SUKHOIS SIZZLE IN SINGAPORE

The temperature in Changi went up a couple more degrees, thanks to the red-hot display by RMAF’s Flankers

oxygen mask, as G-forces tear into him and his backseater — Major Mohd Afian Abdullah, callsign “Bashful”.

Aided by the thrust-vectoring control system on the Lyulka Saturn AL-31FP afterburning turbofan engines, the Flanker of No. 11 Squadron, Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), enters into a freakishly impossible manoeuvre called the Spin Roll and recovers, with only a slight loss in altitude.

The crowd lining the tarmac at the 2018 Singapore Aerospace exhibition watch, mouths agape, as the crew of “Sukhoi 1”, put the super-agile fighter — all 26 tonnes of it — through its paces.

Still hauling bags of energy, Fab yanks the centrally-mounted control stick back into his gut and sets up his next sequence, an extreme, slow-speed, high-alpha pass.

He pitches the nose up, bangs the twin throttles fully forward against the stops, past the détente, and watches his airspeed windmill down on his large, colThe limated Heads-Up-Display (HUD) on his main instrument panel.

The afterburners are blazing, belching out twin tongues of pure blue flame. Fab has selected max ‘burners in combat mode for that little bit of extra power.

air immediately behind the twin nozzles is distorted by the heatblur of superheated gasses.

Inside the cockpit, Fab and Bashfalling ful are rocked by a slight juddering. But the Flanker quickly settles down.

With the nose at 65 degrees AoA (angle of attack, or alpha), Sukhoi 1’s forward momentum has been reduced to a leisurely crawl. Its massive wings are no longer generating lift.

The only thing preventing this multi-million ringgit fighter from out of the sky is the steady pulse from the two engines going at full chat, pumping out 54,000 pounds of thrust.

Thrust is beating physics into submission. And doing a damn fine job at it too.

In the back seat, Bashful calls out the airspeed and altitude.

“Airspeed, fifty-two (knots). Altitude 1,000 (feet),” he says as the Flanker continues to edge slowly forward.

Bashful’s job as the weapons systems officer (WSO or “Whizzo” in

(Below) Low and fast, at the speed of heat! Tucking in the landing gear, Fab and Bashful are airborne, just a few feet off the ground. With their Lyulka Saturn AL-31FP afterburning turbofan engines in full reheat, the air behind them is distorted by...

PIX BY IWAN SHAFIEE AIRCRAFT PHOTOGRAPHY Afterburners blazing, Fab and Bashful exit one aerial sequence to set up the next one. Note the slight downwar which adds a little bit more roll authority to the manoeuvre.