hi

[faizisnever]

my name is faiz,was born in bombay in the yr 86,we shifted to b'lore less than a yr later(parents are bankers..and bankers
get postings),stayed there for teh next 18 yrs,dad rode an rx(mom gifted it to him a few months before i was born,im glad
now that it wasnt any other)and to cut a long story short-i can go on and on about the memories on that beauty.Dad got
posted to assam for a few yrs(i was around 13 or so).. came back for a few yrs and in 04' got posted back to bombay.mom,me
and my sister stayed in b'lore untill i passed out of 12th.The bike went wherever dad went and i Hardly rode the rx in those
days, i used to ride moms kinetic honda instead(the 2 stroke version)...and from tellin mom im going to study at a friends
place and vanishing elsewhere in the night to riding dead stoned back from collage(outskirts) through country and highway
alike back to the city, i have a lot of memories on that bike too. But i will confess i regret treating her the way i did(we
even had to change the piston coz i thought 2t oil was a waste of money).
needless to say am 100% b'lorean at heart,but the trouble seeking part of the same heart compelled me to drop out of the
first yr of engineering and trade it for 3 yrs of getting my a*# kicked at the national defence academy. Forget bikes that
was a life without a phone and an ATM(atleats officially).As a matter of fact every cadet gets his own cycle(the oldy goldy
hero cycle with the wierd handle bar kind).
Anyway ,after getting commissoned as an air force fighter pilot(believe me) i went home to bombay saw the rx in so much rust-(dads getting old i guess).decided to to
take her back with me to wherever i was gonna get posted and i did just that...but the bike wasnt in the same shape i had
seen her in all along. 6 yrs she caught rust in the humidity of bombay,local mechanichs doing "kam chalao" repairs.and whats
more she was hardly used in those 6 yrs.same with the kine im posted at at place called Bidar,im pretty sure most of you
havnt heard of it(and there are times when i think it would have been better had i been posted to the dark side of thr
moon)and i have spent a lot of time and effort(money is not that dear) bringing her back to a level where i can trust
her.and shes back in my life.(im gonna fix the kinee too. i owe it to her)

[faizisnever]

forgot expressing my my appreciation for rdd..so thanks ..
i hope to learn loads(free time and being in the middle of nowhere are my biggest handicaps)

[faizisnever]

sorry but i couldnt figure out how to attach more than one snap

[roshiba777]

welcome to RDD

[varvij_viju]

Nice to have you here. Welcome.

Also I wanted to ask you one thing, directly to a Pilot. Cam you tell us the real results and discussions of the Nellis Red Flaf 2008 not the one at Alaska.

Thanks.

[PhantomLord]

Welcome Faiz, Nice Pic's

[satish]

welcome , recall those RX ad with a jet in the background....enjoy

[charuvil]

Welcome mate....RDD ATC we have company...VT-DEREK...is no where to be seen....escape route...Hongkong...roger that..

[chinoy]

Welcome Ex-Air Force Brat here.
32 Transfers in 35 years of service.

[derek]

VT-DEREK is off to london on wed

[faizisnever]

thanks guys for a warm welcome..im sure i can learn a lot from you all

varvij_viju,
viju... with all due respect man.. had i not been commiting a crime by revealing classified info i would have gladly boasted about the score card results that su-30 MKI's had......i know ull understand.. but i will try to give you an unbiased opinion( i must say that a youngster like me in armed forces is no authority to clarify roumours and misconceptions)..
..In any international military exercise, all participating nations predecide that they will potray only fraction of what their military capabilty is.(its like an unwritten but accepted fact)..the reasons are obvious and that also implies that even after interacting with other militaries much is still left to speculate on what the capabilities of any military might(india included)are in a real deal war situation even for the top brass ...and for each such exercise you will find many guggus around the world claiming to be experts making biased and sometimes even ridiculously dumb comments on the net ,the news and on youtube too.
having said that- the red flag results-su30MKI kicked ass...as a matter fact the indians have been kicking ass in many exercises..try looking up exercise cope-india 2004 (indian mirage 2000s vs US f-15s- http://dawnsearlylight.blogs.com/del/20 ... _be_s.html ) you might be able to find somethin g more about indian mirages and mig-29s vs f-16s(im not gonna name countries but they werent american)

chinoy,
and Ron(if i may).... dude i did a little goofing around on the net reading about RDs and there seem to be a hell of a lot of guys with some kick ass Rds expressing humble gratitute towards you.... Im sure your heart is as large as your passion is for bikes... i would love to know more about you and glad to know that you are "an ex-air force brat" yourself ...

[faizisnever]

derek,
thanks for the welcome derek.... glad to have company....

