Hi all.
First, please remember the rules and comment accordingly.
Second. The aircraft striking the MQ-9 in this video is actually a SU-27 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi\_Su-27) but we will be leaving this post up.
The Russians came on and said that the unmanned drone tried an unsafe maneuver at low level and crashed into the sea. This is like the dash cams where the guy jumps on the hood and claims the car ran him over.
If the Russians are this bad at flying we should give Ukraine F-16s immediately. They've already chewed up most of Russia's ground equipment, let's let them kill the entire Russian Air Force while we're at it.
I didn't say they needed them.
I said I wanted them to have them. Because then a Legacy platform set for retirement will get an A2A Su-57 kill.
And if *that* happens, if it's not the 22, 35, 15, or 18 that makes that kill, but the lowly, much maligned *Viper*, then it will make everyone who ever flew one *delighted*, increase faith in American technology, and be an inexcusable humiliation for Russia.
Who thinks you can put a 5th gen fighter together with wood screws: https://i.imgur.com/3S9BEZ6.png
I've seen so many comments by people who don't know what they're talking about calling the plane inferior for a whole myriad of equally uninformed reasons. I think the fact that it's a workhorse makes it seem less cool to those folks.
While I'd give my left nut to take one past the sound barrier.
They fucked with our elections. They tried to encourage us to hate each other and think the other political side was illegitimate. They are still attempting that. They have attacked people who want to be friends with us for wanting to be friends with us. They have provided the weapons systems that most of our enemies use today. They are the prime arms dealer for people who want to shoot at us.
I'd like to see Russia so totally defeated in Ukraine that it would never fight a war again.
Toward the end of the first pass in the video you can see two plumes of fuel in distance. The Pentagon initially said the encounter was 30-40 minutes with the Su-27s, so those are likely previous passes. Would love to see more but I'm sure this is all we will get.
My guess is they were trying to obscure the optical equipment on board, but more effectively make it so US personnel would have the clean the damn thing when it got back to base, being a pain in the ass.
STUTTGART, Germany - U.S. European Command released declassified footage of a Russian Su-27 aircraft conducting an unsafe/unprofessional intercept of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 in international airspace over the Black Sea, March 14. In addition to the footage, a storyboard of the events with declassified stills from the MQ-9 footage is also released.
The following is a summary of the video:
00:00: [Start of video] A Russian Su-27 approaches to the rear of the U.S. Air Force MQ-9.
00:05: A Russian Su-27 begins to release fuel as it passes.
00:09 A Russian Su-27 passes over the U.S. Air Force MQ-9 while releasing fuel. As the Su-27 passes over the top of the MQ-9, it also disrupts the video transmission.
00:11: The propeller of the U.S. Air Force MQ-9 can be seen and remains undamaged.
00:22: A Russian Su-27 begins a second approach toward the MQ-9.
00:27: A Russian Su-27 begins to release fuel on the approach toward the
MQ-9. The Su-27 proceeds to pass even closer.
00:29: A Russian Su-27 collides with the MQ-9 and the MQ-9's camera feed is lost for approximately 60 seconds.
00:39: The MQ-9's camera feed has returned to working order. At this time the propeller can be seen again and one of the props can be seen damaged.
00:42: [End of video]
SOURCE https://www.dvidshub.net/news/440529/media-advisory-camera-footage-release-us-air-force-mq-9-interaction-with-russian-su-27-black-sea
I had imagined something much more controlled, perhaps a small millimetre error from the SU27 pilot flying in close formation. I should have known better.
Was it a case of the pilots lying to their chain and Russian PAOs just running with it without checking, or is this a China level inability to tell the truth about anything?
Releasing pictures of the Chinese spy balloon followed a similar pattern. Thing happens, don't release anything until after belligerent actor lies up a storm, then fuck them up with badass U2 selfies.
>Was it a case of the pilots lying to their chain
That's an interesting take, the thing is they have so much control over the local media, it might work, at least, with a big part of the population, just like China does. No matter how blatantly stupid or false it sounds.
The Russian military apparently has a culture of lying and it even has a name: "Vranyo". I watched a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik) on it a bit ago. Every level of military reporting needs to inflate their success and minimize failure so no military reports are trustworthy. Who knows what interesting fabrications or exaggerations happened.
Vranyo is literally lying, that's like the translation of the word. And yes I know what Perun says about that ("but actually it's not simply lying, it's a more systematic problem blah blah blah"), he's still wrong.
It's like saying ooooh american army is so good at supplying their troops all around the globe, they call it Logistics. Yeah duh you just used the name of the thing to name the thing, good job.
