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.

  • maynarkh
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    1 month 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.