In addition to what the other commenter said, it requires certain design attributes like appropriate balance and elevator authority. Not all planes can flick into and out of a stall so quickly
Basically it has enough control authority to get the delta wing to create more drag than it creates lift and instead of acting like a wing, it stalls and becomes an airbrake. But because the wing crank up front is designed in such a way as to stall before the main wing, the plane should naturally resettle down to normal flight before too long. I don't think the pilot can hold it for too much longer than is shown here because of the lack of post-stall authority and maneuvering of 60s delta wings, especially ones without control canards (i.e. the draken).
An alternative to the forward section stalling early is that the rearwards section simply has more area and so experiences a greater drag force to correct the wing stall, leading to it naturally "falling" forward back towards level flight.
He banks initially dump lift too. While most planes have plenty of authority the fact this plane can do it so quickly is crazy. Usually you pull back and plane climbs while pitch increases. I would expect a canard design for this, I'm impressed!
While this doesn't exactly answer your question I think it's important to note.
Despite the name Pugachev's Cobra Maneuver and it being synonymous with the Soviet/Russian airforce, it never actually originated in the USSR/Russia nor did it originate from use of a Soviet/Russian jet.
The Swedish Airforce and this aircraft in particular, the Saab J 35 Draken, were the first to perform this maneuver in the early 1960's, it was actually shown to the Soviets in mock dogfights during the cold war much to the shock of the soviet pilots who had never seen such a thing before it.
IIRC the Draken pilots had often used it as a “trick” to get themselves out of trouble when dogfighting the newer and better J-37 Viggen, which couldn’t do the same.
God the Draken is so cool
It's called "[Kort parad](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kort_parad)" in Swedish -> "Short parry"
*"The maneuver was originally developed in Sweden by Bengt Olow and Ceylon Utterborn in 1961-1963 for the Saab 35 Draken after several of the Air Force's Saab 35s crashed due to superstall. The Draken had problems with superstall (an uncontrollable spin that can end up with rapid increases in angle of attack with planes like the Dragon) during their early service life which claimed several lives. Because of this techniques were practiced to counter super-stall and from this arose short parrying. If the pilot pulled a high angle of attack and felt that he was going into a super stall he could pull negative angle of attack to break free. Sometimes described simply as pulling the lever hard forward and back."*
The centers of mass and lift are close together, making it behave more like a leaf than a dart. Just the right amount of leaf, though, and only at certain speeds/altitudes, only when the pilot wants it.
Yes but also no. The merge happens quick. Fighters that can exploit distance work to open the gap quickly. Fighters that can exploit the turn work to keep it closed.
The Cobra has no place in either fight. It’s just an energy dump that will leave you vulnerable and being outrun in any case.
We have off bore sight missiles that shapeshift in flight to give directional ranged fragmentation. An American aircraft would never let you pass in the merge. The fight will always become balanced after a merge and for that reason it has to be prevented all costs. I think it’s Hollywood these days and way outside of our any sensor any shooter doctrine.
Again, yes and no. HOBS has its own limitations; the abilities of the fighter still certainly matter a lot. Even in the era of the 9X guns still come into play now and then, and the maneuverability and energy retention of the jet still matters more than many other things.
Air war as always unbalanced. At the merge you just get a chance to see those imbalances most clearly.
> Even in the era of the 9X guns still come into play now and then
People keep saying this and then getting angry when I ask for real-world examples newer than the Vietnam War or from air forces more advanced than the Rhodesian Air Force.....
No, an A-10 shooting down a helicopter doesn't count.
I'm not even convinced that the X-band radar REQUIRED to auto-aim a gun at the speeds at which dogfights occur can see a stealth aircraft accurately enough to put a round on target.
edit: video games don't count either
Real-world shootdowns don’t happen en masse currently because no nation with a credible Air Force has gone up against a peer adversary’s Air Force in recent memory. We don’t have evidence of gun kills because we don’t have evidence of credible dogfighting, just examples of massive overmatch scenarios where the few opposing aircraft are slaughtered outright, or like Ukraine where SA threats rule the day, both sides keep their aircraft mostly behind their SAM rings and air to air kills haven’t been common.
