The February 27 Air Combat – a beginning of the BVR’s end?

The Air Combat of 27^th .February 2019,s significance lies in the fact that two of Asia.s most professional air arms clashed under GCI/AWACS control with clear separation of the two forces under daylight conditions with both sets of crews thoroughly well trained in the use of BVRs. i.e. under conditions ideal for the use of BVRs.

What should have happened would have been an aerial equivalent of the Battle of Midway. i.e. both sides should have lost about three or four aircraft each- that has been what the Brochures were promising. As usually happens the script was not followed. What did happen was one (josh!) flea bitten pilot in a moth eaten Bison went and downed a F 16 with a CCM and it appears he in turn was downed by the F 16’s wing man. Some hold that the F 16 had gone into a “vertical Charlie” and when the R 73 blew the F 16 airframe apart the MiG 21 ingested the debris. It does not matter; There is a grim economics at work in warfare. A  MiG due for the knackers’ yard in the next couple of years downed a 4th generation jet. Unconfirmed rumour has it that “BVR brochureitis” also suffered some combat damage.

The Pakistan Air Force is as “cagey” as the Isr.A.F about admitting combat losses but the PAF makes it worse by publishing “proof” which disprove their claims! This is an old habit. One remembers “pictures” of IAF Hunters going down on flames (taken from a picture in The Aeroplane magazine of happy memory) etc until Pushpindar Singh Chopra of Vayu shot all that down. They were at it again. This time they published a picture of a Hawk that crashed in Kalaikunda about two years ago. If this is the best that the ISI can do, …..!? Kuch sharam to Karo!

They also published a picture of some wreckage that they claimed was from a downed MiG 21/Sukhoi 30. This piece was identified by our correspondents as a part of the F 100 engine of the F 16.  I have a wee doubt. Going only by what I saw on TV the item is definitely a Western aircraft. Engines generally survive crashes rather better than airframes. It is definitely a temperature resistant material. I would suggest thinking along the lines that it is a part of the thermal heat shield they put in between the airframe ,which can tolerate only about 400degrees K and the jet pipe which is never below 1000 degrees K. Without the thermal barrier (my generation would remember the “refrasil “blankets which had a “bubble pack” pattern but similarly bright- the airframe would soften. The rectangular aperture visible in the picture was for the stub axle of the Stabilizer and the fuel dump vent pipe. The finish is far too good to be anything Soviet. They were using end mills on the engine casing and that left scuff marks which dulled the finish and later took on a patina of burnt oil! Russian high temperature materials have a light copper sort of colour. The above is a suggestion. The finish is far too good to be from a Soviet era aircraft or engine!

The AMRAAM missile displayed by the Vayu Sena was interesting. It has been carefully flattened so that journalists could read and photograph the lettering in one go but the question is- was the BVR missile fired or simply jettisoned? If fired the skin would have been exposed to 450 degrees centigrade for almost a minute yet the lettering was pin sharp. Also the casing is pretty intact for something that impacted at Mach3. So were they simply jettisoned to clean up the aircraft and get out of trouble?

The above  is plausible because at low level –“head on” the “firing window” is strictly limited with a effective range of perhaps seven or eight kilometer and a closing rate of 0.5 kilometers per second. The detection range of the radar is also severely affected and hampered by terrain masking. The work load for the crew may be just too much.

The success of the Bison was also due to it being the simpler aircraft , which, like the Gnat,had a smaller “wind up” time and so was able to launch and be in the right position at the right time. It was of course very daringly flown by an obviously well trained pilot. It is reassuring that the AF is, as always before, in great professional hands.

The questions that arise are

i)                    This was an ideal case for the BVRs. What prevented their effective use?

ii)                  The conditions of the engagement are what we will get for most daylight hours for most of the year. How often did our crews use their onboard radars during this engagement?

iii)                What were the performance /positions/likelihoods of the other platforms to have scored and what were the reasons for their (relative) lack of success?

Could it lead to are-examination of our day fighter specifications? Any equipment not needed in the combat is a handicap in winning that combat. The value of the February 27^th engagement is that it is a reasonable sample for analysis by the experts.

Prodyut Das