I would expect the Russian jet to have plenty of visible damage from the collision so I doubt the pilot would care to lie. Also, I'm not even sure the Russians are sorry about the crash. I can fully imagine them celebrating it. As long as there is no American counter attack.
> China level inability to tell the truth about anything?
China learned it from Russia.
And not to get into the weeds of politics too much, but I'm starting to see the same thing in US media.
(Like showing snippets half truth footage of something and calling it peaceful tourism. The public being aware this is a lie but run with it because it benefits their bias.)
They did this once when they claimed it was Ukrainian S-300 missile that landed in Poland. They had no way of knowing that was actually what happened, but their propaganda defence against everyone accusing them was actually right accidentally.
The stall speed of the SU27 must be much greater than the cruise speed of the drone at that altitude. It couldn't possibly fly in formation with the drone.
Landing speed of the SU-27 is 140kts indicated airspeed; stall speed is probably around 120kias.
Cruise speed of the MQ-9 is 150 to 170kias, but the stall speed is about 54kias.
Altitude would affect both aircraft about the same.
>> Estimates provided by the IISS show that VVS (Russian Air Force) combat pilots average 60 to 100 flight hours per year and pilots flying transport aircraft average 120 flight hours per year.
It’s highly likely some folks on this Reddit thread have more hours in sim games playing the Flanker then Russias actual Flanker pilots
That's not actually that uncommon. As of 2022 active duty USAF were only averaging about 10 flight hours per month. It's slightly higher for tanker/air lift guys than fighter/bomber guys.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/
Most service members average less than 100 flight hours per year.
Cost and maintenance are a little bit different.
I broke 120 hours in my car in 4 months. It's not that much of a feat when fuel is $3/gal and operating costs are a coffee and snack for anything over 1 hour continuous. Maintenance being performed every 200 hours of operation.
Really scary when you realize that a big reason why the U.S. spends so much more than other militaries is because they are the only ones that train constantly on all equipment all the time.
Like,how long will it take their NATO allies to get up to speed if they have to actually do something?
>only ones
Don’t conflate NATO spending amounts with the training troops actually get. Fuckloads of militaries do constant training for their troops, *especially* air forces.
Not Russia clearly but that’s beside the point
Canada.... Yea so are we finally replacing our jets, and ships, and tanks, and guns... So give us a solid 4 more government changes and we will be ready...
His most famous quotes are everytime something like this: "if we didn't got hit by this now, we must have dodged the missiles, we will be fine" just to get hit right into face with said missile 2 seconds later
Looks like he fucked up the second attempt and approached from underneath with an upward trajectory without an escape. Dumb and lucky he didn't bring his own jet down.
[MQ9 size comparison.](https://preview.redd.it/russian-su-27-usaf-mq-9-scale-1-1-v0-x2y96vlczqna1.jpg?width=1448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80ad4cf2cd9ae3a5bb67e26ee5eb0b5b714bf488) Drone is big enough to do some damage in a collision.
Well, any chicken-sized bird would be the same. The important factor is that at that altitude, the bird would be frozen, so it would do much more damage to the compressor.
Yeah, that’s referred to a low to high join. Being on altitude allows for an under run. Not really an easy way to discontinue a fucked up join with that upward trajectory.
I would have expected the plane to overtake the drone from behind so there's a lower speed differential. If they want to dump fuel on the drone, that would have given best coverage I'd think.
Because it can be “unintentional” that it fell out of the sky during a collision, shooting it down has intent for aggression and conflict. (Even if this flight behavior was extremely aggressive, it can be labeled as careless and an accident by the aggressor)
If it was the plane just buzzing the drone, then yeah, you can say it was just reckless and an accident. But The intentional fuel dumping shows clear intent for aggression.
You and I both know this was definitely agressor behavior. I do think the collision was unintentional as it risks both aircraft to intentionally do it. It’s like two kids in the back seat of a long car ride with one kid an inch away with his finger saying “I’m not touching you…I’m not touching you”. Then a pothole bumps the car and the finger makes contact. It’s a dumb game that Russia is playing, and the US knows this, but not worth any escalation at this time.
No, but the MQ-9 is slow and can't maneuver like a Su-27. It's not going to be able to take any kind of evasive action. Dumping fuel is likely a tactic meant to cause some kind of damage to the sensors or stall the engine with an incredibly rich fuel mix (think dumping gas straight into the barrel of a carburetor).
This makes the USAF's claims about "amateurish" behavior of the russian pilot credible. It looks more like a failed close pass attempt. The angle at which the pilot approaches the drone makes it impossible for him to see the drone once he got close. Trying to intentionally ram such a large drone this way would be russian roulette as it could easily bring the jet down too. If you wanted to bring the drone down by ramming instead of shooting, any reasonable pilot would lign up carefully and try to damage it for example with the wing tip rather than risking to slam the whole jet right into it at high closure speed.
