"The Islamic State Now Has Warplanes In Its Arsenal" Topic

"* Witnesses say ISIS are carrying out test flights at an airport near Aleppo
* Understood to have captured three Soviet-made jets from Syrian Air Force
* They are using former Iraqi Air Force officers to train prospective pilots
* News comes as Al Qaeda looks to mend relations with the Islamic State
* Statement emerged today calling for jihadists to set aside their difference

ISIS fighters are being trained to fly three captured fighter jets at an air base in Syria, observers claimed yesterday.

The reported flights are believed to be the first time the militant group has taken to the air and raises the possibility of attacks on British, US and French targets in neighbouring Iraq.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the militants were flying the planes on ‘short flight' training at the al-Jarrah military airport east of the city of Aleppo, where the group has a major base…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

tThey will be target practice for our pilots.

They are using former Iraqi Air Force officers to train prospective pilots

They would be well advised to trick the ISIS trainee pilots into hitting "eject" and fly for safety.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Is this organisation still just the one guy in his house in the Midlands?

Can they fly and maintain them ? And if so they will probably be used in suicide attacks. If they dare to fly CAP or CAS, the USAF and or USN could have a new ACE …

Is 3 the new 5 when becoming an ace these days ?

As I said in the other thread on the exact same topic: Best they could do tactically is stick those planes somewhere obvious, surround them with AA missiles and wait for the Iraqi to try and bomb them.

Everybody here should be ashamed of themselves; this is a credible threat! There's even video:
YouTube link

Bull … IIRC it's 3 kills to be an ACE …

YouTube link

Historically, its been 5 kills to be an ace. Actually, I seem to remember the number being different early on--perhaps 10--depending upon the nation.

Rob

I'm amazed they even start… Those old Soviet birds are designed for very low life-times. Which means that their engines might last 400 hours total. 400 hours sounds like a lot, until you learn how much flight time you need to be considered a competent pilot. As in, one who can land the plane without wrapping it around a tree.

There's two or three engines burned up before the pilot has a prayer of surviving flying the bird on a bombing run.

Lion, even most NATO fighter pilots struggle to get 150 hours per annum. Eastern NATO average is often 50 or less hours a year. Even many French pilots only get 120 or less.

I thought for US Aces in Vietnam was 3 ? Regardless, if all these rustics can manage to get 3 or even 4 or 5 + in the air. If they do anything besides attempted suicide attacks, like say, on the US Embassy in Baghdad or Assad's HQ in Syria, etc. … They won't get too far … If the ADA doesn't get'm, the US CAP will. It looks like they [attempted ?] to change the situation in Kobani by use of two suicide car bombers recently … They use those types of attacks as it is their predilection, etc. … I'm betting they will try to "Kamikazi" their merger air assets, if they can …

I'm sure the US pilots are all looking forward to getting an actual enemy jet fighter to engage.

"Lion, even most NATO fighter pilots struggle to get 150 hours per annum. Eastern NATO average is often 50 or less hours a year. Even many French pilots only get 120 or less."

That's misrepresenting the facts somewhat. In the case of most NATO nations, the reduction in actual flying hours is offset by large amounts of high-quality simulated training. F-35 for example, doesn't even have a two-seater trainer variant – all initial pilot training for the type is done in the simulator. A pilot might therefore be fully qualified to fly the type, yet have zero hours on type.

I don't see how ISIS could realistically use any captured aircraft in combat.

Just going to through an idea out there: is it possible that these aircraft could be sold by ISIS on the black market? I think that would be their only worth.

@Thomas: I am aware of the abysmal standards that most of Europe has allowed their military to sink to.

This does not change the fact that it takes roughly a thousand hours to achieve competence in the air.

Lion,

As I said – taking the reduction in flying hours at face value is disingenuous. The majority of 'flying' hours are now done in high-quality simulation. Not just the F-35 mentioned above, but C17 pilots also do ALL their OCU type training in simulators and actually qualify for the C17 before ever actually flying one.

1,000 hours to achieve competence?! I've no idea where you get that figure from, unless you're adding up all the flying hours from elementary flying training right through to being fully operational on a squadron? Even then, with 1,000 hours per annum under your belt, you'd be a lot more than just 'competent'! It takes about 500 hours (over 2-3 years) for an RAF fast jet pilot to go from never having flown to being operational and it normally takes them at least 5 years on type to get that '1,000 Hours' patch on their flying suit.

