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Old 21st Aug 2017, 12:44
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ShyTorque

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Join Date: Nov 2000
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I was involved in various pre-briefed "fighter affil" exercises, as it was known back in my RAF Puma time, mainly with Hawk and Harrier (which dates me, I know...). Plus the many " bounces" we used to experience in Germany.

We often had to "con" the jet aircraft pilot onto us, because without our help visual acquisition overland was tfd, despite the area being part of the brief. It wasn't difficult to evade. One Harrier pilot said in the debrief that unless he had a lot of fuel to spare and nothing better to do, which was unlikely, he probably wouldn't bother to mix it for long with a rotary winged, low flying target of opportunity that began to evade properly. He also said that if the helicopter fired back, he would definitely give it a very wide berth.

Trying to compare rates of turn and "sustained G" to obtain a good firing position between FJ and RW are almost irrelevant especially to a modern armed helicopter. I can also confirm that the Puma is very capable of manoeuvring in the vertical sense as well as the horizontal. I was more worried about slower armed aircraft such as the Pucara, Frogfoot etc. Not forgetting the Soviet helicopters designed with the aim of shooting down other helicopters.
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