What is a fighter aircraft?

A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft,as opposed to bombers and attack aircraft, whose main mission is to attack ground targets. The hallmarks of a fighter are its speed, maneuverability, and small size relative to other combat aircraft.
Many fighters have secondary ground-attack capabilities, and some are designed as dual-purpose fighter-bombers; often aircraft that do not fulfill the standard definition are called fighters. This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, or other reasons.
A fighter's main purpose is to establish air superiority over a battlefield. Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare. The success or failure of a belligerent's efforts to gain air supremacy hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. Because of the importance of air superiority, since the dawn of aerial combat armed forces have constantly competed to develop technologically superior fighters and to deploy these fighters in greater numbers, and fielding a viable fighter fleet consumes a substantial proportion of the defense budgets of modern armed forces.

A P-47 Thunderbolt, P‑51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom II, and F‑15E Strike Eagle, representing three generations of U.S. Air Force fighters in formation at an airshow at Barksdale AFB.

 

HAL TEJAS MK1

HAL Tejas
Role	Multirole fighter
National origin	India
Manufacturer	Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)
Designer	Aeronautical Development Agency
First flight	4 January 2001
Status	In production
Primary users	Indian Air Force Indian Navy
Number built	13 (prototypes and LSP aircraft)
Program cost	US$1.2 billion
The HAL Tejas (Hindi pronunciation: [t̪eːdʒəs]) is a multirole light fighter developed by India. It is a tailless,compound delta-wing design powered by a single engine. It came from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, which began in the 1980s to replace India's ageing MiG-21 fighters. Later, the LCA was officially named "Tejas", meaning "Radiance" by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Tejas has a pure delta wing configuration, with no tailplanes or foreplanes, and a single dorsal fin. It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, multi-mode radar, integrated digital avionics system, composite material structures, and a flat rated engine. The Tejas is the second supersonic fighter developed indigenously by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited after the HAL Marut. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is reported to have a requirement for 200 single-seat and 20 two-seat conversion trainers, while the Indian Navy may order up to 40 single-seaters to replace its Sea Harrier FRS.51 and Harrier T.60.The Tejas was cleared in January 2011 for use by Indian Air Force pilots. It is to reach the second of three levels of operational clearance in November 2013.

 

New world record for C 130 J transport aircraft. Indian Air Force lands C 130 J at Daulat Beg Oldie, altitude of 16,600 feet.
IAF Statement: In a significant capability demonstration move by the IAF, a C 130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft land...ed at Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), the highest airstrip in the world at 0654 hrs today. The Commanding Officer Group Captain Tejbir Singh and the crew of the "Veiled Vipers" along with senior officer of Air Headquarters touched down on the DBO airstrip located at 16614 feet (5065 meters) in the Aksai Chin area after taking off from their home base at Hindon.
Today's achievement will enable the forces to exploit the inherent advanced capabilities of the aircraft by increased capability to induct troops, improve communication network and also serve as a great morale booster for maintenance of troops positioned there. It is also a projection of the fact that the IAF is capable of operating in such inhospitable terrain in support of the Indian Army.

Aerodynamic maneuverability vs supermaneuverability

The Eurofighter Typhoon is an example of a supermaneuverable aircraft.

A pair of F-22 Raptor fighters. With thrust vectoring and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.26 at 50% fuel, it is the first production aircraft in the U.S. arsenal to be supermaneuverable.