Annual continuation training to retain competency and qualification in type is some 240-290ish hours (which IIRC, includes simulator hours).

So while those French pilots mentioned might be doing 120 hours of actual flying, they're probably doing at least that again in simulated hours to make up the difference.

God knows what the eastern European air forces do, but most of the NATO nations take pilot competency seriously and have the simulator tech to keep their pilots current even when they don't have the cash to get their kites in the air as often as they'd like.

That's misrepresenting the facts somewhat. In the case of most NATO nations, the reduction in actual flying hours is offset by large amounts of high-quality simulated training. F-35 for example, doesn't even have a two-seater trainer variant – all initial pilot training for the type is done in the simulator. A pilot might therefore be fully qualified to fly the type, yet have zero hours on type.

Many NATO partners don't have simulators, let alone high quality ones.

And simulated flying is not the real thing.

It's why the French are considering a two tier system whereby there'd be a first tier of combat pilots with 200 flying hours per annum and a second tier who fly jets only to maintain proficiency and spend their time flying high performance turbo prop trainers.

If simulators were so good (and I suspect the French could afford good ones), they would not be considering having pilots flying around in turboprop trainers. Instead they'd just be ramping up the simulator time.

defensenews.com/article/20130615/DEFREG01/306150005/France-Spotlights-Pilot-Readiness

Annual continuation training to retain competency and qualification in type is some 240-290ish hours (which IIRC, includes simulator hours).

I thought NATO standards specified 200 hours actual flying time.

F-35 for example, doesn't even have a two-seater trainer variant – all initial pilot training for the type is done in the simulator.

In the old days you didn't even have two seaters for type conversion. You flew solo straight away. It was only with supersonics that two seat type conversions became common.

As for F-35, I think lack of a two seat variant is a major flaw. A lot of strike aircraft since 1960s are 2 seaters and that trend is continuing with F/A-18F/E/A-18G, Rafale B (half of all orders), Su-30MK/MKI/J-16 etc, Su-34.

The previous generations were generally two seaters: F-15E/K/S/SA, USMC F/A-18D, Israeli/Singaporean F-16D/I, Tornado, Mirage 2000D/N, JH-7 etc and before that A-6, F-111, Su-24, F-4.

Basically the two seat version allows pilot workload to be reduced. I doubt the F-35 will offer any better efficiency in terms of automation to reduce this workload.

The general trend for SEAD/DEAD/EW has been 2+ seaters – E/A-18G, E/A-6A/B, Israeli/Singaporean F-16D/I, Tornado ECR, EF-111, F-4G. Only exception is USAF F-16C-50s as well as some relatively untried Russian Mig-25 variants.

Though this doesn't matter as F-35 SEAD/DEAD/EW capability is apparently on the back burner which is screwing the Marines over. USN is going for E/A-18G and the USAF no longer believes in need for suppression/destruction of enemy air defences once F-35 is in service (hence premature retirement of EF-111, slashing numbers of EC-130 jammers and not pursuing F-35 capabilities in this area).

I don't see how ISIS could realistically use any captured aircraft in combat.

Sure they could. They could use them using dumb bombs and rockets especially over Syria against Syrian government forces.

Syrian air force is still very active, so any ISIL MiGs could be lost in the general confusion.

They and other jihadis captured plenty of airbases. One assumes those bases had munitions.

There's also been plenty of defenctions to rebels by Syrian military personel, including air force staff. Some could be assumed to have sided with jihadis.

The MiG-21 is a pretty simple beast. It's why Eastern Europeans scrapped their MiG-23s and even MiG-29s (Czech Republic and Romania) and kept MiG-21s in service.

Just going to through an idea out there: is it possible that these aircraft could be sold by ISIS on the black market? I think that would be their only worth.

Plenty of second hand MiG-21s out for sale – Croatia just brought 5 ex-Algerian ones from Ukraine. There's heaps rusting on airfields in Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Russia,

3 old Syrian monkey models probably have no resale value especially given the price for a refurbished one.

Indeed Croatian order was worth 28 million Euro for 5 ex-Algerian jets as well as overhauls for 7 existing MiG-21s. That is absolutely nothing in military terms.

Thomas, the 'many' NATO partners without sims are generally the ones with barely any aircraft and negligible capability – the Baltics, Balkans, Iceland, Luxembourg, etc. Unless they obtain some capable aircraft, it's not going to make a difference if they're flying 50 or 500 hours per year.