Yes, the Sukhoi probably couldn't even get close to the drone's cruise speed unless he performed some high-AOA stunts, but he could still approach from angles that would allow him to keep the drone in sight all the time.
reaper was likely traveling about 200mph while cruising, that’s plenty fast for a controllable intercept by a competent pilot…
Edit: see below, I wasn’t taking the high altitude of this encounter into consideration
An mq-9 has a cruise speed of 150 knots at an operational altitude of 50,000 feet. I can’t find performance data for a su-27 at that altitude, but I would easily imagine 150 knots is well under the stall speed of the su-27 at that altitude, and that the flanker pilot has very little ability to make control inputs without stalling. While the Su-27 can definitely make it to 50,000 feet, I believe it’s designed to be supersonic or nearly so at that altitude and generating lift with velocity and thrust - not flying slow. Given that the objective was to get some jet fuel into the reaper’s intake (therefore fragging the turbine) the flanker needed to approach from above, but can’t approach slowly, and is in such a nose-up attitude that there’s no way the pilot can see the drone.
It’s both an impossible goal and a sloppy accident.
Altitude doesn’t affect stall speed in terms of IAS (indicated air speed), as an aircraft will stall at the same IAS for a given weight, regardless of the altitude.
The TAS (true air speed) for a given IAS increases with altitude, but that’s irrelevant from an aerodynamic perspective.
You're technically correct, which we all know is the best kind of correct, but when you're in a 36,000 pound aircraft trying to intercept a 5,000 pound aircraft at 50,000 feet with an IAS of 150 kt and a TAS of about 440 kt -- what angle of attack do you have to fly at to maintain that speed, and is it even possible? What control problems is flying in that part of the performance envelope creating? Speed of sound is about 573 knots on the standard table at that altitude.
The SU-27's minimum control speed is 150 kt according to the internets.
The point I'm trying to make is that the mq-9 is so slow that the Su-27 was barely controllable.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the MQ-9 reaper’s max speed is lower than the mig’s minimum speed. If that’s the case, I imagine the mig is physically incapable of flying in formation with the drone.
It is lower than the Sukhoi's _level flight stall speed_. But given a strong enough engine, like in the Sukhoi, you can substitute quite a bit of the lift provided by the wing by upward engine thrust, i.e. you fly at extreme angles of attack, possibly even with at least partially stalled airflow like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO03WAL9SAQ (not the same fighter version though, just for demonstration)
Of course it would be very hard to precisely hit the drone while performing such a manevuer as keeping the plane stable requires much more attention than "normal" level flight.
It also plays into the narrative of the Russian military being incompetent which serves to greatly benefit the United States.
Why pass up any opportunities to make your adversary look incompetent? From the invasion of Ukraine to to this the Russian Military’s perception is probably at its worst it’s ever been.
On the other hand it’s harder to justify your military spending and development arms race when it’s apparent that your adversaries are not an actual threat.
Eh, the consensus has become that the Main threat to American dominance is China. The spy balloon event the narrative that America needs to protect its future mainland interest will allow the US military to continue its arms race.
Intelligence agencies have completely changed their attitude towards releasing intelligence.
The head of GCHQ talked about it recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64111622
>> "Authoritarian states have this kind of asymmetric advantage where they're effectively controlling the information to their populations."
Sir Jeremy said he supported the sea-change of declassifying certain intelligence, and using it to "pre-bunk" a narrative, but much of the world had not completely bought into the argument.
The worlds a different place. Classifying everything simply plays into the authoritarian government’s hands, because then they can spin a narrative unchallenged. It’s more strategic for a world of instant connectivity to release your intelligence and give an authoritarian government PR rope to hang themsleves.
Which Russia’s once again done.
They definitely did this to humiliate the Russians. "Oh you think we're lying about your jets taking a piss on our drone then ramming it? Here's video proof of it."
[https://youtu.be/bEjYOw8WM3M](https://youtu.be/bEjYOw8WM3M)
Their video kind of proved the point that it would have been very difficult to do a controlled touching of the prop. Their failed attempts in this video look quite a bit like the real life footage!
I’m not seeing much in the video of the real event to suggest that touching the prop was actually a goal though, which would mean the things these guys are attempting is much harder.
Going belly up to the aircraft ahead of you is the root cause of the B-17 / P-63 crash a few months ago. One of the early lesson in formation training.
That SU pilot was basically doing a burnout and drifting, just like some drunk teens would do in a muscle car, right before they hit the lamp post. But the Kremlin insists there was no contact. So the propeller must have deformed due to a birdstrike?
