Like a lot of journalist’s endeavours, the is irresponsible rubbish and only tells a small part of the story. Yes, the WE177 did have a key but it did not ‘ARM’ the bomb as this article suggests. Anyone who knows anything about air-dropped weapons knows that on some weapons it may be necessary to remove some safety interlocks and set up various release, arming and functioning parameters before take-off to ensure that the weapon does what you intend it to when you drop it. That is what is happening here. The key – which was under two-man principle control at all times – was only one part of the release sequence – like most air-dropped weapons, the bomb had to be released before arming commenced. To suggest that as soon as the key is turned, the bomb is armed is complete rubbish, as is the suggestion that the RAF ‘vetoed’ the designer’s inclusion of a fancy lock and that the security of the bombs could rest on some ‘gentleman’s agreement’. Whoever wrote this story obviously doesn’t know anything about the design approval procedure for weapon safety. This is just sensationalist rubbish.

How exactly do you remotely arm a nuclear free-fall bomb after your have released it?

There might be a safety switch to prevant the weapon exploding by accident before release, but that is almost always a very low-tech mechanical device. Nothing that could not be by-passed with easy by anyone who knows what they are doing. That is exactly what PALs are designed to stop.

Looks like it. Its a miracle one hasn’t been set off yet, and now that the news is out, it would be grossly moronic for the UK not of have PALs instealled immediately.

Well if modern ARMs are not designed to deal with moving targets, then that could potentially be exploited.

We know that there is no requirement for radars to remain stationary in order to function, so what is stopping the truck mounted radars from searching while driving around?

The only limitations that I can think off are the size of the radars and signal transmission to the TELs, but neither are really formidable obsticles by any stretch of the imagination, and solutions can pretty much be found off the shelf. So the question would be, why isn’t anyone doing it?

Stealth aircraft like the B2, F22 and F35 are claimed to be able to use their AESA radars to search and lock onto targets without the enemy knowing about it. Could the same technique not be used by the AESA radars of many modern SAMs to defeat ARHs?

Conversely, if new gen ARH seekers can counter this on ground based SAM radars, can’t the same be applied to find and even target F22s?

Ha…that’s one of the stupidest thing i’ve heard for a while :rolleyes:
The 777 must be for the Chinese market too…all those people with serious gambing problems 😀 Wait, the 747 must be anti-Chinese …oh wait, makes thing worse with the 748….totally anti-Chinese :diablo: :rolleyes:

Typical Vortex, making pointless statements on things you obviously haven’t got a clue on just to try and get a barb in against the hated commie Chinese. :rolleyes:

Nobody said that Israeli involvement must have come through official channels. No conspiracy thing, no prime minister involved, just few people with access to data and love to green papers.

I smell some goalpost repositioning taking place here.

Next you’d be suggesting that someone who worked on the Lavi defected to China and made the blueprints from memory, and that is why the two look so different. :rolleyes:

Please get real, what you are suggesting is about as plausable and likely as some greedy American contractor passing the Seawolf design over to the Chinese and that is what the 093 is. :rolleyes:.

Countries design their entire operational procedures and have entire agencies just to stop that kind of thing happening. And it is damn effective.

I think people involved in this ‘pre-paid information leak’ could not care less.

Any kind of hard evidence whatsoever to back up this ‘greedy emplyee’ theory? Because if we are going to go through all the possibles then we are going to be at this for a very long time.

Again, it is you who said Israeli leaders must have been involved. I say the opposite..

Again, what are you basing this on other then the fact that it conveniently supports your point of view?

Israelis have gained Mirage V plans and blueprints for their Kfirs without support of French government, why do you try to drag in Israeli officials when it comes to Lavi transfer to China?

That Mirage claim is highly doubius. Also, do you have any idea of just how industry, especially the defence industry, works? They don’t store all the files together where just about anyone can get at them all. People only work on their specific parts of the project with no access to the whole. There are very strick safe guards in place to stop unautherised personnel even accessing files above their pay grade never mind copying them and managing to smuggle those files out of the labs and then out of the country.

The only people who would have access to the complete plans will be so high ranking they will never, and can never do anything so dramatic if the government doesn’t allow it.

What do you prefer? $6bn for your government or $300mil on your personal Swiss bank account?