[varvij_viju]

Yes, I did read about the Cope India 2004 exercise and it is a well known fact that the American contingent mostly consisted of youngster pilots with less than 3000-4000 hrs in the F-15's. Also, the Mirages and Mig-21 Bison's were mostly flown by the experienced hand of the Indian AF.

But the Nellis RF 2008 was different, there were French with Rafael trying to snoop around with the Su-MKI's signatures every time, the Indians not being in the Data link of AWACS. But, I want to know that with the Indian/Russian Data link were they so helpless that they were unable to find the enemies ? The reason for the friendly kills ? Shot to shot comparison and all that.

You can email me the info you might've I mean it is just an exercise.

Regards,

Varun......

[derek]

faiz,derek is small man flying big slowpoke aeroplane hehe


PS when u grow OLDER and join the airlines......pls dont turn out like the 1000 ex-airforce idiots we have flying with us today......humble request.....

[santosh.gangadharan]

[reaper]

Is there a possibility that the IAF data link didn't have targets designated?or there was some confusion with the masked signatures of the opposing aircraft?I have some interest in this and am curious to know why jamming wasn't involved from our side.It would have rendered the playing field completely even in my opinion.

[faizisnever]

varvij_viju,
im sure u got this from the vedio briefsof alecture cunducted by the USAF colonel who has made news once the vedios reached youtube..
The lecture im talking about is a private briefing in August 2008 to a group called the “Daedalians”. The Daedalians are a local group of retired military pilots. it is obviosly far from the truth and personnaly i feel he was just entertaining the crowd. this vedio hitting youtube has caused a little controversy doudting the su-30mki but allmost everything iv read on the net seems to have been derived from this video ONLY. i hope your getting my drift.

the first point he made about FOD suseptibility of a su and hence a stagger in successive takeoff does not apply in war situation as no one would worry about a minor thing like FOD then.. we decided play safe on that point coz it would NOT affect the outcome given the nature of simulated exercises conducted in RF.so in my opinion its an irrelevent point to make.. but he dint mention that we offered to take off before evereone else and land after everyone else so that the stagger does not affect planning of the others.. the point i make is is that there NO other aircraft that can match the endurance of a su-30mki.the others would flame out(run out of fuel) and would be forced do A-A refuelling.the SU can hang around to fight a hell of a lot longer while the others begin to worry about fuel. this is a recognised fact not mentioned by the col.
the 2nd point he made was in defence of putting up poor competion when they came here to india-when he said the indians sent their best and most experienced pilots i say the indians sent good pilots with avg expr. when he said the americans sent ameaturs with less than 500 hrs hes making an excuse he knows no news channel can confirm for themselves.. so this point is just one mans word vs the others..excuses for loosing in combat should not bemade
the third point he made explaining how he FELT the f-22 WOULD take theb su down in combat. NOTE hes speculating here ,hes not talkin about what actually happened becoz he cant(its classified) but does talk about a lot of combat theory based mainly western combat philosophy- you ask a russian air force pilot and hell give you an equally convincing explanation for a reverse outcome.
now coming to the point of the claimed friendly kills due incompatible dataliks - incompatible becoz its indian su's interacting with american AWACS(we ahve got our own phalcon).While NATO air forces are designed to inter operate with each other and carry out joint missions, the IAF is not. so this incompatibility should not be held against us.RF was comprised mostly NATO coutries.so when u simulate a divide of such a grup into frienldy and enemy(for the erercises) its obviosly going to be easy to figure out who the minoroty of sukois are while its going to be difficult fot the minoroty to differentiate the majority af western made aircraft(they have a lot of similarities)into friendlies and enemies.had the scenario been reversed with a majority of non NATO aircraft and a minority of NATO aircraft they would would have been in the exact same boat that we were in ,in RF 08.

Beleive me we put a great show inspite of all the odds.. As a matter of fact the colonel praised teh su in many ways but the press(like it allways does) has fed on those parts of the discussion that would create controversy

[faizisnever]

reaper,
Hi reaper, ill be honest ......there are levels of confidentiality that are way out of my league too. I wish i knew.. i can make a good speculation about why we didnt, but i dont want to shoot my mouth off like many people do trying to sound like they know a lot.
id prefer to be humble..

[faizisnever]

derek,
what do you fly my friend.. and what exactly are ur opinions of those ex-AF pilots who work with you.

[derek]

im flying the A330....earlier was flying the 737

oh they still think they are flying the mig or the jag or sukhoi or watever....... idiots forget now that safety,comfort and economy is wat airline flying is......they still wanna sometimes do a barrel roll or some dive with these aeroplanes......

ive also had the pleasure of flying with some real gentlemen ex AF pilots too.....not all of them are cocks lol