Traditional aircraft maneuvering is accomplished by altering the flow of air passing over the control surfaces of the aircraft - the ailerons, elevators, flaps, air brakes and rudder. Some of these control surfaces can be combined—such as in the "ruddervators" of a V-tail configuration—but the basic properties are unaffected. When a control surface is moved to present an angle to the oncoming airflow, it deflects the airstream and, by Newton's Third Law, an equal opposing force is applied by the air to the control surface and thus to the aircraft. The angle of control surface deflection and resulting directional force on the aircraft are controlled by the pilot to maintain the desired attitude, such as pitch, roll and heading, and also to perform aerobatic maneuvers that rapidly change the aircraft's attitude. For traditional maneuvering control to be maintained, the aircraft must maintain sufficient forward velocity and a sufficiently low angle of attack to provide airflow over the wings (maintaining lift) and also over its control surfaces. As airflow decreases so does effectiveness of the control surfaces and thus the maneuverability. On the other hand, if the angle of attack exceeds its critical value, the airplane will stall. Pilots are trained to avoid stalls during aerobatic maneuvering and especially in combat, as a stall can permit an opponent to gain an advantageous position while the stalled aircraft's pilot attempts to recover.
The speed at which an aircraft is capable of its maximum aerodynamic maneuverability is known as the corner airspeed; at any greater speed the control surfaces cannot operate at maximum effect due to either airframe stresses or induced instability from turbulent airflow over the control surface. At lower speeds the redirection of air over control surfaces, and thus the force applied to maneuver the aircraft, is reduced below the airframe's maximum capacity and thus the aircraft will not turn at its maximum rate. It is therefore desirable in aerobatic maneuvering to maintain corner velocity.
In a supermaneuverable aircraft, the pilot can maintain a high degree of maneuverability below corner velocity, and at least limited attitude control without altitude loss below stall speed. Such an aircraft is capable of maneuvers that are impossible with a purely aerodynamic design. More recently, increased use of jet-powered, instrumented unmanned vehicles ("research drones") has increased the potential flyable angle of attack beyond 90 degrees and well into the post-stall safe flight domains, and has also replaced some of the traditional uses of wind tunnels

Supermaneuverability(cobra & Super Cobra)

Pugachev's Cobra maneuver is one of the tests for supermaneuverability. Here performed by a Su-27.

Supermaneuverability is the quality of aircraft defined as a threshold of attitude control exceeding that which is possible by pure aerodynamic maneuverability; in other words, a controlled loss of control beyond normal abilities. It is a trait of some advanced fourth-generation and 4.5-generation fighter aircraft which has become standard in fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-22 Raptor and the Russian Sukhoi PAK FA (T-50), the Su-30 and the Su-30MKI. Post-stall technology is increasingly used in recent years to advance supermaneuverability by the use of vectored thrust in 4.5 and 5th generation aircraft.

Capabilities of Su-30mki

Airframe

Su-30MKI's canards and thrust-vectoring nozzles are two of the most prominent developments over the basic MK variant.

The Su-30MKI is a highly integrated twin-finned aircraft. The airframe is constructed of titanium and high-strength aluminium alloys. The engine nacelles are fitted with trouser fairings to provide a continuous streamlined profile between the nacelles and the tail beams. The fins and horizontal tail consoles are attached to tail beams. The central beam section between the engine nacelles consists of the equipment compartment, fuel tank and the brake parachute container. The fuselage head is of semi-monocoque construction and includes the cockpit, radar compartments and the avionics bay.

Cockpit and ergonomics

Flight control

Su-30MKI flying inverted

The aircraft has a fly by wire (FBW) with quadruple redundancy. Depending on the flight conditions, signals from the control stick position transmitter or the FCS will be coupled to the remote control amplifiers. These signals are combined with feedback signals fed by acceleration sensors and rate gyros. The resultant control signals are coupled to the high-speed electro-hydraulic actuators of the elevators, rudders and the canard. The output signals are compared and, if the difference is significant, the faulty channel is disconnected. FBW is based on a stall warning and barrier mechanism which prevents development of aircraft stalls through a dramatic increase in the control stick pressure. This allows a pilot to effectively control the aircraft without running the risk of reaching the limit values of angle of attack and acceleration. Although the maximum angle of attack is limited by the canards the FBW acts as an additional safety mechanism.
Phase 3 of further development of the MKI, will integrate avionic systems being developed for the Indo-Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft program.

General features

Nosewheel of the Su-30MKI showing that the drag brace on the Flankers is mounted externally and fixed to the fuselage instead of the gear leg.

