The A-6F which never got beyond prototype stage used a variant of the F404, if the F/A-18 had been a failure the A-6F would of been in service now with navy attack squadrons.

I will scan my photo’s in from the day then kick off a new thread about the Dehli class destroyer INS Mumbai. Arguably one of the most powerful units at the festival, one interesting piece of info about INS Mumbai is whilst she is the newest in the class she has the older style weapons fit. Her older sister ships have had two of their AK630’s delete in favour of a VLS system.

I will save the rest of my experiances for a new thread but I will share an amusing story about the visit to this Ship and the politics of docking so many different navies close to each other. She was docked up in front of your ANZAC which is no big deal but she was behind the PNS Tipu Sultan which is a type 21 of her arch rival Pakistan. I think the Indian navy guys took great pleasure in showing off their big new toy to the old enemy! Now in front of the PNS Tipu Sultan was a Meko of Turkeys navy, again no big deal in itself except for the fact that the dock master had parked it directly opposite a Meko of their arch rival Greece. I took a tour on both ships which was an interesting experiance in spotting the detail differences. On the tour of the Greek ship when we got to the control room a mother told her children not to touch anything because she didn’t want them to fire a gun…I couldn’t resist the chance for a quick joke and loudly said “…yeah especially at that Turkish ship over there!….” a couple of Greek officers who had been hanging arround in a corner laughed at that and then one said “…no no we love them really!…”.

All good fun, now where are those photos?

Goalkeeper for the German navy is surprising considering they use RAM and they have started to fit the Rheinmetal MLG 27 to their vessels.

I know MLG 27 isn’t exactly like Goalkeeper but combined with RAM it allows for quite a comprehensive close in defence capability.

[QUOTE=Ja Worsley]Fedaykin: The RAN’s S-70B-2’s and the USN’s S-60’s are very different machines. I have pointed that out many times before, even started a thread about it some time ago…
QUOTE]

Thanks Ja Worsley, always something new to be learnt on this forum. Its easy to forget that the bigger players can screw different equipment and avionic fits out of the Americans.

If Kamen has abandoned the project who has design authority? I take it no one in the Aus government wants to loose face and pull the plug on the whole thing. A case of someone needs to make the brave decision and get to grips with the situation. On a side note considering Australia is buying into the NH90 would the NFH90 fit your requirements?

Thanks for the clarrification Ja Worsley it looks like very similar problems to what the RAF is suffering with the Nimrod MRA4 upgrade program. In the case of Australia more Seahawks make alot of sense especially as the USN have there own upgrade program for their own machines which could of met your needs nicely.

Of course being a Pomme I can’t help but feel a bit of bias to the home product in the form of the Sea Lynx. Now that I think about the RN does use its Sea Lynx as a jack of all trades and the main ASW platform is the EH101 Merlin which has plenty of space for all the specialised kit.

The major issue with the RN future AEW is that it is not intended to be a purely defence-oriented platform, it is supposed to be able to fly out with strike packages, like the Americans go with Hawkeye. Basically, if the RN get any chance, they will go CTOL, and get the F-35C and Hawkeye! (In some ways, the current JSF and EH-101AEW debacle is almost similar to the CVA-01s P-1154 problems in the ’60s)

Looking at the latest addition of AFM any form of F35 purchase is starting to look unlikely considering Congress won’t allow technology transfer to the UK.

What scares me is that rather than go for an alternative like Rafale M (personally I think a carrier capable Typhoon is a non starter) the UK gov will use it as an excuse to cann the whole project!