FedaykinWell what are you driving at?
Damage to NATO air assets has been well reported and nothing nefarious has come up.
There was a guy in Russia called Venik who had an interesting website with all sorts of paranoid theories about damage to NATO fighters and shoot downs. Apparently he was taking Serbian new reports during allied force and taking them as gospel truth! B1’s, B2’s, B52’s and all sorts of NATO tacair had been shot down during the conflict according to him and he had all sorts of wild theories why no wreckage had been found or crew captured.
FedaykinMore nice pictures:
FedaykinOk Thanks reposting it for benefit of others
Mi-26T2 vs Chinook ( Takeoff Magazine )
Interesting but I don’t think the report tells the whole story. The Chinook is far smaller then the Mi-26 so its 11-13ton lift capability shouldn’t be sniffed at! Its more tactical then the Mi-26, the Chinooks glass cockpit and modern avionics are proven in service. Finally the Mi-26 is a bit of a maintenance hog, don’t they have to go back to Russia for an overhaul? I would think Boeing would be happy to set up a local maintenance facility for the Chinook.
FedaykinWell its good news for the airlines, a hundred young pilots trained at the tax payers purse!
Really do feel for the pilots, to jump through the hoops and get selected for flight training (and do the training as well) only to be dumped at the last minute.
As I said they shouldn’t have a problem finding flying jobs elsewhere but it must be heartbreaking!
Can’t see why we can’t just put these pilots onto a desk position for a year or so (as suggested by some of the trainees), reduce the intake of pilots in the future and feed these guys in again over lets say a two year period?! Rather then totally waste the time, money and training…also seems more fair to me!
FedaykinBut how do you get 19inch chrome rims on a warship?
FedaykinCarrier hull looms on Clyde as two sections joined up
My daily check for carrier updates pays off…
FedaykinYou misundestand me Swerve, I’m talking hypotheticals in respect of what happened during the 1990’s not what should be done now. What would of happened if they had gone for a different airframe over Nimrod and how could of it been made more ideal for role.
My opinion now is P8 is the best solution if you want a jet MPA! With the huge USN purchase and further global sales giving the benefit of scale makes the choice a no brainer. A319MPA is interesting but it would be more expensive.
FedaykinBut are the new wings at fault with the MRA4? Bae Systems had no problem designing and making them. The issue was attaching them to forty year old airframes. Modern airline fuselage with accurate datum points shouldn’t of been a major issue.
I mean more exportable then the very unique MRA4.
I know Airbus wings are made in the UK, I’m talking about wings more suitable to the low/slow environment of maritime patrol.
FedaykinProbably better asking that question in the historic section.
FedaykinIndeed Badger1968 in a heavy state things are going to be bad regardless. Which brings me to the conclusion that maybe the RAF over-egged the podded vs non podded argument in a ditching situation.
Ensuring the rescue beacons work and the liferafts deploy is far more important if they survive the ditching to my mind.
If it had been a less critical issue for the RAF then maybe British Aerospace could of been more creative with airframe choices and gone with a more common civil airline type as the basis for the aircraft. As I said before my choice would of been a dusting off the Boeing 757 based concept from the 80’s but there are plenty of other choices.
As an aside an issue that has been brought up before is the poor cruise performance and bumpy ride at low level and at a low speed for civil airline types. Understandable with the thin swept wings, which brings me to another conclusion. Lets say BAe had chosen an airline type like the a320, 737 or 757 why couldn’t they of used their known skills with wing design and built a new wing optimised for role?! Less wing sweep and more robust but retaining the same fuselage mating points and engine pods. Its not as crazy as it seems, in the end thats what Bae Systems did for the MRA4! You end up with an aircraft more suited for the role, workers employed building them and a more exportable type.
FedaykinLooking at this article about the Boeing final submission:
http://www.defencetalk.com/boeing-submits-final-newgen-tanker-proposal-to-us-air-force-31949/
I’m sure that EADS would despute the cost saving figures put forward by Boeing.
