Debriefed

Making the rounds in the blogosphere this week is a video showing a heretofore unidentified Air Force officer’s briefing on the Indian air force's Su30-MKI's performance at Red Flag 2008 (part 1 is here; part 2 here).

Stephen Trimble's blog “The DEW Line” was the first to post the YouTube video.

So who was that unmasked man?

According to Nellis Air Force Base public affairs, the lecturer was Col. Terrence Fornof, an F-15 Eagle pilot and the director of requirements and testing at the Air Force Warfare Center.

Fornof was “giving a private impromptu briefing in August 2008 to local Daedalians,” a group of retired military pilots, service spokesman Mike Estrada told Inside the Air Force in a Nov. 7 e-mail.

The response, in its entirety:

The YouTube videos “IAF SU-30 MKI Red Flag Lecture Part 1 & Part 2” were of Colonel Terrence Fornof, an F-15 pilot and the Director of the Requirements and Testing office at the United States Air Force Warfare Center, Nellis AFB, Nev., giving a private impromptu briefing in August 2008 to local Daedalians. The Daedalians are a group of retired military pilots. Col. Fornof did not mean to offend any U.S. allied forces, as he knows firsthand the importance of training with allied forces and the awesome firepower they bring to the fight. His comments during this briefing were his personal opinions and not those of U.S. Air Force Warfare Center or of the Air Force.

In his briefing, Fornof said the U.S. F-15 pilots “dominated” in the exercise, more due to the two countries' aviators' experience than the capabilities of the respective planes. The Su30-MKI and Eagle are parallel in capabilities, he added, but the F-22A Raptor's are superior. The colonel also was critical of French pilots' tactics in the dogfights.

Estrada said Fornof is not available for interviews, “nor is it Air Force policy to comment on the performance of U.S. and allied units taking part in Red Flag exercises.”

However, Air Force had no problem describing the Raptor’s dominance in a Red Flag exercise early in 2007, as Inside the Air Force reported at the time.