The partners with capable air forces (i.e. generally the more effective 'old' NATO allies) do make enormous use of high-quality simulated training and as I've mentioned above, simulated training has now reached a technological level where it actually DOES equate to real flying. Not in all areas – particularly operational flying – but certainly in terms of operational conversion, type training and maintaining currency in general handling and emergency procedures.

As I've already mentioned, C17 & F35 pilots already become qualified on type without ever flying the actual aircraft. Just looking at the raw 'hours flown' numbers simply does not tell you the whole story any more.

Thomas, the 'many' NATO partners without sims are generally the ones with barely any aircraft and negligible capability – the Baltics, Balkans, Iceland, Luxembourg, etc. Unless they obtain some capable aircraft, it's not going to make a difference if they're flying 50 or 500 hours per year.

I was more referring to the Eastern and Southern Europeans – Czech, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Turks, Greeks, Portuguese and Spaniards (according to some RAF and USN guys, Spaniards are terrible at maintenance).

Southern Europe actually has a huge holding of NATO European combat aircraft (about 600-700). Eastern Europe is effectively disamred with most airforces not having more than 12-14 jets of dubious airworthiness.

Even German Air Force flying hours are down due to dismal airworthiness of the fleet.

Not in all areas – particularly operational flying – but certainly in terms of operational conversion, type training and maintaining currency in general handling and emergency procedures.

None of that equates to combat capability. NATO pilots used to have the edge because they did combat training whereas Warpac was often more basic flight training you refer to.

Maintaining currency actually implies lack of tactical training. You're flying just to stay "current" on the aircraft because you're not doing much overall flying in it.

As I've already mentioned, C17 & F35 pilots already become qualified on type without ever flying the actual aircraft.

And then how many hours do they need to spend in actual flying time to become operational pilots?

Indeed if simulator time was so great in making operational pilots, there wouldn't be several units dedicated to F-35 training and 58th Airlift Squadron (C-17 conversion) wouldn't have a single aircraft assigned to it.

Why haven't we JDAMed them into little tiny bits yet? Preferably while occupied on the strip.

They. Can't be hard to find. They need airstrips and bunkers.

Thomas,

Twas ever thus in Southern Europe. No change there, though the Spaniards and Italians have exactly the same simulator tech as us.

Yes it does relate directly to combat effectiveness, because a. a lot of the combat essentials can be performed in dedicated sims and b. pilots aren't wasting anywhere near as much valuable airborne time on general handling, emergency procedures and maintaining currency and thus ARE able to concentrate more on the operational aspect of their job.

Re your last comment: Please point out where I'm wrong instead of setting up strawmen. As I said, pilots are qualified on the airframe before they even fly one (one of my best mates is a C17 skipper and another is training on F35). Yes, of course there are still aircraft dedicated to training, because at some point a pilot still has to park his arse in an actual aircraft and the other aircrew and groundcrew need to train. But a shedload fewer airframes are now required for OCUs than used to be, due to the collossal advances in sim tech of the last couple of decades.

Twas ever thus in Southern Europe. No change there, though the Spaniards and Italians have exactly the same simulator tech as us.

Actually was referring to actual flight hours. Spain has massively curtailed theirs due to economic problems so it would more simulator work.

Yes it does relate directly to combat effectiveness, because a. a lot of the combat essentials can be performed in dedicated sims and b. pilots aren't wasting anywhere near as much valuable airborne time on general handling, emergency procedures and maintaining currency and thus ARE able to concentrate more on the operational aspect of their job.

It would be interesting to see how much actual flight time is dedicated to combat training.

Well as discussed above, there isn't an F35 T-bird model, so no way to fly with a QFI for routine handling and currency checks, even if you wanted to…

Well as discussed above, there isn't an F35 T-bird model, so no way to fly with a QFI for routine handling and currency checks, even if you wanted to…

Right now the F-35 is completely limited in flight profiles including both maneouvres (restricted to 3.2 G) and speed (generally Mach 0.9 though about 20 test birds are allowed to fly to maximum M1.6) and has virtually no weapons integration so all F-35 flights are routine handling and currency checks.

The current F-35 is basically completely non-combat capable (despite the USMC squinting hard and pretending otherwise).

