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So you need to

How things actually work.

Cutaway from the video: How a fighter jet brakes in mid-air: the cobra maneuver

You're flying a Su-57, and an enemy fighter is sitting on your tail. You turn hard. He turns with you.

  1. So you yank the nose up, past straight up, while the jet keeps flying flat. The belly hits the air like a wall, and your speed falls from about 400 km/h to well under 200 in a few seconds.
  2. And if he's close, he can't slow down that fast. He shoots right past you, and now you're the one behind.
  3. But at that angle your wings have stalled. In most jets, that's the start of a spin.
  4. So this jet is built unstable on purpose, and a flight computer keeps it from spinning, correcting it many times a second. Swivelling nozzles help bring the nose back down.
  5. But now you're slow. You can't climb away or run, a wingman has an easy target, and modern missiles can lock onto a jet off to the side.

It shakes one fighter off your tail. The second one just lines up behind you.

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So You Need To… is a YouTube channel of short 3D explainers. Each video picks one problem, like stopping a river or landing a jet on a ship, and shows how it's done, with the machine cut open so you can see the parts that are normally hidden.

The facts in each script are checked before it's recorded. If you spot a mistake, leave a comment on the video.