Again, baseless speculation. What more, not only are you alleging that some extremely high ranking person managed to steal a complete set of plans for the Lavi and then pass it on to China, but also that this person has never been caught. Or else the Israelis would have no qualms about telling the world about this, and thus claim credit for the J10 and give themselves a huge boost. Because it is the action of a private individual acting outside of the law, there is not much the US can pin on Israel as you can’t stop all the bad apples, so lots of gain and no risk.

Thus, if the Israelis found out, it would be in their interest to tell. But since they didn’t tell, it implies that they found nothing worth telling. If the Israelis don’t know about a theft and the Chinese aren’t tell, how do you know?

Your entire arguement is based on a far fetched, vastly unlikely and wholly unsubstantiated whim of imagination. A house of cards is infinately more sound.

:confused: what huge chunk of its GDP?

China would have had to offer a huge chunk of its 1980s GDP to make the Israelis even dare dream about back stabbing the Americans over the Lavi, even then the Israelis would never have been tempted for a second.

Let me sum it up.. India is biggest customer of Russian military hardware but for some peculiar reasons that means less than a mouse fart to Russians. OTOH, even if Israel makes no official military deals with China and its market size is less than pathetic, all Chinese are shaking in fear of losing good Sino-Israeli relations. Have I followed your logic right?

The Russians were weighing its relations with China against its relations with India and went with the one that mattered more to them (or the option that would have cost them less, depending on your prospective). Thats a fact, and I’d like to see you disprove it. :rolleyes:

On the other hand, what exactly does China stand to gain besides pocket change and the wraith of the Americans and Israelis for selling J10s to Iran? Is that really worth totaling its relations with Israel over if the Israelis did help with the J10? No.

What’s wrong with that?

If there was nothing wrong with the name, why change it at the last minute to 787? Is it really that incocievable that the marketing people at Boeing thought it would be a good idea to use a number the Chinese like for their next gen airliner, which will depend mostly on the Chinese market?

Next you’d be insisting KFC doesn’t adapt its recipies to best suit local tastes. :p

You are overrating the Chinese global influence a bit. “China-syndrome” is occurring around here quite a lot recently.

So which parts are you disagreeing with? Or do you think Boeing could easily do away with the Chinese market and expect to keep pace with Airbus who would still be operating in China?

Airbus aircraft all have American content, you will not find a single Airbus aircraft without parts made in USA. Although many parts are actually sold to the manufacturer and then to the customer, giving the OEM a legal option to sell its parts to China. Not so with some key technologies and spares. Engines for examples. Just look how Iran ended up with its Airbus and American embargo.

The Europeans have one of the best aviation industries in the world, do you not agree? If they wanted to, they can easily and quickly replace all American parts in Airbus aircraft with European content. For a market the size of China’s, its well worth their while to invest in some engines and other parts to capture such a huge market.

Thanks for supporting my point: the Y-8 is a An-12 derived non-commercial design. It is neither FAA nor JAA/EASA-certified. Neither Y-9/10/11/12 have gained FAA-approval, the ARJ-21 is actually the first.
The total USD value of all Chinese non-military aircraft exports should be comparable to that of Boeing of one day.

But they still sell well. 😉

Also, do you not realise you are supporting my point with that remark? Since the Chinese sell so few civilian aircraft, and none to the US market, loosing the US market will mean next to nothing to them. The loss of Boeing airframe contracts would be more then made up for by Airbus or domestic contracts.

It is America who stands to loose out with such an unwise move, plain and simple.

So, when I read correctly China could build everything tomorrow, just more capable and better quality, the only reason not doing it is that the are not up to it at the moment. Strange that Airbus kicked them out late 1990s because they were stealing technology, and actually still do.

Maybe they built equally good aircraft as they build cars, like this “Chinese copy” of a BMW 3er series. Looks similar, but it isn’t. Standard crash test shows it gives you equal survival chances as 1980 VW Golf II.

[ATTACH]158313[/ATTACH]

Oh I forgot: aircraft are less complex than cars! My bad.
P.S.: Obviously not for American market, how can you name a car BS6 like B++#Sh##. 😀

Clearly you have no grasp of economics. People and companies try to maximise their utility, and that can be assumed as profit.

If its cheaper to buy off the shelf, then people and companies will buy off the shelf instead of wasting money trying to make their own; corporate espionage is far from a exclusive Chinese activity; and surely even you would grasp the economics behind making something as cheap as possible?