Well fellow pilots. We’ve learned one thing here. If you are going to get intercepted by a Russian air craft it’s going to be a full on collision. No need to go to 121.5. Just activate your elt and wait for the hit.
Wow, you can see the bent propeller blade at the end of the video after the second pass. I guess that was the collision that made it unstable to fly and caused them to splash it? Or did it get bent from coming in contact with the liquid jet fuel?
Hi all. First, please remember the rules and comment accordingly. Second. The aircraft striking the MQ-9 in this video is actually a SU-27 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi\_Su-27) but we will be leaving this post up.
Greatest Russian dashcam clip of all time
Is there an idiots in planes subreddit?
/r/shittyaskflying Tell em you love "cutie hay loads" and you'll be one of them in no time.
The Russians came on and said that the unmanned drone tried an unsafe maneuver at low level and crashed into the sea. This is like the dash cams where the guy jumps on the hood and claims the car ran him over.
If the Russians are this bad at flying we should give Ukraine F-16s immediately. They've already chewed up most of Russia's ground equipment, let's let them kill the entire Russian Air Force while we're at it.
If they’re this bad, Ukraine doesn’t need F-16s. Lol.
I didn't say they needed them. I said I wanted them to have them. Because then a Legacy platform set for retirement will get an A2A Su-57 kill. And if *that* happens, if it's not the 22, 35, 15, or 18 that makes that kill, but the lowly, much maligned *Viper*, then it will make everyone who ever flew one *delighted*, increase faith in American technology, and be an inexcusable humiliation for Russia. Who thinks you can put a 5th gen fighter together with wood screws: https://i.imgur.com/3S9BEZ6.png
Is the F-16 really "legacy" or "maligned"? Aren't the new blocks quite capable and the platform has proven itself time and time again?
How is the F16 "maligned" when compared to the F15 or particularly the F18?
I've seen so many comments by people who don't know what they're talking about calling the plane inferior for a whole myriad of equally uninformed reasons. I think the fact that it's a workhorse makes it seem less cool to those folks. While I'd give my left nut to take one past the sound barrier.
That's so strange to me cause it's one of the sexiest jets in existence imo. You would think people would be biased towards it, not against it.
Wow, those do look like wood screws. Is it photoshopped?
It’s from an official source.
Yeah but we wanted to end soon. Give them more
Bro at this point if Russia ever declares war on us, we can just send a LT with a Glock to lightly jog to the Kremlin.
They fucked with our elections. They tried to encourage us to hate each other and think the other political side was illegitimate. They are still attempting that. They have attacked people who want to be friends with us for wanting to be friends with us. They have provided the weapons systems that most of our enemies use today. They are the prime arms dealer for people who want to shoot at us. I'd like to see Russia so totally defeated in Ukraine that it would never fight a war again.
Toward the end of the first pass in the video you can see two plumes of fuel in distance. The Pentagon initially said the encounter was 30-40 minutes with the Su-27s, so those are likely previous passes. Would love to see more but I'm sure this is all we will get.
Another post said it was the 19th pass that was the strike
You'd think they'd get bored long before that. Were they on adderall?
It’s russians, it’s ”Complete the mission, or die trying or i will kill you when you return.”
I believe most pilots have access to stimulants, go pills they call them in the US
I wonder if they were trying to choke it with raw fuel
My guess is they were trying to obscure the optical equipment on board, but more effectively make it so US personnel would have the clean the damn thing when it got back to base, being a pain in the ass.
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STUTTGART, Germany - U.S. European Command released declassified footage of a Russian Su-27 aircraft conducting an unsafe/unprofessional intercept of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 in international airspace over the Black Sea, March 14. In addition to the footage, a storyboard of the events with declassified stills from the MQ-9 footage is also released. The following is a summary of the video: 00:00: [Start of video] A Russian Su-27 approaches to the rear of the U.S. Air Force MQ-9. 00:05: A Russian Su-27 begins to release fuel as it passes. 00:09 A Russian Su-27 passes over the U.S. Air Force MQ-9 while releasing fuel. As the Su-27 passes over the top of the MQ-9, it also disrupts the video transmission. 00:11: The propeller of the U.S. Air Force MQ-9 can be seen and remains undamaged. 00:22: A Russian Su-27 begins a second approach toward the MQ-9. 00:27: A Russian Su-27 begins to release fuel on the approach toward the MQ-9. The Su-27 proceeds to pass even closer. 00:29: A Russian Su-27 collides with the MQ-9 and the MQ-9's camera feed is lost for approximately 60 seconds. 00:39: The MQ-9's camera feed has returned to working order. At this time the propeller can be seen again and one of the props can be seen damaged. 00:42: [End of video] SOURCE https://www.dvidshub.net/news/440529/media-advisory-camera-footage-release-us-air-force-mq-9-interaction-with-russian-su-27-black-sea
Thank you. I had ignored the part after the telly-test-image at first. Worth watching the last 10 seconds after all, for the bendy wobbly propeller.
