Er – no they aren’t. They’re the same distance away from Malta & Italy as they always have been. They’ve actually been advancing ESE along the coast, which moves the front line slightly further away from southern Europe.

Stand corrected, the map I was looking at was creased in such a way that it looked like Libya was 3 miles away from Europe. Oops! 😀 But seriously, I was thinking too close, as in for him and his croonies. PM David Cameron stated this and seems rather concerned about it, especially now that we’ve offered some sort of help to the rebels and as we all know, Gaddafi – or how ever his name is spelt today – is rather fond of the UK, so much so “he” showed how much in the 80’s.

And well said, Arthur.

@Aurel, no offence but you might want to do a little research concerning the AESA radar and maybe a few other things about the Typhoon. Even before the AESA enters operational service its already concidered a mature design. My understanding is that the Eurofighter users opted for it to be further developed to a mature status before its due to enter service, i.e. 2015. Hence why they’re still happy with its current radar, however, still thinking; lets not wait too long, eh. (Not sure what you mean by first generation AESA).

The TVN’s, yep, it exists, but theres not much call for it as of yet. India might show an interest. Probably be introduced during a MLU programme.

The Meteor, well the UK at least have an order in for them to arm the RAF’s Typhoons, France for Rafale, Germany preferred to wait for Meteor for their Typhoon’s hence why they didn’t bother to intergrate AMRAAM, Sweden wants it for their Gripens and theres a possibility Saudi Arabia wants them for their Typhoon’s and I believe Spain and Italy want them too. On top of that, I believe Gripen and Tornado has already fired a few Meteors during tests and I’m sure Rafale has at least flown with it. The Typhoon has I do know of.

@Loke, our sense of humours missed I think. 😉 Scorpion82 might help you better on this than I could, but off the top of my head the T1’s were probably produced around early 2000’s with the T2’s and T3’s a few years later. Of course the T2’s and T3’s offer the better upgrade & growth potential than the T1’s hence why the British MoD want to sell them off to other countries. Theres nothing wrong with them in general, its just that the UK are keen on keeping their Typhoon up to date which means they’re interested in upgrading them in the future. Hence why they want T2’s and T3’s and not the T1’s. Just to add, the T1’s were always going to be the basic batch.

The consortium members are likely to keep their Typhoon’s until they orginally planned to. Saudi Arabia have shown interest in ordering/upgrading current numbers to T3’s and possibly a second batch of another 70+. Be asured theres still more to come yet.

Imposing a no-fly zone over Libya is “perfectly deliverable”, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

Mr Cameron, who attended an EU meeting on the country’s crisis on Friday, said his fellow leaders were “crystal clear” Col Muammar Gaddafi should go.

He told MPs the Libyan leader was “brutalising” his people and there must be “no let-up of pressure”.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband said the government had to “translate the ‘no-fly zone’ phrase into a plan”.

Britain and France are spearheading moves to prevent further air attacks on rebels by forces loyal to Col Gaddafi.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12735656

On a personal note: I don’t believe its too late to impose no-fly zones, although I also believe that the longer “we” wait the more tricky it could become. However, the further the Gaddafi forces progress to the east of Libya the more likely we’re to see these no-fly zones in place due to the fact that theres a lot of built up areas in some particular places where civilian casualties will be of concern. Not only that, the Gaddafi forces are getting a little too close for comfort to the south of Europe.

Iraq is doing very well now. It had a difficult phase before the surge. Now Iraq is great and much better than under Saddam.

Libya 🙂 is next

Excellent oppurtunity to pass the Typhoon as battle proven against Su 22s.

And its taken, what, the best part of 20 years to get this far, better than it was yes, but far from perfect. Doing “very well” now is a bit optimistic. Iraq is not stable enough for the US to or any other country to leave.

And its not important for the Typhoon to get an excellent oppurtunity to prove itself, its simply a tool designed to do this type of work, nothing more nor less.

Best way is to bomb the **** out of Gaddaffi troops after estbalishing a NFZ and then use AH1Z or Appache to desotry the armour.

WOW! Fantastic, problem solved!… :rolleyes:

The UK have the SAS on the ground in Libya, but nobody knows that. shhh… 😉

If we send troops in, they’ll most probably be on a peace keeping role. But even that can be risky.

If they send the Raptor, then the USAF can prove the stealth concept. I mean wasn’t that the selling point, doing CAP’s without caring about airdefense ?:diablo:

F-22 pilot: Libyan pilots are ignoring our requests to stop bombing and its too expensive to use my weapons system & Obama is a bit of a wet…
Gaddafi: There was no CAP aircraft on our radar, so we took advantage of it and bombed my people!
Typhoon pilot: *sigh* FFS I’ll do it!

Ah the disadvantages of “stealth”. :diablo: :diablo: :diablo: