Su-27: This is how the COBRA maneuver that HUMILIATED the F-15 was born

Video from the channel MilitarSF about Sukhoi Su-27, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:49. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

An educational piece covering the history of the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker: its origin as the Soviet response to the F-15 Eagle, its technical features, its armament, its use in combat, and the family of aircraft that stemmed from it.

In the late 1960s, the arrival of the F-15 led the Soviet command to commission a fighter capable of matching or surpassing it. The T-10 project was developed at the Sukhoi design bureau, with Mikhail Simonov as the central figure; the first prototypes proved unstable and forced a redesign of the fuselage and wings. The video places the first flight in 1977 and the start of production in 1982 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, with more than 680 units built. After the dissolution of the USSR it was exported to countries such as China, India, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Angola and Indonesia, and in China it gave rise to the J-11. It also recalls its use in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War (1998–2000) against Eritrean MiG-29s.

According to the video, it is 21.9 m long with a 14.7 m wingspan, weighs around 16 t empty, and is powered by two Saturn AL-31F turbofans producing a combined afterburning thrust of over 25 t. It reaches Mach 2.35, has a service ceiling of 19,000 m, and exceeds 3,500 km of range with external tanks. It carries a 30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon with 150 rounds and ten hardpoints for up to 6,000 kg of ordnance. In addition to the N001 radar, it has an OLS-27 infrared sensor mounted in front of the cockpit. The video explains Pugachev's Cobra and cites derivatives such as the Su-30, the Su-35, and the modernised Su-27SM versions.