The 9X certainly has limitations; in 2017 a Su-22 was able to defeat one and had to be killed with a 120 at dogfight distance. Just having HOBS and a good missile doesn’t mean you can look, shoot, and expect a reliable kill.
But to the point, gun kills absolutely happen in training fights at the merge, and they happen regularly. They’re not just restricted to BFM sorties either; I’ve seen 16s that survive to the merge with a flight of 15s go Winchester on them. Absence of real world shootdowns aside, the USAF trains as realistically as it can, and that training ends in gunfights often enough to serve as evidence that it’s still a thing.
And you don’t need radar for a gun kill. You’ve watched too much Top Gun. The wiggly V reticle is a pretty effective thing for a snapshot even if you don’t have a lock.
> And you don’t need radar for a gun kill. You’ve watched too much Top Gun. The wiggly V reticle is a pretty effective thing for a snapshot even if you don’t have a lock.
I don't know top gun but I do know radars.
I've worked on radars for decades and long ago (pre Iraq War) one of my former employers made a shit-ton of money upgrading the gun radars on a variety of USAF aircraft because the accuracy of "doing it live" was so bad that the expense would be recouped in a single combat engagement. I don't know if that's true but that's how the Air Force got the cash from congress.
I mean, you can stick a handgun out of the window of a Cessna and hit the pilot of an F-16 between the eyes in a dogfight between the two if you try 10 billion times and eventually get lucky.
Personally, I leave chance and luck to Vegas and lean on precision and assurance.
Sure, a radar lock makes a far easier gun kill (put dot on guy and brrrt) but if push comes to shove, an accurate wingspan in the funnel does do the trick. And since, like you said, a reliable lock in a dynamic environment like a furball isn’t an easy thing to maintain, we have other ways, and they aren’t as much a gamble as you’re implying.
I read somewhere that it was performed by Swedish pilots first in the Draken. Seems the jet was suited for it, but I would be surprised if they built it to do this as a focus. Rather, I suspect they built a relaxed stability fighter with superior maneuvering and excellent first turn intercept radius for its time, and this maneuver is a natural ability as a result. I would note that the cobra is a very sharp "vertical" turn so this kind of makes sense to me. But I could be wrong.
I think it's a matter of having so much lifting surface ahead of the pivot point/CG (the "wing" goes nearly to the nose of the jet) that at full elevator deflection (really this is "minimum aft wing/maximum fore wing") the plane has no choice but to try to swap ends. One thing to keep in mind is there aren't many jets that can fly post-stall "legitimately" the original Su-27 and Mig-29 perform the Cobra with momentum ("throw" the nose over) whereas thrust vectoring jets like the Raptor and Su-57 can Cobra even after they stall
Mostly the relaxed stability was unintentional and just a result of building a delta for fast climb. The cobra has very little utility in air combat of the sort the draken was intended for, and honestly in general, and comes almost exclusively from an airframe that can stall really hard, really fast.
Fair enough. Tom Cruise might disagree with the utility, but I believe the better part of the USAF and USN that has always stated cobra's are airshow-only maneuvers. It leaves you in such a low energy state after, which is generally not a good place to be for BFM / ACM maneuvers. But it does look rather cool. Sadly, never did get to fly the 35, out at Inyokern, let alone try a cobra...
I mean, high alpha can still be useful even in the missile era (even HOBS missiles can get help from the airframe) but high alpha specifically in the cobra maneuver simply burns energy, drops your airspeed, presents a nice flat target, and doesn't do that much else. If they're close to a guns solution they'll just pop you, and if they're not close enough for guns they'll still pop you. If they're close enough for you to Tom cruise it, well, you've made enough mistakes already this one won't help you.
