French Pilots Fly IAF Flankers & Floggers, Indian Pilots Take Rafales Up At #Garuda5

We don't know yet if French Air Force chief General Denis Mercier (met him last year) will get behind the stick on an IAF Flanker at Garuda-V, but Livefist can confirm that over the last two days, Armée de l'Air pilots definitely have. At least 2 French pilots have done sorties Su-30 MKI  and MiG-27s as well. IAF pilots have been taking spins in the 4 Rafales at Jodhpur as well, sources at the base confirmed.

Fascination about the Su-30 MKI is pervasive. Over the years, I've met scores of pilots in Europe and the US who said they'd do anything to get a chance to take one up. In 2008, Captain Hal Murdock, then commodore at Lemoore Naval Air Station, California told me that he and most of his pilots would give anything to fly a Flanker. A year before that, the USN pilot who flew me in an F/A-18F Super Hornet said he'd fly me again if I hooked him up with a Su-30 sortie.

Labels: , , , ,