A recent training exercise with India has served as a "wake-up call" to the US Air Force, according to a top American general.
"We have to learn a lot of things from that," said General Hal Hornburg, head of the US Air Force's Air Combat Command, referring to the 'Cope India' exercise, conducted by the US and Indian air forces in Gwalior in February. "We have to learn if we want air superiority it doesn't come cheap and it's not automatic."
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The Russian-made SU-30s are reported to have bested the USAF's F-15s in a majority of their engagements.
It pitted F-15Cs from the USAF's 3rd Wing out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska against a variety of Indian fighters like the Russian-made SU-30s, MiG-21s, MiG-29s and the French-made Mirage 2000s.
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"In general, we may have learned some things that suggest we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were," he said.
He declined to discuss classified results of the exercise but said, "Something like Cope India, when we find that some of our advantages aren't as great as we thought they might be, leads me to remind people that we need to modernize our air-to-air capability."
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Gen Hornburg said the results of the exercise showed the need for the F/A-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Both aircraft are stealthier than the F-15.
The exercises showed that the SU-30s had a clear advantage over the F-15Cs in a long-range fight, the trade journal Aviation Week and Space Technology reported last month.
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Gen Hornburg said the F-15Cs that took part in Cope India were not equipped with the latest radar.
"We are going to put new radars, as much as we can afford, in the F-16s and the F-15Es, and my prediction is we will have to do for the F-15C as well in due course," the general said.