China have been making tanks and armoured vehicals for decades, so I say its safe to assume they can make a car that can pass a crash test. The company did not do so to save costs. If safety is such a big concern, people will stop buying that model and car, and so it will be in the company’s interest to make a safer model at a higher price. Again, China is far from unique in doing this. Every major car manufacturer has had a similar start in the past. Japanese and Korean cars were considered cheap and unsafe when they first broken into the American and European markets. OTTOH, Ford was taken to the cleaners because they did a review and decided that it was economical to put a car with a nasty tendency to burst into flames onto the market as it was instead of improving the design as it was more ‘economical’ to take the projected deaths.

But we digress.

Wait a minute: what is the actual relation of US aviation industry exports to China compared to overall exports, and what is the total (export plus domestic) aviation turnover? Which programs are endangered if China discontinues “support”? As you pointed out, the few parts China is delivering are not so challenging. The USA could built them theirself.

So the US is going to stop buying all Chinese aviation products via sanctions on the one hand, but still expect to continue sellings tens of billions of dollars worth of airliners on the other? That is the threat to Boeing.

The US and European markets are already mature and future global airline sales growth are going to come overwhelmingly from China. India will grow as well, but it is still tiny compared to the project airline numbers China would need. If Boeing looses the Chinese market at this stage, airbus will rule the roost and will probably never allow Boeing to get back into the game and achieve parity again. That is the start of a slippery slope that many great companies have never come back from.

You can be sure that if the US slap such silly sanctions on China, the Europeans will not follow suit, and the US would have achieved nothing but destroy Boeing as a world leader in commercial aviation and make Airbus the undisputed industry monopoly. With the loss of commerical sales of that size, the US aviation industry as a whole will suffer badly, and may even be challenged in its military superiority far sooner then anyone presently projects.

All in all, what you suggested is about the worst thing the US could do in the event of a Chinese fighter sale to Iran, and a gross overreation.

[QUOTE]When I look at recent Chinese aviation products like the ARJ-21 (BTW the true first commercial airliner ever produced in China), we see that the program can basically be scrapped without engines and avionics. China cannot produce them, and could only procure them from Russia if at all (please show me comparable engines to CF34).

There are actually serveral Y8 passenger versions (and others) that are selling reasonably well and have been for some time, but thats just nit picking.

But, you again run into the before mentioned problem of not considering all the consequences.

If the US stop selling engines and avionics, what are the chances it will still be able to sell airliners? And what are the chances of the Chinese buying them even if they are on offer?

Not only is airbus a perfectly viable alternative to Boeings, the Chinese avaition industry itself has come a long way already. It has already mastered the WS10A turbofan engine, which is very smiliar to the US F100/F110 etc serise of engines. And guess what the core for US CF53(? can’t remember the number ottomh sorry) engines used to power most Boeings are derived from. Yep, the military F100/F110.

Also, the reason Chinese airliners use western avionics is more to do with customer preference and keeping on eye on export sales then because China can’t come up with avionics of a similar capacity itself. In fact, the US ban the sale to China of any avionics equipment it views as too advanced (ie, what China can’t make already).

In the event of a total US aviation ban on China, not only will Chinese airlines still be able to operate as normal with Airbuses, but it will probably also give the home grown industry a huge boost by forcing greater investment and giving indiginous jets a better chance to get orders and create a brand name for themselves. As I said already, its the worst thing the US can do from an American prospective.

I see, you are getting yourself in some kind of conspiracy here. Truly, how can one reason a danger towards Israel from 24 fighters of limited effectiveness and range that brings it at best to the borders of Israel. The only real threat would come through missile technology, which China has plenty, but apparently does not export.

Im sorry, but I truely cannot figure out what exactly you are trying to say here.:confused:

But remember this, if Iran does buy J10s or flankers or whatever they finally decide upon, it won’t be just 24 that they will order in total. An order in high double or even triple figures is far from unlikely, and will probably come with a production line and a lot of ToT as well as a comprehansive weapons package to go with the planes. With current trends, its entirely possible that AWACS types might also be included in a such a weapons package.

Hundreds of BVR capable J10s and/or advanced flankers is nothing to sniff at, even for the IDFAF, especially if they have AWACS support and precision stand-off weapons.

Although personally, I think that if Iran does go with the foreign option, it will likely go with a JF17 and advanced flanker option. But the J10 might become a viable option depending on how far down the line these deals might happen. But one thing I am pretty sure about is that any Iranian fighter buy will happen after Bush leaves office because of the threat of US military action while he is still the commander in chief.