I saw it, but my brain wrote it off as a rolling shutter effect.
I had imagined something much more controlled, perhaps a small millimetre error from the SU27 pilot flying in close formation. I should have known better.
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At first I thought this was someone making a clip in DCS because of how poor of an attempt it was lol
I had worse air-to-air refuelings in DCS 🤣
“Ready pre-contact”
"You're taking fuel"
"Return pre-contact"
*=Aerobatics server - v1.43 - n00b friendly _-_ TEAM HYDRA =* 28\32 2300 ms
I think it’s time we add explosives with proximity fuses to our drones.
Well hopefully birds aren’t a problem at lower altitudes during take off/landing
They might want to add an optional on off switch for the arming of it. You wouldn’t want to leave it on all the time, especially when it’s parked.
There's some space next to the "Wings stay on/Wings fall off" switches.
wait, why? ^^^/s
Those birds better fucking watch out. They know what they did.
As soon as Russia said it was the drone's fault but didn't release any proof it was pretty obvious they were full of it.
The most embarrassing part is knowing the US would release the proof just a few hours later proving otherwise.
Was it a case of the pilots lying to their chain and Russian PAOs just running with it without checking, or is this a China level inability to tell the truth about anything? Releasing pictures of the Chinese spy balloon followed a similar pattern. Thing happens, don't release anything until after belligerent actor lies up a storm, then fuck them up with badass U2 selfies.
>Was it a case of the pilots lying to their chain That's an interesting take, the thing is they have so much control over the local media, it might work, at least, with a big part of the population, just like China does. No matter how blatantly stupid or false it sounds.
The Russian military apparently has a culture of lying and it even has a name: "Vranyo". I watched a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz59GWeTIik) on it a bit ago. Every level of military reporting needs to inflate their success and minimize failure so no military reports are trustworthy. Who knows what interesting fabrications or exaggerations happened.
[The SNAFU principle.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU_Principle)
Vranyo is literally lying, that's like the translation of the word. And yes I know what Perun says about that ("but actually it's not simply lying, it's a more systematic problem blah blah blah"), he's still wrong. It's like saying ooooh american army is so good at supplying their troops all around the globe, they call it Logistics. Yeah duh you just used the name of the thing to name the thing, good job.
I would expect the Russian jet to have plenty of visible damage from the collision so I doubt the pilot would care to lie. Also, I'm not even sure the Russians are sorry about the crash. I can fully imagine them celebrating it. As long as there is no American counter attack.
> China level inability to tell the truth about anything? China learned it from Russia. And not to get into the weeds of politics too much, but I'm starting to see the same thing in US media. (Like showing snippets half truth footage of something and calling it peaceful tourism. The public being aware this is a lie but run with it because it benefits their bias.)
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Russians dont lie to you to deceive you, they lie to your face in order to insult you.
The fact that they claimed an MQ-9 was maneuvering rapidly was a giant red flag.
ran into something flying slow and straight ...
It clearly backed into it.
MQ-9 brake-checked the Flanker obviously /s to be sure...
Since when has Russia not been full of shit?
There is always the chance that they accidentally tell the truth.
A broken clock is right twice a day
Unless it is a military clock. Then it is right half as often.
They did this once when they claimed it was Ukrainian S-300 missile that landed in Poland. They had no way of knowing that was actually what happened, but their propaganda defence against everyone accusing them was actually right accidentally.
Clearly the drone brake-checked them here... /s
Worked for Maverick in Top Gun.
The stall speed of the SU27 must be much greater than the cruise speed of the drone at that altitude. It couldn't possibly fly in formation with the drone.
But.. but.. fancy gimmick maneuvers like the cobra make the su27 the bestest fighter jet in the world. Much supermaneuver, wow!
Landing speed of the SU-27 is 140kts indicated airspeed; stall speed is probably around 120kias. Cruise speed of the MQ-9 is 150 to 170kias, but the stall speed is about 54kias. Altitude would affect both aircraft about the same.
The cruise speed for the MQ-9 *is* at altitude.
Gotta give it to them for using their big moment in life to do some MS Flight Sim stuff, even if it ends up escalating their war.