You don't need a dual seater for training – many types have not had dual seaters. Indeed currently US F-22, French Super Etendards and Pakistani JF-17s don't have dual seat aircraft.

And Super Etendard's predate sophisticated simulators. Greeks never brought dual seaters with their Mirage F1Cs and probably suffered an attrition rate comparable to Spain who did buy dual seaters (Spain also has twice the attrition rate of most F/A-18 users).

Thomas,

Please stop setting up strawmen. It's becoming increasingly tiresome. I fail to see what the F35's present teething problems have to do with pilot training hours on OPERATIONAL squadrons (other than they do what they can til the problem gets fixed).

The fact remains that the majority of flying training on new types (including the F22, as you bring it up) is synthetic and pilots become qualified in the sim and then maintain currency for the type mainly in the sim, leaving increasing amounts of actual flying time for operational training. Typhoon and Tornado have T-bird variants, though a considerable amount of currency training is also increasingly synthetic, as the sim tech has advanced at an incredible rate since those types first flew.

I never said you couldn't train with single-seat aircraft. Please don't suggest that I did. However, that is the way that the RAF has done it since the Meteor.

As I said earlier: simply stating flying hours is irrelevant, as it doesn't reflect the whole story and certainly doesn't when pilots are conducting large amounts of effective synthetic training. We've reached a technological point where pilots are becoming fully qualified to fly an aircraft type without ever having actually flown it – that was certainly NOT the case with Super-Etendards, etc.

Please stop setting up strawmen. It's becoming increasingly tiresome. I fail to see what the F35's present teething problems have to do with pilot training hours on OPERATIONAL squadrons (other than they do what they can til the problem gets fixed).

1. There are no operational F-35 squadrons. Only current F-35 squardons are training or test. F-35 has not acheived IOC.

31 TES (test)
58 FS (training)
61 FS (training)
422 TES (testing)
461 FLTS (TESTING)

VMFAT 501 (USMC training)
VMFA121 – first "operational" squadron. IOC mid-late 2015 but then extremely limiting.

VFA101 (USN training)

2. F-35 restrictions are due to flight testing not being completed, weapons integration still taking place, operational and tactical procedures still being developed etc.

The fact remains that the majority of flying training on new types (including the F22, as you bring it up) is synthetic and pilots become qualified in the sim and then maintain currency for the type mainly in the sim, leaving increasing amounts of actual flying time for operational training. Typhoon and Tornado have T-bird variants, though a considerable amount of currency training is also increasingly synthetic, as the sim tech has advanced at an incredible rate since those types first flew.

Yes. But do you have proof that most flights are "operational training" and not basic currency flights?

I never said you couldn't train with single-seat aircraft. Please don't suggest that I did.

In fact you did with constant references to T-birds and ability to fly .

Indeed given many USAF operational squadrons maintain "T-birds" would imply some inhouse flight training (indeed a 493 FS F-15D recently crashed – squadron is only F-15C/D unit in USAFE).

After all is every squadron/base equiped with a simulator? Maybe RAF with it's ever shrinking number of bases, but many NATO partners including USA, Greece,France, Italy, Poland etc maintain single squadron bases.

Proper simulators are expensive.

As I said earlier: simply stating flying hours is irrelevant, as it doesn't reflect the whole story and certainly doesn't when pilots are conducting large amounts of effective synthetic training. We've reached a technological point where pilots are becoming fully qualified to fly an aircraft type without ever having actually flown it – that was certainly NOT the case with Super-Etendards, etc.

Sure, but that synthetic training doesn't beat the real thing.

Hence France desperately trying to figure out how to maximise flight hours. And apparently flying a real turboprop ala PC-21 is viewed as better experience than flying a Rafale in a simulator.

I know that. That's why I was asking why it was relevant. I only brought up the F35 (along with the C17 and F22) as an example of how synthetic training has supplemented or even replaced traditional flying on modern types and to highlight why simply looking at raw pilots' logged flying hours doesn't give you the whole story in a modern air force.

My post misfired.

I'll post main point again:

Synthetic training doesn't beat the real thing.

Hence France desperately trying to figure out how to maximise flight hours. And apparently flying a real turboprop ala PC-21 is viewed as better experience than flying a Rafale in a simulator.

Also simulators do nothing to train armourers, fitters and other ground crews.

EDIT:

And finally that 150 hours flown by the Frenchies include operational sorties in UAE, Mali etc. Hence this reduces operational training hours.

