Quote:
Originally Posted by Gurkha
|
Without reading all of that article, I am inclined to believe that the US fighters were probably tasked as the defenders, the Indian aircraft the aggressors. In those scenarios, the latter generally heavily outnumber the former, and almost always "win." (See the iMax film "Fighter Pilot" for an example of a typical mock air battle)
That said, I have noted that the US flies far less than it used to. When I was a kid living on Air Force bases, there was a round-the-clock cacophony of fighters, bombers, tankers, and transports coming and going. Not so much anymore. When I was last on Guam, however, the Navy was there with 50+ F-18 sorties per day doing their aggressor/defender games. Pretty cool! The time before that F-15's were there to escort the B-2's on their sorties and flew often as well, but those seemed to be exceptions to the rule. My gut feeling is that US pilots have fewer training hours available to them, but I may be way off. Maybe there are just fewer aircraft in the inventory.