Originally Posted by Westpoint

Nice to see that the two ships were exchanging "Jolly Jack Tar" type banter. Can anyone decypher that flag signal?

It means "chase me, chase me" said in a very effeminate voice in the manner of Mr Allan Carr.

Either that or it's UY followed by 1. I think UY means "Keep clear, I'm exercising" but you'd need verify that with somebody competent. Dunno what the number 1 indicates.

Quite possibly it's meaningless. I once spent a happy fortnight in the Baltic barfing absolute rubbish into the VHF every time we sighted a Soviet ship. I often wondered whether the Russkies ever worked out that the "voice codes" we transmitted meant absolutely nothing.

I think he was coming in way too fast, realised it and went round again. But he had to get height off the deck fast otherwise the hook might have caught, hence the crazy angle.

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

It means "chase me, chase me" said in a very effeminate voice in the manner of Mr Allan Carr.

Either that or it's UY followed by 1. I think UY means "Keep clear, I'm exercising" but you'd need verify that with somebody competent. Dunno what the number 1 indicates.

Quite possibly it's meaningless. I once spent a happy fortnight in the Baltic barfing absolute rubbish into the VHF every time we sighted a Soviet ship. I often wondered whether the Russkies ever worked out that the "voice codes" we transmitted meant absolutely nothing.

There is, or used to be back when we had a Cold War, a series of NATO-Soviet flag signals worked out to try to avoid little accidents whilst we were playing kiss chase with each other. It may be one of those. Like a Dolphin Code, only more life preserving.

Originally Posted by alfred_the_great

You know what, I think he meant to do that, after looking at other Su aircraft 'displays':

Su 30 Extreme Maneuvers-Super cobra, Tail slide reversal, Fish hook breaks - YouTube

and

Su-35 & Su-37 Extreme Maneuverability Show - YouTube

lots of manoeuvres that look quite similar. Fucking WAFUs......

One thing to pull those stunts with 5k of altitude under you, but not while trying to do trap.

Bolter gone bad IMO. Looks like he came in high and flaired out too much trying to lose altitude and missed the wire, (You can just see the hook hit and scrape the deck by wire 1) and went even further nose up into a near stall, and only got away with it by sheer brute power and the power of prayer. If that had been say an F/A-18, banging put would have been the only option.
He's lucky he missed the wire. If he's caught it with that much nose up attitude, he'd have been splattered across the deck and a far more 'exciting' youtube video would have ensued.

Originally Posted by Bouillabaisse

I think he was coming in way too fast, realised it and went round again. But he had to get height off the deck fast otherwise the hook might have caught, hence the crazy angle.

Certainly looks like he was intending to point the afterburners at the deck. have to remember Russian electronics aren't great, most of these landings are 100% human pilot, no CPUs involved. It's skill and luck, and big balls.

Just been watching some Sukhoi videos on youtube. Like this one: Sukhoi Maneouvers - YouTube

That's not a plane video, it's plane porn! And he is flying backwards in the first manoeuvre! We need a Sukhoi thread...

A significant limitation on Russian carrier ops is they haven't developed the high degree of deck level control over landings and take off's Western Navy's have. Most of the directing and control is from the island rather than down on the deck and the pilots rely heavilly on their own judgement when getting back aboard

Also, while the SU-33 blasting off the front end of the Kuznetsov without cats is superficially impressive, there is a penalty.
They use an automated hold back system for the main wheels and power up to max and use the sheer brute power of the engines to get airborne with a bit of trajectory boost from the ski jump. The downside is the planes can't take off with full fuel or weapons loads, and take off's in marginal weather can be a bit 'sporty'.

Of course shes done the second or third deployment of a 22yr career. She will now go into refit, which will deny russia any carrier airpower for at least 3-5 years and given their track record since 1991, i'd suggest we'll not see her at sea for 5-10 years if ever.

Take a look at the gorshkov refit to see how hard it is to take a stovl carrier and make it ctol.

Originally Posted by sunnoficarus

Puta a whole new meaning on 'Crazy Ivan'.

Pfft, Typhoon can do that and make beardy (probably) men at airshows swear

Originally Posted by jim30

Of course shes done the second or third deployment of a 22yr career. She will now go into refit, which will deny russia any carrier airpower for at least 3-5 years and given their track record since 1991, i'd suggest we'll not see her at sea for 5-10 years if ever.

Take a look at the gorshkov refit to see how hard it is to take a stovl carrier and make it ctol.

One is inclined to wonder about why it should take so long. Obviously it's something of an apples and oranges comparison, but the conversion of the Akagi from her weird triple-decked design to the conventional full-length flight-deck system took from April '37 to August '38. Admittedly they were simpler ships, but still, I would guess (very much a guess, of course) that the requirements of an aircraft carrier haven't changed too very much in terms of what you have to have in it - i.e. space to store aircraft, fuel, ammo, stores etc. You have to wonder what could be done, if the Russians pulled their fingers out. having said that, Akagi was, for her time, pretty big. Big enough, fortunately, to accommodate the ever-growing sizes and take-off runs of her air wing. But still, I wonder.

Mind you, I know slightly less than bugger-all about the intricacies of aircraft carrier design, so I am now hunkering down in preparation for a bombardment of corrections.