"Jinking" on film.

[Randy Haskin]

I know that faced with flak and missiles most combat aircraft practiced jinking, randomly varying altitude, direction and speed to thow off ground based attacks from guns and missiles.

By the recent (last 20 years at least) parlance, a "jink" is a last-ditch, full-deflection control move to get out of the way of a shot that is actually in flight and headed toward your aircraft.

Here's a T-38 training video from the offender's point of view showing a defender jinking at 0:04 seconds and again at 0:31 seconds. In both instances the defending aircraft is jinking out of a 20mm gun attack.

Jinks against ground-based threats like AAA and SAMs are not much different, except in direction of maneuver and timing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m56TD6_m5s

when you say "full-deflection" do you mean, no kidding, full deflection, stores configuration be damned or do you still adhere to what the -1 says?

As a wise man once told me, "G limits only apply to an aircraft that expects to ever be flown again." Meaning, if you believe that adhering to -1 G limits will result in the aircraft being destroyed or you being killed (which is generally the situation when a bullet or missile is bearing down on you close enough that you need to jink), then you don't have to obey the G limits.

Yes, I mean full deflection, rapid snatch of the stick all the way aft to full deflection, to get the aircraft to move as aggressively as possible. Jinks include using all of the possible aerodynamic maneuvering capability the airplane has to offer in order to stay alive.

FWIW, a threat reaction is a longer, progressive process of which the jink is merely the final end-game maneuver. Prior to that, tanks and bombs should have been jettisoned.

With respect to the video and the comment about full deflection flight control movements. Remember, this is the actual definition of an aircraft's "maneuvering speed" -- the maximum speed which you can make a rapid full-deflection flight control input and not over-G the airplane. In the T-38, there, that speed is about 350 knots. If you slam the stick all the way back against the seat pan at 350, you can generate a change in flightpath in a hell of a hurry, and it does not overstress anything.

[Randy Haskin]

I saw a lot of formation flying in that movie, but not much that actually resembled anything remotely like a legitimate tactic.

According to an article about making the movie, the F-14 guys originally insisted that they fly real air-to-air maneuvers, not go Hollywood. Clay Lacey suggested that they go up and be filmed both their way and Hollywood's way from his Learjet. When he showed them the results (dots on the screen going hither and yon versus what is in the movie) the F-14 guys immediately decided that they wanted to go Hollywood.

That's the sad truth of it -- real air combat amongst jets looks very unimpressive on film because of the distance between aircraft when being executed.

Worked in "He11s Angels" because of how tight WWI aircraft could turn. Not so much when your turn diameter is just shy of a mile-and-a-half and the airplane has a 50-foot wingspan.