In fact some operational missions such as No Fly Zone enforcement and air policing missions actually deteriorate pilot skills as they're generally basic flying. The Americans and Brits had massive problems with this when they were flying NFZ enforcement over Iraq in 1990s.

No, it doesn't beat the real thing, but as mentioned, it's now considered to be more than good enough to wholly replace massive chunks of flying training. The success of RAF C17 crews is testament to that – the airframes are absolutely maxed out on operational duties, so simulator training is absolutely vital and has proved its worth. The tempo of RAF C17 ops has been so high that crews and airframes have even exceeded what the USAF have done with theirs – that was only possible through maximum use of synthetic training while keeping the aircraft flying on ops training and/or actual ops.

The proposed French approach is interesting, though. I'm not convinced that they wouldn't be better off investing in more sims, though there are things that flying turboprops would probably do better than a sim: CAS training with FACs springs immediately to mind.

Good lord, 150 hours per annum including ops?! How does that work?! I don't know what recent rates have been for Afghanistan, but when I was somewhat more up to speed on this stuff, RAF fast jet crews could usually expect to do something like 80 hours per month on ops!

The proposed French approach is interesting, though. I'm not convinced that they wouldn't be better off investing in more sims, though there are things that flying turboprops would probably do better than a sim: CAS training with FACs springs immediately to mind.

Flying a PC-21 in CAS would be a different kettle of fish to flying a Mirage or Rafale though.

Just read another article whereby the Austrians only have enough funding to keep 12 pilots current on their 15 Eurofighters. They have simulators but the key issue is flight hours.

So they are unable to furnish pilots with enough actual flight hours to keep them current.

They've also been scrapping QRF training and now also only fly 8:00 am – 4:00 pm. They've been looking at having either the barely functional Luftwaffe or the barely functional Hungarian Air Force or even the barely functional Swiss airforce do some airpolicing duties (and Swiss air force also only flies in day time hours).

Good lord, 150 hours per annum including ops?! How does that work?!

Hence the "let's get them flying turboprops" idea.

It's the same in a lot of Europe.

Recently Finland couldn't deploy an air interception mission against Russian aircraft because the allocation of "overtime" flying hours had been used up in a training exercise.

Oh and those Croatian MiG-21s:

1. No pilots are night qualified.

2. Only 2 pilots are ground attack qualified (the chief test pilot and the squadron commander).

3. None are radar intercept qualified.

4. If they get 50-60 hours flying time a year, they're doing well.

Up to recently there was only 2 MiG-21s airworthy to defend all of Croatian airspace. There's 12 now, though only 8 are interceptor MiG-21bis versions and other 4 are training MiG-21UMs.

Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia are in the same boat.

Czech Repbulic has not acquired enough munitions for any sort of training whilst Hungary has only now decided to give it's Gripens a ground attack capability (well capability was there but no training has been conducted and no A2G munitions acquired).

NATO in the 21st century.

Yes, very different, though I was thinking more in terms of the exchanges between pilots and FACs, rather than the actual mechanics of releasing weapons. It's not really something you can do in a sim. The type of aircraft wouldn't really be that much of an issue, as it would be more about operational procedure training and keeping both sides of the 'conversation' up to speed.

as it would be more about operational procedure training and keeping both sides of the 'conversation' up to speed.

That makes sense. The RAAF uses PC-9/As in this role (previously 76 Sqn and now Forward Air Control Development Unit).

EDIT: Correction, FACDU is gone and it's now 4 Sqn. Forgot RAAF has been busy resurrecting old squadron number plates. Even reservist non flying adminitrative units now get a squadron number.

I actually think it's a bit of disrespect to have a former flying squadron number be assigned to a unit of number crunchers or pen pushers.

We used to use Jet Provosts (camouflaged – very cool) in the role at JFACTSU, though that was very much about training FACs, rather than giving experience to operational pilots (they'd bring their own jets!).

I'm all for keeping old squadron numbers alive and the RAF these days has been dishing them out to what would formerly be called Flying Training Schools (FTSs) or trials units, though they have thus far restricted them firmly to flying units. There was also talk of also attaching redundant squadron numbers to the University Air Squadrons, Air Experience Flights and Volunteer Gliding Schools, though the UASs, AEFs and VGSs themselves rejected that idea, partially out of embarrassment but also that they have their own histories and identities that they'd like to keep.