At the Zhuhai Air Show in 2018, the J-10B fighter's beautiful "Cobra maneuver"

The so-called "cobra maneuver" movement belongs to a kind of high difficulty in modern jet fighter.

Normal jets fly horizontally. Even if they climb up, the elevation angle is generally low, such as 10 to 20 degrees. When making a "cobra", the driver will pull back the rod, and in a short period of time, the nose of the aircraft will be raised high, up to a 90-degree angle(vertical upward), and then continue to lean back, and finally the elevation angle will reach 110. To 120 degrees.

In this short period of time, the entire direction of the jet aircraft is vertically upward and backward, that is, the flight state of "the head is behind and the tail is in front". During this process, the speed of the aircraft dropped sharply, from 400 to 500 kilometers per hour to about 100 kilometers per hour in two seconds. Then the pilot pushed forward, slowly lowered the nose, reduced the elevation angle from more than 100 degrees to nearly 0 degrees, and resumed horizontal flight.

The entire process lasted for two or three seconds. The aircraft basically remained at the same horizontal altitude, and completed a sharp nose upturn and vertical fuselage. The cobra, shaped like a fierce Cobra, raised its upper body and launched an attack, so it was called "Cobra maneuver."