I think PLAAF training has made huge progress in the past ten years, but still lags far behind USAF standards. For example, the guy interviewed in that CCTV7 report is a "command pilot (USAF terminology)," which requires only 1,000 flight hours in PLAAF instead of 3,000 hours in the USAF.
China Flanker Thread II
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I think that interview is quite sometime ago.. With more funds, more equipment and higher salary injected recently in last few years time. I don't think they still clock 1000 flight hours in 2012.
Just 2-3 years ago, Night flight and training in PLAAF is still not that intensive and hardly mention in CCTV news. Now they are quite a few night flight training reported in just start of 2012 alone.
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Right and I'm not sure what you mean by command pilot, some of the ACs in the F-22 are fairly low time, on an experimental basis to see how they do? An aircraft commander is different than a command pilot in my own experience, but who knows. The Varyag is on her fifth sea trial, I wouldn't be too suprised to see a few J-15s do a circuit and bump, possibly even a full trap, and a relaunch off the ramp? You are quite right in assuming the simulator is very helpfull, when I was doing a little flying the msn flight sim kind of helped me to stay at least somewhat proficient, and the FSX-accelleration F-18 is a handfull trying to bring it aboard the carrier. I almost wonder if the real aircraft wouldn't be easier, but I'll always have to wonder about that won't I?
I found this blog on PLAAF training. This guy is pretty impressive and seems to know what he's talking about. At least to me.
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You guys think the PLAAF and the J-11B can do this.
---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------
You guys think the PLAAF and the J-11B can do this.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I'm sure they could if they wanted to but then China has to think about how many countries will start crying in protest afterwards about how it's a sign of Chinese miltary aggression.
The blog is tphuang's blog.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
The article itself is a shameless propaganda puff piece if I ever saw one.
And what would be the point in China doing something similar? Looks like the USAF is still practicing to take on the Soviet Red Army over the plains of Europe. Hell, even for that this would be a poor exercise as the Red Army is not just going to sit back and watch the USAF reduce their ground forces to ruin.
Even though the article tries to paint this as a training exercise against an advanced industrialized foe, who actually thinks any such foe would allow the USAF to have free rein to bomb at will like that?
If and when the USAF does manage to wrestle control of the skies, their biggest problem is finding 1,000 targets worth hitting.
Trying to link this to Asia Pacific is even more silly as the US has few viable bases to use in any war against China, and if the USAF send that many strike Eagles to the bases in the region, it will just mean those bases get saturated with cruise and ballistic missiles.
The USAF will play a very small role in any realistic US-China conflict, it will be the USN that will be the ones who will be doing all the fighting and dying.
If the person who wrote that piece have bothered to have a think instead of copy and pasting the usual anti-China nonsense, he would have realized that if thus exercise was aimed at anyone, it would have been the Iranians.
Yes. It's nothing special really, you just need the planes, and the logistics/organization to support it.
PLAAF already conducts red flag like exercises anyway (tphuang calls it red sword and blue sword i think, for A2A and A2G exercises respectively).
That news piece about J11B night training is pretty recent, isn't it? They interviewed that command pilot in there so it's not that long ago.
Command Pilot is a USAF Aeronautical Rating, there are three levels, Pilot, Senior Pilot, and Command Pilot.
Thanks for that, my Dad was in USAF for 22 years and retired as a LTC, he enlisted in the Air Force and went in as an Airman, then became a Radio Operator, and from there into the Cadet Program, where he received his Officers commision and wings. He did basic in the T-6, multi in the C-45, B-25, and a little time in the A-26, into a Tactical training squadron and flew the C-119, C-123, and finally the C-130 a,b, and e models, flying the base C-47 as an executive transport at Sewart, then Retired from Little Rock. He was offered the B-52 but had no desire, that was during Viet-Nam, where he was assigned to the US embassy and worked with MacVSog. He had about 65 hours in the Combat Talon 1, one of the first black birds, with the Fulton Recovery System and the Terrain Following Radar out of an F-4. Quite a guy, but tough to please, I'm quite certain I have a service number tattoed on my butt from conception,LOL. He retired to the family farm in Tennessee and got tired of plowing up rocks, so we moved to central Il. and bought another farm, where we raised hogs, cattle, and corn and soybeans. He started a flying club and we owned a portion of a C-172, some of the happiest days of my life, flying off a 2000 ft grass strip. I know I'm spoiled, but I worked my butt off on that farm for an hour or two flying each month, as player has said, carefree days of youth!
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