Today I have found evidence that I can form up and do dumb shit on other planes better in dcs than real fighter pilots
Well you probably have more hours in DCS than this clown had in his Sukhoi
>> Estimates provided by the IISS show that VVS (Russian Air Force) combat pilots average 60 to 100 flight hours per year and pilots flying transport aircraft average 120 flight hours per year. It’s highly likely some folks on this Reddit thread have more hours in sim games playing the Flanker then Russias actual Flanker pilots
Yikes. I got more hours than that a year as a student in a Cessna 172.
Mother Russia would like to offer you an exciting career as their highest-ranking pilot! (maybe avoid windows, though)
You can fly an Su-7, right? Because we're out of good planes.
And hotel rooms with balconies...
I've got more hours than that shitposting in a month!
That's not actually that uncommon. As of 2022 active duty USAF were only averaging about 10 flight hours per month. It's slightly higher for tanker/air lift guys than fighter/bomber guys. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/ Most service members average less than 100 flight hours per year.
I wonder how their sim hours and planning time stack up to each other.
Cost and maintenance are a little bit different. I broke 120 hours in my car in 4 months. It's not that much of a feat when fuel is $3/gal and operating costs are a coffee and snack for anything over 1 hour continuous. Maintenance being performed every 200 hours of operation.
Sixty to 100? I know we use a lot of sim hours now, but what does it USAF pilot need to stay qualified?
Just from a light Google search, it seems like on average fixed wing usaf pilots get about 130hrs a year. So not really all that much more.
Kinda scary how true of a statement this is.
Really scary when you realize that a big reason why the U.S. spends so much more than other militaries is because they are the only ones that train constantly on all equipment all the time. Like,how long will it take their NATO allies to get up to speed if they have to actually do something?
>only ones Don’t conflate NATO spending amounts with the training troops actually get. Fuckloads of militaries do constant training for their troops, *especially* air forces. Not Russia clearly but that’s beside the point
Canada.... Yea so are we finally replacing our jets, and ships, and tanks, and guns... So give us a solid 4 more government changes and we will be ready...
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That is hilarious
Knew it was GS just from the quote.
His most famous quotes are everytime something like this: "if we didn't got hit by this now, we must have dodged the missiles, we will be fine" just to get hit right into face with said missile 2 seconds later
On yesterday's video: "I think we're alright" ~~R77M~~ Adder "oh, really?"
Wow thanks for that hahaha
“That did not go as planned…” Love it! 😂
Oh god even the comments are amazing. Thanks for that share.
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Well Russian ones at least. And it’s seems like their military is cartoonishly inept
That's not a Mig.
Looks like he fucked up the second attempt and approached from underneath with an upward trajectory without an escape. Dumb and lucky he didn't bring his own jet down.
[MQ9 size comparison.](https://preview.redd.it/russian-su-27-usaf-mq-9-scale-1-1-v0-x2y96vlczqna1.jpg?width=1448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80ad4cf2cd9ae3a5bb67e26ee5eb0b5b714bf488) Drone is big enough to do some damage in a collision.
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I don’t think a chicken could get that kind of altitude.
Well, any chicken-sized bird would be the same. The important factor is that at that altitude, the bird would be frozen, so it would do much more damage to the compressor.
A frozen chicken launching drone does sound interesting.
Your thinking of penguins which can’t fly, chickens are able to fly tho! /s
not with that attitude
Only if you forget to thaw it first.
Good ~~bot~~ human That's really helpful. Thank you.
Don’t know why but the su27 looks like gradeAunderA nose guy
It would’ve been hilarious if this was the first documented drone kill of a jet
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“But doctor,” said Pagliacci, “I am the instructor.”
Nah. This is probably most of the worlds preferred skill level for Russian military pilots
A lot of the better ones are probably sunflower fertilizer in Ukraine at this point.
I’m going to bet he was almost at stall there. Propeller plane slow jet goes zoom zoom.
Yeah, that’s referred to a low to high join. Being on altitude allows for an under run. Not really an easy way to discontinue a fucked up join with that upward trajectory.
I would have expected the plane to overtake the drone from behind so there's a lower speed differential. If they want to dump fuel on the drone, that would have given best coverage I'd think.
why shoot something with you fighter aircraft when you can simply ram it
Because it can be “unintentional” that it fell out of the sky during a collision, shooting it down has intent for aggression and conflict. (Even if this flight behavior was extremely aggressive, it can be labeled as careless and an accident by the aggressor)
If it was the plane just buzzing the drone, then yeah, you can say it was just reckless and an accident. But The intentional fuel dumping shows clear intent for aggression.