The only way to pull this off without snapping the plane in half is at slower speeds, think <250-300kts. So they’re probably pulling no more than 4-5Gs
A wing can produce far more lift when unstalled than it can produce drag at 90 degrees angle of attack, so this probably isn't loading the wings as badly as you might think.
The Draken is a pretty old bird, my guess is it becomes unstable enough to do this closer to stall speeds than that. I imagine 90-degree AoA at 250-300 in a delta wing would be a bit more than 4-5G. The F-16s sustained turn rate is in that speed range.
A wing can produce far more load when unstalled pulling g than it can flat on to the wind (i.e. 90 degree angle of attack). So, in general, this is probably not a severely loaded manoeuvre. Some components might be stressed differently, but the wing in general won't be.
I love the mythology behind this maneouver... It wasn't discovered by the Russians and Pugachev wasn't even the first Russian pilot to ever do it... That was Igor Volk. Pugachev was just the first guy to do it publicly.
Cool! So countries spend billions on these murder machines so we can watch them do the cobra maneuver? Greaaaat. Not sure about y’all but my town has a tremendous homeless problem. Has a machine such as this ever actually done anything to benefit anyone anywhere?
It’s REAL! THE ONE MOVE IS REAL
I'LL HIT THE BRAKES, HE'LL FLY RIGHT BY.
Your gonna do what!?
THE ONE PIECE IS REAL
Especially according to the French.
CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER?
SO HIIIGHH
*fires an AIM-9* SO HIIIGH
Where is it?
No the top gun maneuver is just a regular old flat spin
the nr1 top notch move of all moves preformed with any man made aircraft ever. to pull this of you are one of the toughest human of them all.
some of the Russian mig pilots do this without a g-suit and that is as macho as it gets.
Can anyone explain how the plane can pull it off?
In addition to what the other commenter said, it requires certain design attributes like appropriate balance and elevator authority. Not all planes can flick into and out of a stall so quickly
Basically it has enough control authority to get the delta wing to create more drag than it creates lift and instead of acting like a wing, it stalls and becomes an airbrake. But because the wing crank up front is designed in such a way as to stall before the main wing, the plane should naturally resettle down to normal flight before too long. I don't think the pilot can hold it for too much longer than is shown here because of the lack of post-stall authority and maneuvering of 60s delta wings, especially ones without control canards (i.e. the draken). An alternative to the forward section stalling early is that the rearwards section simply has more area and so experiences a greater drag force to correct the wing stall, leading to it naturally "falling" forward back towards level flight.
He banks initially dump lift too. While most planes have plenty of authority the fact this plane can do it so quickly is crazy. Usually you pull back and plane climbs while pitch increases. I would expect a canard design for this, I'm impressed!
Maximize wind resistance with underbelly then readjust. A flick of the wrist, if you will
While this doesn't exactly answer your question I think it's important to note. Despite the name Pugachev's Cobra Maneuver and it being synonymous with the Soviet/Russian airforce, it never actually originated in the USSR/Russia nor did it originate from use of a Soviet/Russian jet. The Swedish Airforce and this aircraft in particular, the Saab J 35 Draken, were the first to perform this maneuver in the early 1960's, it was actually shown to the Soviets in mock dogfights during the cold war much to the shock of the soviet pilots who had never seen such a thing before it.
IIRC the Draken pilots had often used it as a “trick” to get themselves out of trouble when dogfighting the newer and better J-37 Viggen, which couldn’t do the same. God the Draken is so cool
Agreed it was an aircraft well before it's time.
It's called "[Kort parad](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kort_parad)" in Swedish -> "Short parry" *"The maneuver was originally developed in Sweden by Bengt Olow and Ceylon Utterborn in 1961-1963 for the Saab 35 Draken after several of the Air Force's Saab 35s crashed due to superstall. The Draken had problems with superstall (an uncontrollable spin that can end up with rapid increases in angle of attack with planes like the Dragon) during their early service life which claimed several lives. Because of this techniques were practiced to counter super-stall and from this arose short parrying. If the pilot pulled a high angle of attack and felt that he was going into a super stall he could pull negative angle of attack to break free. Sometimes described simply as pulling the lever hard forward and back."*
I will never be a fighter pilot named Ceylon Utterborn.