The Airbus VS Boeing philosophy argument about how much control should be given over the flight envelope has been done to death. But I would dispute their argument about not limiting combat maneuverability, its a tanker not a fighter jet. Anyway if you jam the joystick hard over on an Airbus into a maximum bank the aircraft will go far more then the average pilot would brave enough to do in any flight situation just watch Bruce here in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBABNL-DDM
On a side note I am sick to death of American service personel being called “The Warfighters”! The habit started after 11/9* its just cheesy and inaccurate. The majority of American service personel do not see combat!
I see they have given up on their next gen boom and gone for a variant of the one off the KC-10.
Anyway lets see what EADS have to say for themselves.
*P.S. 9/11 is the 9th of November or a type of German car to people outside of America. I don’t mind Americans saying it if thats their date format but it does annoy me when press here in the UK and people in general use it. Just my rant:diablo:
FedaykinI see the sarcasm:D
Whoever Eurofighter official that has been saying that a carrier adaption of the Typhoon is easy has been lying! Pure and simple!
Notice that the UK has expressed no official interest in the concept. I doubt you will find a single officer in the FAA who are keen on the idea!
FedaykinOperate it with C-130s, it’d be perfect as an interim measure.
Of course that is the irony of this whilst taking a C130 off transport tasks to support SAR top cover is unfortunate the aircraft itself can be an excellent long range MPA type if you drop the ASW.
The C130 has huge range, endurance and payload capacity. Its easy to mount sensors on it and cheapish to maintain.
I wonder how much it would cost for the UK to buy a few C130J built to US Coastguard spec?
FedaykinIndeed Swerve, during 2002 Airbus didn’t have a product except for something on a powerpoint! At that point the KC-767 was a lower risk solution. The corrupt practices going on in Boeing and the Pentagon is what fairly killed the contract.
Things are different now in that Airbus does have a product that during the last contest was a lower risk then the Frankentanker that Boeing was offering.
Unless the manufacturers are ordered to design two new aircraft to exactly the same specifications (much like the stillborn C130 replacement program that led to the YC-14 and YC-15 transports) the it is impossible to have a fair contest. The requirements will always end up favouring one or the other type depending on what they focus on!
For me the fault is partially with Boeing in that by getting a local monopoly they have caused themselves problems when it comes to this type of contest.
Personally I do wonder how things would of been now if Lockheed or McDonald Douglas had decided to stay in the airline business during the 70’s and 80’s by joining the Airbus consortium as a partner. Both manufacturers had the facilities for local production and it would of seriously undermined Boeing. Imagine if during the 80’s one of those manufacturers had setup a local line for the a300/310, a320 and later the 330 and 340 much the same as what Eurocopter did with their American line. It would of kept Boeing on the straight and narrow as well as blow the arguments of the not invented here brigade out of the water.
FedaykinThe only solution in the end is a stable government in Somalia! Anything else is really just fiddling around the edges.
The international navies are patrolling a VAST area of sea, no amount of technology or clever convoy plans or placing of platforms/ships with helicopters will change that. Remember even during the height of success of the allied convoy system during WW2 ships were still being sunk.
For the pirates the reward vs risk equation is just too big, even a ransom payment of a few thousand dollars is an unimaginable amount for the average Somali! The pirate barons are always going to find young men more then willing to take the risk.
Now the navies patroling the area could go and bombard the coastal towns the pirates operate from like days of old against the Barbary pirates (which didn’t actually work by the way) but that is hardly going to go down well with the loss of innocent civilian life. It would also be a death sentence for the people already being held by the pirates (notice that they always ensure that they have a number of hostages in their care at any one time) which is also unacceptable.
Fitting ships with panic rooms that the crews can lock themselves into in the event of attack has been mildly effective. Shutting the engines down (and ensuring the pirates can’t start them), getting the crew safe and getting a panic message out has worked recently. This has the advantage with the crew safe in the panic room and the ship sitting dead in the water of allowing the naval commandos of whatever nation gets there to get on with their job. Problem is not many ship owners will actually make the necessary changes to the ship ensuring there is still plenty of vulnerable prey for the pirates!
Unless the global community is either prepared to lay waste to the pirates bases with all the associated human cost or put troops on the ground and impose law on an ungovernable country this situation will continue.
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