Ta very much, Scorpion. My lack of keeping up to date is showing somewhat. 😛

It’s rather interesting how we’re not seeing the antenna of Captor-E at Farnborough…

Something went really wrong there.

This is what happens when two amateur sides with itchy trigger fingers are let loose with equipment that is much too complicated for them to operate. Reading the manual first rather than using/firing the system then posting a Tweet stating; ‘It works’ (which coincidently was removed soon after) afterwards, is very unprofessional, at best.

Such a waste of life for nothing. R.I.P and condolences to all those involved.

Its a shame really, I miss the arguments about Typhoon being without an AESA and having no prospect of A2G effectiveness….

Wow, really? There’s little worse than seeing a bunch of sad morons supporting the “other type” drone on about an aircraft they loathe (or secretly admire) not having certain capabilities. I’m glad I have more to do to in life.

At the end of the day, it comes down to common sense and being realistic. Typhoon was always going to get these capabilities, the speculative question(s) was when.

I suppose this the place to post this bit of news.

David Cameron appointed Michael Fallon as Defence Secretary on Tuesday as part of a major reshuffle of his cabinet ahead of a national election in May next year.

Fallon earlier this year suggested that Cameron’s Conservative party should campaign for Britain to leave the European Union if a planned renegotiation of ties proved unsuccessful.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/uk-britain-politics-defence-idUKKBN0FK0TV20140715

I somehow doubt Fallon has a positive outlook for the UK to share work with other European countries, or having to have a “partnership” with the French for next 50 years.

Foresee the future to have a spanner in the works, one does. As Yoda would say… Probably…

JF-17
T-50
Gripen
Tejas

… how many more do you want?

F-35… Ohh…

:dev2:

To be honest I’m surprised the Sentinel has survived for a few more years regardless of the threats. The UK MoD think about savings first, threats at a very distant second. See Nimrod amongst many other programmes.

In other news I think is interesting, not military aviation but hey, the Challenger 2 tank is be kept in service until 2035+. That’s if the MoD/Government don’t do another U-turn.

With the retirement of Tornado GR4, which isn’t really that long away, and uncertainty of the entry into service date of the F-35B and of course how many, the Typhoon was always going to be introduced to new capabilities. We’re probably not going to hear much coming out of Farnborough, although I’m suspecting we’re going to hear one or two other pieces of positive news. The biggest news is going to come from SDSR ’15, both positive and negative.

Well… I wouldn’t get excited. Concerns have already been raised about where the money has come from, one area is where the government have previously underspent, some of the capabilities that are “being replaced” are actually the same ones the government themselves cut in the last defence review in 2010, i.e. Sentinel, special forces were cut, now they’re being increased.

Excellent news for Captor-E, until one thinks about it a little harder thus the Excellent bit is replaced by, just ‘Good’, because now that the UK have officially(?) committed funding for the Captor-E, well lets just say it’s pretty old news, the UK have been committed to the radar for quite a while now if one wants to be pedantic and bring up the likes of another AESA demonstrator (Black Archer) and have been progressing with Captor-E for a bit now. Things get underwhelming with regards to the three other Eurofighter GmbH consortium members, as of now they haven’t hinted at anything with regards to funding towards the radar… While that their commitment would indeed help one does wonder if the announcement from the UK would be significant enough with regards to export, Saudi Arabia will almost certainly follow the UK’s lead but still, one must wonder.

To summarise; Parliament have just gone back on their words (albeit positively) and have boasted by saying, ‘Yaaay look at us, we’ve announced significant defence spending, aren’t we great! Go us!’