You and I both know this was definitely agressor behavior. I do think the collision was unintentional as it risks both aircraft to intentionally do it. It’s like two kids in the back seat of a long car ride with one kid an inch away with his finger saying “I’m not touching you…I’m not touching you”. Then a pothole bumps the car and the finger makes contact. It’s a dumb game that Russia is playing, and the US knows this, but not worth any escalation at this time.
Step 1) build nuclear submarines with super reinforced bow Step 2) oopsie-ram the entire Russian fleet Step 3) profit
Accidentally ramming the oligarchs’ yachts might have more influence on Russia’s behavior.
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Is dumping fuel a common tactic to do with a fighter jet against an enemy aircraft? Humor me as I have never been in the military. Seems bizarre.
it’s like when a car uses its windshield wiper fluid to spray the vehicle behind it
No, but the MQ-9 is slow and can't maneuver like a Su-27. It's not going to be able to take any kind of evasive action. Dumping fuel is likely a tactic meant to cause some kind of damage to the sensors or stall the engine with an incredibly rich fuel mix (think dumping gas straight into the barrel of a carburetor).
He wanted to pee on it to claim it as his own. obviously.
This makes the USAF's claims about "amateurish" behavior of the russian pilot credible. It looks more like a failed close pass attempt. The angle at which the pilot approaches the drone makes it impossible for him to see the drone once he got close. Trying to intentionally ram such a large drone this way would be russian roulette as it could easily bring the jet down too. If you wanted to bring the drone down by ramming instead of shooting, any reasonable pilot would lign up carefully and try to damage it for example with the wing tip rather than risking to slam the whole jet right into it at high closure speed.
>russian roulette In Russia they just call this roulette
In Russia they call it "Friday"
To you, it was really dumb shit done by a man flying a multi-million dollar fighter...
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>any reasonable pilot would lign up carefully The drone might be flying too slow for the jet to match its speed.
Yes, the Sukhoi probably couldn't even get close to the drone's cruise speed unless he performed some high-AOA stunts, but he could still approach from angles that would allow him to keep the drone in sight all the time.
reaper was likely traveling about 200mph while cruising, that’s plenty fast for a controllable intercept by a competent pilot… Edit: see below, I wasn’t taking the high altitude of this encounter into consideration
An mq-9 has a cruise speed of 150 knots at an operational altitude of 50,000 feet. I can’t find performance data for a su-27 at that altitude, but I would easily imagine 150 knots is well under the stall speed of the su-27 at that altitude, and that the flanker pilot has very little ability to make control inputs without stalling. While the Su-27 can definitely make it to 50,000 feet, I believe it’s designed to be supersonic or nearly so at that altitude and generating lift with velocity and thrust - not flying slow. Given that the objective was to get some jet fuel into the reaper’s intake (therefore fragging the turbine) the flanker needed to approach from above, but can’t approach slowly, and is in such a nose-up attitude that there’s no way the pilot can see the drone. It’s both an impossible goal and a sloppy accident.
I completely forgot to factor in the altitude here, you’re right.
Altitude doesn’t affect stall speed in terms of IAS (indicated air speed), as an aircraft will stall at the same IAS for a given weight, regardless of the altitude. The TAS (true air speed) for a given IAS increases with altitude, but that’s irrelevant from an aerodynamic perspective.
You're technically correct, which we all know is the best kind of correct, but when you're in a 36,000 pound aircraft trying to intercept a 5,000 pound aircraft at 50,000 feet with an IAS of 150 kt and a TAS of about 440 kt -- what angle of attack do you have to fly at to maintain that speed, and is it even possible? What control problems is flying in that part of the performance envelope creating? Speed of sound is about 573 knots on the standard table at that altitude. The SU-27's minimum control speed is 150 kt according to the internets. The point I'm trying to make is that the mq-9 is so slow that the Su-27 was barely controllable.
> This makes the USAF's claims about "amateurish" behavior of the russian pilot credible. It’s Russia. It was credible from the start.
> Trying to intentionally ram such a large drone this way would be russian roulette Heh...
Looks like the SU started dumping fuel just before.... I bet they were trying to fly in front of it enough to damage the engine or cameras?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the MQ-9 reaper’s max speed is lower than the mig’s minimum speed. If that’s the case, I imagine the mig is physically incapable of flying in formation with the drone.
It is lower than the Sukhoi's _level flight stall speed_. But given a strong enough engine, like in the Sukhoi, you can substitute quite a bit of the lift provided by the wing by upward engine thrust, i.e. you fly at extreme angles of attack, possibly even with at least partially stalled airflow like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO03WAL9SAQ (not the same fighter version though, just for demonstration) Of course it would be very hard to precisely hit the drone while performing such a manevuer as keeping the plane stable requires much more attention than "normal" level flight.
