"Think in Russian!"
At the height of the cold Russia had discovered that the United States began developing new generation fighters such as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Viper and A-10 Thunderbolt and had many other developing on the way such as the F-18 Hornet and AV-88 Harrier. Russia needed a new generation Air superiority fighter to replace its aging Mig-21 and match the western F-15 and F-14 interceptors so during 1977 they began development of the "T-10" prototype along side the Mig-29 project.
The T-10 went through a lot of defective stages like a fatal crash occurred on May 7th 1978 during flight testing. Sukhoi did not give up and tried again with its "T-10S" prototype fully redesigned with intentions of working out all of the bugs and sadly that test flight was also unsuccessful with another fatal crash on the 23rd December 1981. Finally Sukhoi got the final design right and in 1984 the "Flanker B" went into full production and active service.
Design is that of a Mig-29 except much larger with bigger more powerful Lyulka AL-31F turbofan engines making this aircraft very maneuverable to western fighters like the F-15 and F-16 in a close dogfight.
This aircraft alone is what prompted the United States Air force to began development of their Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program which lead to the the Boeing/General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin YF-22 Lightning II and Northrop/Grumman/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Black Widow II prototypes. Everyone in congress feared this new Aircraft that Soviet Russia had developed and built had "Mig 31 Firefox" like capabilities and believed that newer more stealthy aircraft's needed to be developed and put into production.
Thankfully Russia had not developed a real life Firefox at that time. The Su-27 had a 30mm cannon like that found in an A-10. It had many Air to Air goodies as well like the Vympel R-73 (AA-11 Archer), Vympel R-27 (AA-10 'Alamo') missile's. Then it was equipped with Phazotron N001 Zhuk coherent pulse-Doppler radar with track-while-scan and look-down / shoot-down capability.
This aircraft had almost promised pure airsupority over the western F-15 but thankfully by the time this aircraft was fully active the cold war was over and the Americans were off to desert storm while Russia was off to fight the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia against the Georgian forces. One Su-27 was lost to a SAM using a S-75 Dvina. By then the F-15 Eagle had proven its worth with a kill record of 114 to zero loses in Air to Air combat. Later during the Ethiopian war the Su-27 went up against its little brother 5 Mig-29 and shot them all down. Since then its been used as an escort, bomber reconnaissance for Ethiopians main choice for air defense.
The Final note
The Su-27 has never really seen serious combat. Sure it has taken down the Mig-29 in Air to Air combat but so has the F-15 Eagle, F-16, F-18. Many claim it's a far superior aircraft to the F-15 Eagle C and could even stand up to an F-22 in a straight dog fight but the facts are it hasn't proven much during its service life. Today its being phased out by the Su-30 and Su-35(A plus plus generation fighter) with better up graded radar systems, better weapons and jammers. We could only hope that no aircraft in the future will beat the F-15's Air to Air record but I can't help but get annoyed with the claims that the Su-27 is far better than the F-15 in air to air combat when in fact it hasn't really proven anything in its life other than the fact it can do some cool moves that may get the pilots who flew those aircraft's at the airshow laid when its all said and done.
Operation red flag did prove that an upgraded Su-30MKI from india can indeed beat our old F-15C's in a dogfight however it was always balanced on wins to loses during these simmed dogfights. Further more its a newer aircraft going up against an older aircraft like a Ferrari F-40LM against a first generation base Lamborghini Diablo non VT. Come on! get a Diablo GTR out there for a fair fight! With Boeing releasing the F-15SE or Silent Eagle as they call it with Stealthy capabilities like that of the F-22 Raptor the Eagle should be keeping Flanker pilots up at night just as they always have done.
Jay VF1Skullangel Lopez
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