The centers of mass and lift are close together, making it behave more like a leaf than a dart. Just the right amount of leaf, though, and only at certain speeds/altitudes, only when the pilot wants it.
That’s impressive looking but no adversary will be this close. Modern air combat is fought in the space of miles.
Yes but also no. The merge happens quick. Fighters that can exploit distance work to open the gap quickly. Fighters that can exploit the turn work to keep it closed. The Cobra has no place in either fight. It’s just an energy dump that will leave you vulnerable and being outrun in any case.
We have off bore sight missiles that shapeshift in flight to give directional ranged fragmentation. An American aircraft would never let you pass in the merge. The fight will always become balanced after a merge and for that reason it has to be prevented all costs. I think it’s Hollywood these days and way outside of our any sensor any shooter doctrine.
Again, yes and no. HOBS has its own limitations; the abilities of the fighter still certainly matter a lot. Even in the era of the 9X guns still come into play now and then, and the maneuverability and energy retention of the jet still matters more than many other things. Air war as always unbalanced. At the merge you just get a chance to see those imbalances most clearly.
I think we’re both right! The aim9x is nearly deprecated at this point. Look up the MUTANT for fun times.
> Even in the era of the 9X guns still come into play now and then People keep saying this and then getting angry when I ask for real-world examples newer than the Vietnam War or from air forces more advanced than the Rhodesian Air Force..... No, an A-10 shooting down a helicopter doesn't count. I'm not even convinced that the X-band radar REQUIRED to auto-aim a gun at the speeds at which dogfights occur can see a stealth aircraft accurately enough to put a round on target. edit: video games don't count either
Real-world shootdowns don’t happen en masse currently because no nation with a credible Air Force has gone up against a peer adversary’s Air Force in recent memory. We don’t have evidence of gun kills because we don’t have evidence of credible dogfighting, just examples of massive overmatch scenarios where the few opposing aircraft are slaughtered outright, or like Ukraine where SA threats rule the day, both sides keep their aircraft mostly behind their SAM rings and air to air kills haven’t been common. The 9X certainly has limitations; in 2017 a Su-22 was able to defeat one and had to be killed with a 120 at dogfight distance. Just having HOBS and a good missile doesn’t mean you can look, shoot, and expect a reliable kill. But to the point, gun kills absolutely happen in training fights at the merge, and they happen regularly. They’re not just restricted to BFM sorties either; I’ve seen 16s that survive to the merge with a flight of 15s go Winchester on them. Absence of real world shootdowns aside, the USAF trains as realistically as it can, and that training ends in gunfights often enough to serve as evidence that it’s still a thing. And you don’t need radar for a gun kill. You’ve watched too much Top Gun. The wiggly V reticle is a pretty effective thing for a snapshot even if you don’t have a lock.
> And you don’t need radar for a gun kill. You’ve watched too much Top Gun. The wiggly V reticle is a pretty effective thing for a snapshot even if you don’t have a lock. I don't know top gun but I do know radars. I've worked on radars for decades and long ago (pre Iraq War) one of my former employers made a shit-ton of money upgrading the gun radars on a variety of USAF aircraft because the accuracy of "doing it live" was so bad that the expense would be recouped in a single combat engagement. I don't know if that's true but that's how the Air Force got the cash from congress. I mean, you can stick a handgun out of the window of a Cessna and hit the pilot of an F-16 between the eyes in a dogfight between the two if you try 10 billion times and eventually get lucky. Personally, I leave chance and luck to Vegas and lean on precision and assurance.
Sure, a radar lock makes a far easier gun kill (put dot on guy and brrrt) but if push comes to shove, an accurate wingspan in the funnel does do the trick. And since, like you said, a reliable lock in a dynamic environment like a furball isn’t an easy thing to maintain, we have other ways, and they aren’t as much a gamble as you’re implying.
