There's been a trend in flankers recently.

Credit to @KCferrari for this underrated build. In my opinion, I think his ace combat builds need more attention. They're quite old and outdated in terms of build standards nowadays but hold so much potential with some proper retrofitting. That's what I've done here with his Su-37 from nearly six and half years ago. Old is gold.

Standard Flight Controls
- Throttle
- Brake
- Pitch
- Roll
- Yaw
- Flaps
- Trim

Activation Groups
AG1 = Arm Missiles
AG2 = Lights
AG3 = Extend Fuel Probe
AG4 = Drag Chute
AG5 = Engage TVC
AG6 = Jettison AirToSurface Weaponry
AG7 = Jettison AirToAir Weaponry
AG8 = Lock Control Surfaces

• Takeoff speed is more or less 250 mph (w/ full load).
• Stall speed is more or less 200 mph.

This is a PSM-capable aircraft.

The aircraft can perform a Cobra at any speed above 250 mph without the need for TVC. But when using TVC, you're able to perform a Kulbit or even a Spinning Cobra. Is it safe, let alone possible, to do such maneuvers at high speeds? Obviously no, you'd risk the entire thing breaking apart from the G-load and air resistance. That's why they're called post-stall maneuvers. But hey, it looks cool.

Cobra

1. Reach any speed above 250 mph.

2. Apply brake until throttle reaches 0% and the physical airbrake deploys.

3. While still holding brakes, immediately pitch up. After 1-2 seconds, let go of the brake, and keep pitching up.

4. Just as you reach 45° AOA as you're descending from the Cobra (still pitching up), you may throttle back to 100% so that you can land directly or very close to 0° AOA at the end of the Cobra. Depending on your airspeed, you will have to apply pitch and brake at a longer interval.

5. Recover

This procedure is done assuming your airspeed is around Mach 1.

Spinning Cobra

1. Apply steps 1-3 stated above.

2. As you're ascending to 90° AOA, with the help of TVC (Activate 5), immediately apply 60+% throttle or more and yaw to one side.

3. Apply enough yaw input to the point that you do a full 360, as many as you like, with compensation of opposite yaw to counter the momentum if you're spinning too fast.

4. Recover.

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Kulbit

1. Apply steps 1-3 stated in the Cobra Procedure.

2. As you reach 90° AOA as you're ascending up, with the help of TVC (Activate 5), immediately apply 60+% throttle until you're flying inverted and backwards.

3. Keep applying pitch and adjust to the point where you reach 180° AOA (nose pointing backwards).

4. Upon 180° AOA, immediately pitch down to counter the upwards momentum of the aircraft.

5. Recover.

Here's some other maneuvers you can do with this build (the only maneuvers that I haven't tested are the Immelman, Hammerhead, and Ranversman because I was lazy and they weren't as theatric as the others):

New & Upgraded Features

1. Replaced the old TVC layout with a simplified version including FT and fewer parts.

2. Remodeled the Main Wings and it's control surfaces to mirror the real thing, flaps and slats included. Ailerons were removed and the flaps were resized.

3. Removed redundant fuselage blocks making up the inlet grills that took up unecessary space.

4. Eliminated some redundant rotators controlling different surfaces (Canards, Elevators, Airbrake) across the airframe and replaced them with fewer small rotators with FT coding, lessening the part count and overall complexity.

5. Added additional FT coding to the Canards to aid in multiple inputs instead of only pitch.

6. With FT, Trim values now depend on the airspeed and altitude of the aircraft. This is done to compensate for the nose-down attitude that the plane likes to do at low speeds regardless of altitude (basically, it's nose-heavy).

7. Tweaked the engine power to give the craft realistic acceleration while still having more to give you that arcade-y feel.

8. Adjusted the output value of the Airbrake to better induce advanced combat maneuvers such as the Cobra.

9. Changed the airfoils of different wing parts to improve straight-line flight and eliminate most of the roll drift.

10. Adjusted the COG closer to the COL by removing or adding mass to certain parts. Promotes higher instability and control during special maneuvers.

11. Removed drag for some parts of the aircraft to give it somewhat realistic drag and top speeds at differing altitudes.

12. Created moving exhaust nozzles to simulate afterburner effects.

13. Replaced the original cockpit assembly with a sleeker design, complete with a pilot and interior silhouette.

14. Adjusted the size & position of different parts such as the wings, nose, and tail section.

15. Upscaled the entire design to reach the approximate dimensions of the real aircraft.

16. Added an armament suite that's used by the flanker family, consisting of Alamos, Archers, and Kedges. By using multiple stock missile parts, their appearance is meant to give the impression of the missiles they're name after, meaning they barely look like the real thing. So use your imagination. It's a cost-effective way of making different missile models when considering the part count.

17. Replaced the original landing gear with bare wing gear that better represents the main gear.

18. Added drag chutes.

19. Added a fuel probe.

20. Added flares and lights.

21. Added decals.

22. Added small minor fuselage blocks to certain areas to smoothen out the body.

TL;DR — Scaled up, tuned the flight characteristics, added details and weaponry.

Note
- This aircraft does not contain any form of PID nor Pitch Retention. So don't expect it to do all the minor compensating inputs to smoothen your flight. In my opinion, it takes away from the uniqueness of the build where so many flight models people build nowadays have some form of autopilot. Maybe I just like the simpler DIY-style of control where you ought to do the small corrections yourself.

Bugs

• Aircraft will tend to roll to the right after prolonged straight line flight. Luckily, it's barely noticeable if you're more into dogfighting than leisure flights. And it's not even that big of a drift. The only way you can notice it fully is when you fast-forward the level. (I've already checked for asymmetrical mass or airfoils and have found no such imperfections. I've even tried the remedy of scaling the cockpit block up or down. Turns out that can only do so much.) It may be due to the amount of wings that are present in this build, many of them providing different amounts of lift...

• For the multi-part custom missiles (R-27 & Kh-29), if you decide to jettison them even while armed, they will fail to ignite and instead tumble their way to the ground. This is due to the XML attributes in the non-functioning missile but I don't know why. Perhaps it has something to do with the mass. All of it's attributes are at 0, including the mass.

• The fuel probe is dumb. Does it work? Yes & No. Yes, because all I did was disable aircraft collisions for the part (the fuel probe assembly works perfectly fine), AND No, because if I did turn collisions back on, the probe would get stuck in the fuselage while trying to extend. Apparently the hit-box for the fuel probe is larger than it seems(?) considering it's already sticking halfway out of a fuselage block. For refuelling enthusiasts this is a big disappointment. But luckily the craft features unlimited fuel. So it's more of a showpiece.

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Gallery

Don't like canards?