for a while. Not to mention, u can only roll ur aircraft after it has regained up to at least 180 knots of air speed. Given that situation, the viper if smart, would start to break away by CLIMBING, gaining Potential Energy when the harrier has voluntarily surrendered all his KE in a dead duck maneuver. Since the Harrier is still hovering around the 230knots region, it would not be able to point his nose UP to do anything to a descending falcon.

3. I would rate this vertical thrust to 50-70knots maneuver, more suicidal than a cobra. The harrier would lose its manueverability for too long, allowing the attacker to set up for a check mate maneuver. A cobra by a Flanker or Fulcrum would be better, since the Flanker or Fulcrum has afterburners where it can pick up speed fast enough to regain maneuverability. The harrier does not. The risks while landing the harrier vertically is already great enough (the wings are tilted down so that the chances of the thing flipping over by strong winds is reduced) , there is no need for additional risks like that in combat.

4. I'm not saying that VIFFING is useless. I'm just saying that its not used in this way, cutting speed to 50-70 knots. Like I said before, that extra 20 degrees of vectored thrust makes a hell lot of difference in a turning fight. That is how a harrier can beat a tomcat or any other conventional aircraft. LOW SPEEDS need MAXIMUM Stability. Thats why aircraft have flaps which provide extra wing area and lift.

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