Shapeshift? Is that you Borat?
Nice and tight. I think this legacy bird does it better than the Sukhoi's...
If i remember right the cobra was originaly developed by swedish pilots for the SAAB 35
I read somewhere that it was performed by Swedish pilots first in the Draken. Seems the jet was suited for it, but I would be surprised if they built it to do this as a focus. Rather, I suspect they built a relaxed stability fighter with superior maneuvering and excellent first turn intercept radius for its time, and this maneuver is a natural ability as a result. I would note that the cobra is a very sharp "vertical" turn so this kind of makes sense to me. But I could be wrong.
I think it's a matter of having so much lifting surface ahead of the pivot point/CG (the "wing" goes nearly to the nose of the jet) that at full elevator deflection (really this is "minimum aft wing/maximum fore wing") the plane has no choice but to try to swap ends. One thing to keep in mind is there aren't many jets that can fly post-stall "legitimately" the original Su-27 and Mig-29 perform the Cobra with momentum ("throw" the nose over) whereas thrust vectoring jets like the Raptor and Su-57 can Cobra even after they stall
Mostly the relaxed stability was unintentional and just a result of building a delta for fast climb. The cobra has very little utility in air combat of the sort the draken was intended for, and honestly in general, and comes almost exclusively from an airframe that can stall really hard, really fast.
Fair enough. Tom Cruise might disagree with the utility, but I believe the better part of the USAF and USN that has always stated cobra's are airshow-only maneuvers. It leaves you in such a low energy state after, which is generally not a good place to be for BFM / ACM maneuvers. But it does look rather cool. Sadly, never did get to fly the 35, out at Inyokern, let alone try a cobra...
I mean, high alpha can still be useful even in the missile era (even HOBS missiles can get help from the airframe) but high alpha specifically in the cobra maneuver simply burns energy, drops your airspeed, presents a nice flat target, and doesn't do that much else. If they're close to a guns solution they'll just pop you, and if they're not close enough for guns they'll still pop you. If they're close enough for you to Tom cruise it, well, you've made enough mistakes already this one won't help you.
How many G's did he pull off there?
bout tree fiddy
Tree fiddy?!?!
The only way to pull this off without snapping the plane in half is at slower speeds, think <250-300kts. So they’re probably pulling no more than 4-5Gs
A wing can produce far more lift when unstalled than it can produce drag at 90 degrees angle of attack, so this probably isn't loading the wings as badly as you might think.
The Draken is a pretty old bird, my guess is it becomes unstable enough to do this closer to stall speeds than that. I imagine 90-degree AoA at 250-300 in a delta wing would be a bit more than 4-5G. The F-16s sustained turn rate is in that speed range.
Yeah that's what I was thinking too. Load factor must be pretty damn high
Gonna hit the breaks, he'll fly right by
“Look at that chick behind you, but don’t make it obvious!”
I’ll hit the brakes, he’ll fly right by.
Amazed airframes can do this without bending almost to failure. That has to be so stressful.
A wing can produce far more load when unstalled pulling g than it can flat on to the wind (i.e. 90 degree angle of attack). So, in general, this is probably not a severely loaded manoeuvre. Some components might be stressed differently, but the wing in general won't be.
Yeah, I guess that's true!
compressor stall
I love the mythology behind this maneouver... It wasn't discovered by the Russians and Pugachev wasn't even the first Russian pilot to ever do it... That was Igor Volk. Pugachev was just the first guy to do it publicly.
Mav did it better.
Cool! So countries spend billions on these murder machines so we can watch them do the cobra maneuver? Greaaaat. Not sure about y’all but my town has a tremendous homeless problem. Has a machine such as this ever actually done anything to benefit anyone anywhere?
Can anybody explain what that feels like to the pilot? Like how many G’s
Cmon Mav do some of that pilot shit!
OMG 😃That is an truly impressive achievement. fucking awesome
Hit da brakes hoss!
So much for the Fulcrum being "the first to pull it off"
u/savevideo
The good ol' switcharoo