Replies

Bandit, Here is my response to your current post:

VIFFing is really cool, and yours is that it must be disposable since you can't find it on the JSF, then why is it being implemented and developed on the next generation of aircraft such as the Raptor F/A22 (and possibly others)? VIFFing is cool, but that is because of the position of the exhausts. If you look at the Harrier it has four main nozzles for lift, two on each side in a line on the fuselage. When you use the nozzles in air to air combat you are in wing born flight, but are tossing in this extra vector in the y axis.
***I agree with you here, that the VIFFing is probably better if generated around the center of gravity of the aircraft rather than at the aft end of the airplane. It does more than just reduce the turn rate of the aircraft, it allows it to operate at full throttle when other craft might have to operate at reduced throttle in order to avoid flameout. When the pilot wants to regain his kinetic energy and punch the throttle, he has a lag time between the punch and the time the engine fully throttles up. The Harrier has no lag time there, so he stays on your tail longer than most other aircraft could, surprising the other pilot with its consequent ability to accelerate rapidly.

When you get to the F-35B instead of four exhaust nozzles like the Harrier you have a mid body lift fan and the exhaust nozzle bends 90 degrees. This is all coordinated by computer which is good news for pilots. The hover transition has always been one of the most dangerous parts of flying the Harrier. In wing born flight the nozzle acts just like a conventional exhaust. When entering the vertical flight mode a bunch of doors open to expose the lift fan and the part of the nozzle that articulates. Basically when Lockeed won the contract Harrier like VIFFing died.
***This remains an open question in this forum at this time: Why did the JSF folks drop VIFFing? I do not have an answer but my speculation is that it has something to do with the weight of the aircraft. As the weight goes up, the benefits of VIFFing probably see a rapid dropoff in benefit. If the pilot VIFFs correctly, he entraps the air on top of the wing, ending up with what is termed a “fully blown” wing, which means that the boundary layer is re-energized rather than detaching. When the Marines discovered this ability, they managed to cause the turn radius of the Harrier to reduce so significantly that the designers at first thought it was beyond what the Harrier was aerodynamically capable of. It was the first military jet aircraft that had a tighter turn than its design specs. But I do not know just yet. I have noticed that you keep trying to steer the conversation to the JSF rather than answering the questions I present. I might as well clear up one SNAFU right here, even though you did not answer my questions. When I said that it “would be a good simulation of going against someone with stolen JSF-type of technology”, I had a brainfart and confused the JSF project with the FA/22 Raptor and in my mind I was thinking of something more along the lines of NGF, i.e. Next Generation Fighter. When I googled for Vectored Thrust and JSF, I proceeded from a false positive because I was only looking for the thrust vectoring and in the interest of time efficiency I didn’t read further that the 2D thrust vectoring on the JSF would not be suitable for VIFFing. It really is a mystery to me why Lockheed dropped VIFFing. My understanding was that the Boeing competitor did still have VIFFing.

Here is the reason that I believe VIFFing is not the end all and be all of ACM maneuvers. The Harrier wing does not perform well compared to most fighters in a 2 circle fight. An example of that is when two aircraft merge head to head and both aircraft elect to turn across the other's tail. Each aircraft is scribing its own circle across the sky and the guy that completes his circle first (has the highest turn rate) wins. The Harrier's sustained rate is less than most fighters.
***This appears to be the basis, even the crux of your argument. Earlier you said that “moving the nozzles in a dogfight may be good for one guns defense, but it hardly makes up for a lack of turn rate. The Harrier is not much of a dogfighter.” This is also where you are flat wrong. The Harrier is reputed to have the tightest turn in the industry, due to its VIFFing maneuver. A Harrier without VIFFing is truly a plain-Jane aircraft. All of this discussion moving forward from saying that the Harrier has a poor turn rate and/or radius proves that you have only been up against a declawed Harrier. If you try that head-to-head maneuver against a Harrier, he will be waxing your tail faster than you can say SAFMA.

If one aircraft chooses to reverse at that merge then we get one circle flow. The two aircraft are fighting over the same circle. The guy with the shortest radius now wins. This usually ends in a slow speed fight where the Harrier would win, not so much because it can fly slower but because by using the nozzles it can slow down faster and the other aircraft flushes out in front.
***Ummm, right here you actually bolster my point rather than your own. Your approach appears a bit adilpated.