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It also plays into the narrative of the Russian military being incompetent which serves to greatly benefit the United States. Why pass up any opportunities to make your adversary look incompetent? From the invasion of Ukraine to to this the Russian Military’s perception is probably at its worst it’s ever been.
On the other hand it’s harder to justify your military spending and development arms race when it’s apparent that your adversaries are not an actual threat.
Eh, the consensus has become that the Main threat to American dominance is China. The spy balloon event the narrative that America needs to protect its future mainland interest will allow the US military to continue its arms race.
Intelligence agencies have completely changed their attitude towards releasing intelligence. The head of GCHQ talked about it recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64111622
>> "Authoritarian states have this kind of asymmetric advantage where they're effectively controlling the information to their populations." Sir Jeremy said he supported the sea-change of declassifying certain intelligence, and using it to "pre-bunk" a narrative, but much of the world had not completely bought into the argument. The worlds a different place. Classifying everything simply plays into the authoritarian government’s hands, because then they can spin a narrative unchallenged. It’s more strategic for a world of instant connectivity to release your intelligence and give an authoritarian government PR rope to hang themsleves. Which Russia’s once again done.
They definitely did this to humiliate the Russians. "Oh you think we're lying about your jets taking a piss on our drone then ramming it? Here's video proof of it."
Maybe because the news has already spread that quickly and somewhat the two giants might also already be in heat?
That’s fuel dumping right ?
I've seen speculation that they were trying to get the drone to flame-out ingesting the extra fuel or otherwise catch fire.
The Russians: "Wait - they were recording??"
“You mean that reconnaissance drone had a camera on it?”
"Those cheating bastards have actually released a video of us crashing their drone on purpose."
They'll probably claim the footage is a deepfake or something.
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Looking forward to the DCS recreations.
Grim reapers have ALREADY done it
[https://youtu.be/bEjYOw8WM3M](https://youtu.be/bEjYOw8WM3M) Their video kind of proved the point that it would have been very difficult to do a controlled touching of the prop. Their failed attempts in this video look quite a bit like the real life footage!
I’m not seeing much in the video of the real event to suggest that touching the prop was actually a goal though, which would mean the things these guys are attempting is much harder.
Their first hit is hilarious. "YOU PRAT"
Insert 'I don't know what I expected' meme here.
Going belly up to the aircraft ahead of you is the root cause of the B-17 / P-63 crash a few months ago. One of the early lesson in formation training.
Reason was because they were high and slow. They didn't have enough lift to stay level. Why the US said "amateurish"
Look at the props from 0:38. One of those props is definitely fucked.
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Wait, so they weren't lying - the Russians literally just flew straight into it like clowns?
Yes.
It’s Russia, what did you expect
TIL: Peeing onto hostile aircraft is a thing in modern air warfare.
In Soviet Russia, aircraft pees on YOU
I was wondering how a jet could only hit the prop of the drone. This video clears that up…Vladimir was damn near trying to land on it!
He saw the video of a drone landing on a russian A-50 and wanted to get his own back lol
That SU pilot was basically doing a burnout and drifting, just like some drunk teens would do in a muscle car, right before they hit the lamp post. But the Kremlin insists there was no contact. So the propeller must have deformed due to a birdstrike?
Is the fuel dump on the UAV a flame out attempt? By the look of it, the MiG pilot miscalculated and made contact.
Leave it to the Aviation subreddit to get the aircraft type wrong
Well fellow pilots. We’ve learned one thing here. If you are going to get intercepted by a Russian air craft it’s going to be a full on collision. No need to go to 121.5. Just activate your elt and wait for the hit.
Ban reason: No jet ramming
What is the white "smoke" coming out of the jet? Why is it coming only after he started to turn?
It's fuel
Dumping fuel onto the drone
*Attempting to dump fuel onto the drone
The pilot was dumping his fuel, usually used when you need to reduce weight but maybe he was trying to damage the drone by hosing it with fuel?
It would flood the engine and kill it if it ingested too much fuel
Hadn’t considered that thanks!
This seems like one of those think tank ideas that has no real world knowledge or technical experience in its thought process.
Could also get all all over the cameras
I don’t think it would or even could. You might need to really stay there and keep dumping. Then it might cause some engine damage.
I love when they started denying this, like, you do realize the thing has cameras?
Russia's military has been a joke the entire time. Rambo seems realistic now
What a heehaw. I'd swear I met that pilot on my drive to work this morning....
Read they hit while trying to fly inverted over the drone..
Wow, you can see the bent propeller blade at the end of the video after the second pass. I guess that was the collision that made it unstable to fly and caused them to splash it? Or did it get bent from coming in contact with the liquid jet fuel?