Watch Su-30MKM performs “Cobra Flip” to force Hornet into beak-to-beak high aspect merge

Trevor “Gonky” Hartsock, the second American F/A-18 instructor for the Royal Malaysian Air Force, has a new video of him dogfighting against the Su-30MKM.

In this video, we can see the Su-30MKM was able to utilize its thrust-vectoring nozzles on its Lyulka AL-31FP afterburning turbofan engines to reverse the fight when the Hornet was at its 4 o’clock low position to make a high aspect merge again with the F/A-18 to neutralize the fight. Gonky says it was “eye watering.”

The Sukhoi was in a defensive position after committing a mistake during a dive and Gonky was able to obtain a brief “trigger down” gunshot at the Russian jet. The Malaysian pilot pulled up into a climb rapidly and and while Gonky was trying to follow him by pulling up, the Su-30MKM reversed its nose quickly at the top of its climb to point the aircraft back at the Hornet.

We spoke to a Su-30MKM airshow pilot previously and he told us that every maneuver that they execute during an airshow are employed during basic fighter maneuvers (BFM)s as well, except for the tail slide.