Additionaly, weapons mechanization has gotten much better in the 20 years since your post by the Harrier pilots was written. The AIM-9 of today achieves a much quicker self track and AIM-120 allows for much better WVR and BVR shots than the AIM-7E from 2 decades ago.
***Of course if you add nice after-market weapons & radar, it makes any plane work better. That is POTO (Pointing Out The Obvious), just like pointing out that it’s the pilot skill that makes all the real difference. But that radar/missile upgrade would be available to both the Harrier pilots as well as F14 or F15 or JSF pilots, so the advantage is nullified when talking about Harrier vs. others, which would be used to determine how good a dogfighter the aircraft is. In the peacetime exercises, both sides have skilled pilots and similar weapons systems, so we get to see the capabilities of the aircraft.

If you are fighting against that Harrier to negate that advantage you manuever to deny that flow.
***In the air to air exercises so far against the Harrier, it appears that F15 and F4 and F5 pilots were unable to “deny that flow” and lost at a kill ratio of 7 to 1.

You use the capabilities of your aircraft, most likely quicker energy addition
***Note that the Harrier is really good at this quick energy addition because it doesn’t have to reduce throttle at lower speeds.
and pitch rate to defeat his manuever.
***Harrier’s pitch rate is unmatched when it VIFFs.

The problem for the Harrier pilot post-VIFF is that he just dumped a bunch of energy, even if he tosses the nozzles for just a second.
***This is flatly untrue. Please see the excerpt of Bruce Myles’ book which I will post following this.

If he doesn't get that shot he is going to be SAFMA (Sucking A Fat Man's A$$).
***Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but he’s still riding the other guy’s tail, even if he can’t yet get the shot, right? If you have someone on your tail and you’re trying for “quick energy addition”, that means you’re pushing balls-to-the wall throttle and/or afterburners, presenting a juicy target to a heat-seaking missile. And the fact that the Harrier could turn inside of him would mean that the other guy isn't going to be losing the Harrier any time soon.

Your posts by the Harriers fighting the F-15s site the concept of reversing into one circle flow which was uncountered by the F-15s.
***So that means the F15 pilots sucked? Our highly trained pilots couldn’t beat a “ fresh-from-formation squadron team”? Something doesn’t add up here.

Here are some example kill ratios. Does every other allied pilot suck somehow?

VENUE ADVERSARY KILL RATIO

(Sea Harrier Wins: Adversary Wins)

Decimomannu 81 F15 & F5E 12:4

Decimomannu 83 F16 31:14

Alconbury F5E 3:1

NATO Sea Exercise F14 3:1 to 10:1

United Kingdom F4 10:1

Australia Mirage III 3:1

United Kingdom Lightning 2:1

This is much easier to explain on a white board. I know this is a pretty detailed answer, but I hope it explains my lack of enthusiasm over the Harrier. I won't go into its safety record, but I've lost several friends from flight school in them.
***Duly noted, the Harrier is a very difficult plane to fly, but that doesn’t say anything about its reputed dogfighting capabilities.

Bandit, the more I tango with you the more I’m reminded of story of the guy who claimed to have wrestled a Grizzly bear. He said it was no big deal, but his cohorts checked on his story and found that what he wrestled was a one-eyed, de-clawed, de-fanged Grizzly. His story just didn’t add up, and your posts are starting to fail the smell test. There’s just no way that a run-of-the-mill aviation afficianado such as myself should be able to get on your six o’clock in this forum and stay there, after all you supposedly get paid to know ACM. As an example I cite your response in a prior post:
>This will pitch our nose up instantaneously about 20 degrees, diffuse the hot gases of >our exhausts and hide the exhaust from you by placing our wing between your missile >and the source of heat.
ROTFLMAO! Where do you get this stuff? That is pretty funny.
***Note that this was an ACTUAL maneuver that was used in ACTUAL A2A combat against an ACTUAL enemy flying a supposedly superior Mirage. For my source material I cite page 184 of the book, “Aircraft Versus Aircraft” by Norman Franks as well as other books such as “Harrier: Ski-Jump to Victory”. Lt. Paul Barton used the maneuver (and probably several others used it in similar situations, because the Argentinians were launching their AAMs firstoff as a tactic) on May 1, 1982 and shot down Lt. Carlos Perona. The fact that you are “ROTFLMAO” when reading first hand source material that was subsequently used successfully in combat shows that something just doesn’t add up, the equation does not balance.
Note that you only answered ONE question, and the following questions remain unanswered and my contentions are undisputed:
Why is VIFFing being implemented and developed on the next generation of aircraft such as the Raptor F/A22 (and possibly others)?
If it's such a non-starter, why are we pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into developing this technology?
What is the origin of this vectored thrust approach?
Did it come from the Harrier or some egghead doing simulations who thought it was a good idea so let's spend some money on it?
And if it did come from the Harrier, and it is being developed due to the successes of Air-to-air engagements of the Harrier vs. Air Superiority Fighters, then how can you say the Harrier doesn't have a magic move?
What is the gold standard when it comes to this kind of information and how can normal civilian slugs obtain it?