On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 19:51:58 GMT, Juvat
wrote:

Tom Cooper posted:

After all, they said they used these cartriges to decoy the missiles, and
evaded four R-3/R-13s fired by the MiG in question, and also the Soviet
pilot rammed them in desperation. OK, the Atolls were not that problematic
to evade, but an RF-4E at supersonic speed is also not that maneuvreable
either.

Anyone who is doing recce work who allows themselves to get rammed has
clearly slowed down too much and did way too much turning.

I doubt that RF was super. Even so, he should have had great
maneuvering potential. Kinetic translates to potential energy very
quickly.

Just to recap from the earlier reply of mine:

"What is missing from the story, are significant details like, time of
day (chased into the sun?), altitude of the fight, cloud cover (bright
white puffy ones)...even in the 80's the AIM-9 Papa was decoyed by
bright clouds."

Taking that last phrase a bit further, this was for a Mil Power
target.

So perhaps the MiG was shooting first generation Atolls. Recalling
that they were noted for poor target/IR source discrimination, perhaps
the photo-flash did decoy the missiles. But I'd still speculate that
the RF-4 would not have been in AB for it to work.

Just to connect the dots of my train of thought...
Early generation Atoll with zero IRCCM and poor IR discrimination,
could get decoyed by lots of things (sun, bright clouds, warm surface
background)...possibly/probably photo-flash.

Ten years later leaps and bounds in seeker technology and IRCCM on
both sides of the Cold War. At that point in time photo-flash carts
were determined to be ineffective versus current IR missiles.

Works for me, just because they (photo-flash carts) didn't work in the
early 80's doesn't prove they NEVER worked as IRCM.

Les?...Ed?...Guy? Make sense to y'all?

My impression is that if the recce were in AB and then choose to honor
the shot by turning into it (and without the sophistication of knowing
to come out of burner and get quiet) then remember that the heat plume
is on the lag side of the turn.

Back in the days before the invention of fire when I was doing this
sort of thing, the best IR shot was taken by maneuvering to lag--not
cutting off inside the turn circle but lag rolling to outside the
target's flight path giving you a clear look up the pipes rather than
at the top of the wing.

Then, assuming that the RF-4E still had the cart doors at about the
same place, look for the turning recce to be firing photo-carts left
and right of flight path, but inside the turn circle.

If the MiG is trying to lead pursue and cut off (a natural thing to do
in a low-wing-loaded, high-G capable aircraft) then he's not getting a
good lag shot at the AB plume and he is closer to solution with the
photo carts. Sounds to me like a good transfer of the missile seeker
situation.

It's sure more fun to figure these things out at the PC with a cup of
coffee than twisted around in the seat at seven G and wishing you
could get two more.