The displays include a highly customized version of the Israeli Elbit Su 967 head-up display consisting of bi-cubic phase conjugated holographic displays and seven liquid crystal multifunction displays, six 127 mm x 127 mm and one 152 mm x 152 mm. The HUD was widely misreported to be the VEH 3000 from Thales. Variants of the same HUD have also been chosen for the IAF's Mikoyan MiG-27 and SEPECAT Jaguar upgrades, on grounds of standardization. Flight information is displayed on four LCD displays which include one for piloting and navigation, a tactical situation indicator, and two for display systems information including operating modes and overall operation status. The rear cockpit is fitted with a larger monochromatic screen display for the air-to-surface missile guidance. The Su-30MKI on-board health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) monitors almost every aircraft system and sub-system including the avionics sub-systems. It can also act as an engineering data recorder
Beginning in 2010, HUDs and Multi-Function Displays (MFD) will be provided by the Delhi-based Samtel Display Systems. These are indigenously designed and built and are not part of a joint foreign venture.

Navigation

The aircraft is fitted with a satellite navigation system (A-737 GPS compatible), which permits it to make flights in all weather, day and night. The navigation complex includes the high accuracy SAGEM Sigma-95 integrated global positioning system and ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system.

Pilot ejection

The crew are provided with zero-zero KD-36DM ejection seats. The rear seat is raised for better visibility. The cockpit is provided with containers to store food and water reserves, a waste disposal system and extra oxygen bottles. The KD-36DM ejection seat is inclined at 30°, to help the pilot resist aircraft accelerations in air combat.

Aerodynamics

Two Su-30MKIs during a Thach Weave maneuver.

Su-30 MKI opens its Parachute and Air brakes while landing at Yelahanka Air Force Base, Bangaluru during Aero India 2011

Su-30MKI aerodynamic configuration is an unstable longitudinal triplane. The canard increases the aircraft lifting ability and deflects automatically to allow high angle-of-attack (AoA) flights allowing it to perform Pugachev's Cobra. The integral aerodynamic configuration combined with thrust vectoring results in extremely capable maneuverability, taking off and landing characteristics. This high agility allows rapid deployment of weapons in any direction as desired by the crew. The canard notably assists in controlling the aircraft at large angles-of-attack and bringing it to a level flight condition.

Radar

The forward-facing NIIP N011M Bars (Panther) is a powerful integrated passive electronically scanned array radar. The N011M is a digital multi-mode dual frequency band radar. The N011M can function in air-to-air and air-to-land/sea mode simultaneously while being tied into a high-precision laser-inertial or GPS navigation system. It is equipped with a modern digital weapons control system as well as anti-jamming features. N011M has a 400 km search range and a maximum 200 km tracking range, and 60 km in the rear hemisphere. The radar can track 15 air targets and engage 4 simultaneously. These targets can even include cruise missiles and motionless helicopters. The Su-30MKI can function as a mini-AWACS as a director or command post for other aircraft. The target co-ordinates can be transferred automatically to at least four other aircraft. The radar can detect ground targets such as tanks at 40–50 km. The Bars radar will be replaced by Zhuk-AESA in all Su-30MKI aircraft.

Su-30mki

An Indian Air Force Su-30MKI
Role	Multirole Air superiority fighter
National origin	Russia / India
Manufacturer	Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (under licence from Sukhoi)
Design group	Sukhoi Design Bureau
First flight	IAF Su-30: 1 July 1997 Su-30MKI: 2000
Introduction	27 September 2002
Status	In service
Primary user	Indian Air Force
Produced	Su-30MKI: 2000–present
Number built	154 (June 2013)
Unit cost	(US$26 million)
Developed from	Sukhoi Su-30
Variants	Sukhoi Su-30MKM

The Sukhoi Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name: Flanker-H) is a Fourth-generation air superiority fighter developed by Russia's Sukhoi and assembled under licence by India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian Air Force (IAF). A variant of the Sukhoi Su-30, it is a heavy, all-weather, long-range fighter.
Development of the variant started after India signed a deal with Russia in 2000 to manufacture 140 Su-30 fighter jets. The first Russian-made Su-30MKI variant was accepted into the Indian Air Force in 2002,while the first indigenously assembled Su-30MKI entered service with the IAF in 2004. In 2007, the IAF ordered 40 additional MKIs. The IAF had 157 Su-30MKIs in service as of January 2013; it plans to have a fleet of 272. The Su-30MKI is expected to form the backbone of the Indian Air Force's fighter fleet to 2020 and beyond.
The aircraft is tailor-made for Indian specifications and integrates Indian systems and avionics as well as French and Israeli subsystems. It has abilities similar to the Sukhoi Su-35 with which it shares many features and components.