---
title: "French Pilots Fly IAF Flankers & Floggers, Indian Pilots Take Rafales Up At #Garuda5"
url: https://www.livefistdefence.com/compared-rafale-vs-mki-in-your-mind-its/
date: 2014-06-05
modified: 2016-05-17
lang: en
author: "Team Livefist"
description: "We don't know yet if French Air Force chief General Denis Mercier (met him last year) will get behind the stick on an IAF Flanker at Garuda-V, but Livefist can..."
categories:
  - "AIR FORCE"
  - "Aircraft And Helicopters"
  - "Exercises"
  - "LiveFist Exclusive"
  - "M-MRCA Competition"
  - "Uncategorized"
image: https://www.livefistdefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PHOTO2-1024x470.jpg
word_count: 166
---

# French Pilots Fly IAF Flankers & Floggers, Indian Pilots Take Rafales Up At #Garuda5

[![](https://www.livefistdefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PHOTO2-1024x470.jpg)](https://www.livefistdefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PHOTO2-1024x470.jpg)

[![](https://www.livefistdefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PHOTO3-1024x399.jpg)](https://www.livefistdefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PHOTO3-1024x399.jpg)

We don't know yet if French Air Force chief General Denis Mercier ([met him](https://twitter.com/livefist/status/299466232841793537/photo/1) last year) will get behind the stick on an IAF Flanker at Garuda-V, but Livefist can confirm that over the last two days, Armée de l'Air pilots definitely have. At least 2 French pilots have done sorties Su-30 MKI  *and *MiG-27s as well. IAF pilots have been taking spins in the 4 Rafales at Jodhpur as well, sources at the base confirmed.

Fascination about the Su-30 MKI is pervasive. Over the years, I've met scores of pilots in Europe and the US who said they'd do anything to get a chance to take one up. In 2008, Captain Hal Murdock, then commodore at Lemoore Naval Air Station, California told me that he and most of his pilots [would give anything to fly a Flanker](https://www.livefistdefence.com/2008/05/flankers-are-awesome-birds.html). A year before that, the [USN pilot who flew me](http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/media/5897-2/VV2P0190.JPG) in an F/A-18F Super Hornet said he'd fly me again if I hooked him up with a Su-30 sortie.