How To (Kinda) Cobra Maneuver

It May Not Be Commonly Useful, But When It Is It Comes In Clutch

What Is A Cobra Maneuver

A Cobra Maneuver or a "Pugachev's Cobra" Is a maneuver first invented by the Swedish by accident when training for countering Deep Stalls (Which their double delta wing jets were prone to do) but brought into the public eye by the Soviet pilot "Viktor Pugachev". It is a very difficult maneuver, and is very hard on both the pilot and the aircraft. It involves the aircraft pitching up in such a way that it stalls and makes the entire aircraft act as an airbrake. It is useful in close range dogfights to force an overshoot. In my eyes there are 3 forms of Cobra maneuvers.

True Cobra: A true cobra is only achievable via thrust-vectoring. It requires supermaneuverabilty and is defined by the aircraft pitching upwards 110 degrees or more. Most soviet aircraft are capable of doing this. It slows you down incredibly fast and only puts you a few feet above where you started the maneuver, in the hands of an incredibly skilled pilot and at low speeds, the F/A-26 is capable of this.

Swedish Cobra (Beat Parry): Named after it's original inventors, surprisingly the first cobra type to be performed. It can be performed by non-thrust vectoring aircraft and involves the aircraft pitching up to around 90 degrees. It pushes you upwards far more than the true cobra but is still very effective. With enough practice and heavy risk to the air frame this maneuver is possible in the F/A-26B















Pseudo Cobra: A Pseudo Cobra is the most common cobra and the type I recommend performing in actual combat. A pseudo cobra is defined as a cobra that puts the nose at less than 90 degrees, but still gives an airbraking effect. These may not look as cool but if used correctly, they can catch enemies of guard and allow you to laugh as the enemy flies by, confused by how you just did the air combat equivalent of hitting the E-Brake.

How To Perform A Cobra

Let's say an enemy ends up right on your tail, you are right in their gun sight, if you hadn't read this guide, you would be dead. But because you read this guide you know what to do, and that is as follows.

1: Turn Off Your Flight Assists: This may sound dumb, but a flight assist's one goal is to keep the plane flying, and snapping off your wings is not good for that. So you will need to disable the flight assists, right after you do this the aircraft will become noticeably harder to fly, don't worry, you can turn them back on right after the maneuver

2: Pull Up Hard, But Not Too Hard: If you pull up too hard, you can snap the wings off, so don't overdo the maneuver. Also you might come out of this maneuver with a bit of wing damage, that's okay. It's either that or die.

3: Prepare To Dive: While your enemy flies past, prepare to dive back down. Or if you have enough time, invert. Aircraft are always better at pitching up than down, and inverting will make it easier. Also prepare your guns

4: Gun Them Down: As the enemy flies through your crosshair, pull the trigger and light them up. Even 10-15 rounds can down an aircraft. And after that the battle is over, you won, and the enemy is flabbergasted by the fact that you were able to do that.

Why You Shouldn't Perform A Cobra

I know we just spent all that time learning how to do one, but they are seriously not necessary in modern air combat. If you have played this game before, you will know that most combat happens BVR (Beyond Visual Range) where a cobra will do nothing but make the enemy do a double take while looking at you on the Radar. And more than that every time you perform a cobra you can almost hear your aircraft screaming in pain as it performs a maneuver that can easily rip off your wings at a moment's notice. Cobras are a maneuver that was dead on arrival. The first aircraft to perform one was the Swedish Draken, that was in 1955, when jet aircraft were first starting to emerge, and engagement distance had already become far larger than it was less than 5 years ago. If the Cobra could've been performed on WW2 aircraft, it would've been the most powerful maneuver in air combat. But engagement distance had already become far too large for the Cobra. But with that being said, if you end up in a close range battle it can be useful. There are three scenarios where you will end up in a close range dogfight in VTOL VR.

1: You charge at the enemy, forcing a close range engagement, where a lot of the enemy aircraft are weak

2: You are charged by an enemy ASF-58, essentially a Su-57 that excels in close range dogfights and will often force you into one

3: In multiplayer, another player rushes you to catch you off guard. This is the best scenario because players will often take a moment to process what just happened, whereas the AI is capable of reacting instantly

[slime09]

The best plane to do this maneuver is in the t55, the best speed is around 230 mph, but see what works for you, next don't turn off all the flight controls, just g limiter, and pitch assist, don't pull up too hard as he said, preform the maneuver a few times and get used to the amount of force to use, once you hit 90 degrees AOA, that is a proper cobra, I recommend doing this at high altitude in case you get into a flat spin or backwards stall and have the ability to get out of it.

[Globzzz710]

thank you i will stop trying to do this now

[Trainee2]

Alright so I've seen many people say that you can't do the cobra anymore in the F-45, but this isn't really true, in fact a friend of mine is insane enough to try it in basically every BFM session we ever have, only to die because if the other pilot can aim, you're just giving them a better opportunity to shoot

Here's how to do it:
- Reduce speed
- Once you're around like... 200 knots? Brakes out, pull up and keep pulling, the Ghost will do a cobra, you can even do the weird thingy from topgun: Maveric apperently but that's also absolutely no use so have fun ;)
-Also a good idea to go full burner

tl;dr:
For the love of GOD stop trying to do cobras in the F-45 at mach 1 and do it like in ace combat, reduce speed until you're about to stall then brakes out, burner, and PULL

[Olivirus]

Yo 1 correction, to do the "true" cobra that Sukhoi jets do, you don't need thrust vector control. The non-vectoring Su-27 can do it. It just requires certain aerodynamic quirks like relaxed stability, LERX and a wing with a certain shape & airfoil that increases it's AoA when stalling (it's mainly relaxed stability that allows this)

[Trigger]

Ham Sandwich
- Trigger

[ChaoticEnergy37]

From what I know, this is now the most viewed guide for VTOL VR. I have a few things to say

1: w h a t. This was just a goofy little guide I made to share a cool maneuver and also share some history

2: Of course I realize this right when my computer finally fixes itself and now I can play the game, so if you guys ever recognize my icon or see a pilot with the callsign "Folder", feel free to say hi I guess

3: Let me know if I should make more guides, I'm working on a SEAD guide for funzies rn so yeah :\

[:D]

for anyone wondering how to do this in the F45, you might not be to, pre-EW update you could do it by turning of your main battery, this also turned of all your flight assists, however the EW update made it so that control surfaces require power to move. So you might not be able to do it anymore, at least not in a controlled manner. Something of note is that the F45's airframe is made of adamantium and it's wings have a loading tolerance so high you will rip off all your weapons before your wings get close to breaking.

[Ghost Lord]

amazing guide!!

[ninjamice]

you only need to turn off the pitch sas

[Cowshark123]

thx ive wanted to show off for ages