A Chinese military jet has detonated flares near an Australian Navy helicopter which was operating in international waters, forcing the pilot to take evasive action to avoid an accident.

An Australian pilot was forced to take evasive action after a Chinese military jet detonated flares close to a Navy helicopter that was operating in international waters near South Korea.

The Defence Department has described the actions of the J-10 Chinese Air Force plane as “unsafe and unprofessional” following the incident which took place in the Yellow Sea over the weekend.

On Saturday a MH-60R Seahawk which had launched from HMAS Hobart was intercepted by the People’s Liberation Army-Air Force (PLA-AF) as it was taking part in a UN mission to enforce sanctions against North Korea.

  • @[email protected]English
    4•7 months ago

    Thanks for the response!

    I guess I’ve based my assumptions on the only plane I’ve ever seen popping flares, which was an old Sukhoi. From what I’ve seen in old school textbooks, a lot of those planes had flare dispensers aimed upwards. Maybe the idea is that ideally they would try to get a side aspect to the missile either way, so it wouldn’t matter as much?

    Now that you mention it, newer MiGs - I mean as new as a MiG-21 is - drop flares downwards. I’d love to find out more about the engineering of this.