An aeroplane that can stand still in air

"robert arndt" wrote...

As usual, Keith tries to speak as an authority and is dead wrong as
usual. I have a demonstrator video of a Su-35 stopped in mid-air
(briefly) during a difficult manouver and there are plenty of others
who have seen the Su-37 do it too.

Virtually ANY high-performance airplane can "stand still in air" for a brief
instant -- just pull it up into the vertical and reduce the power. It will
eventually stop, just prior to a brief tail slide and eventual "falling leaf"
maneuver. I've done it many times in the A-4 and A-6, and once in an F/A-18D.

OTOH, I doubt there are any airplanes out there beyond the VTOL/STOOL crowd that
can come to a controlled, sustained stop in mid air. I suspect that those doing
"difficult maneuvers" in the horizontal plane maintain at least some forward
speed throughout. Otherwise, there would be no control authority.