What do you think wich ship is superior, it’s just curious curious for me how f124 was rated against type43 frigate

I had the chance last year to go on the F124 Sachsen and speak to her commanding officer.

I feel that both types are excellent and certainly the Sachsen is the best Anti air vessel in Europe at the moment. On the other hand the commander of the Sachsen made it clear to me that once the type 45 enter service they will be superior in that role.

And also do u think the goverment is going to give out loud that thay shot down one of those i only know this beacuse my uncle was posted near the shotdown area and soldiers told him that american stealth b-2 bomber was shot down and also not even america or the english say what they have shot down all maybe shot down but not what they have lost.

Yes I do think that the Serbian Goverment would of shouted out loud and clear if the had shot one down over their territory. They certainly did in the case of the F117 and F16, the propaganda value would of been invaluable!

Just imagine pictures of Americas Superbombers in pieces on every channel from CNN to Al Jazeera. Serbia would certainly have grasped the opportunity to publically humiliate America on the world stage.

Considering that in what way is it in Serbias interest to keep it secret?

Reports are out of a US Navy program to allow US Navy enlisted personel to undergo pilot training and fly P-3s and SH-60s……..the enlisted personel would be promoted to Warrant Officer…………….interesting.

Not unheard of in the past, wasn’t some of the Bird Dog pilots during vietnam non coms?

For that matter the RAF had a number of pilot NCO’s during ww2.

I have a book at home that shows an RAF FW190, from a captured unit.

I have also heard that the Nazis captured an RAF Westland Lysander, and had it in Berlin at the last days of the war, apparently as a last escape plane for Hitler to pass over allied lines safely. Anyone heard of this or seen any pics?

This is all nothing in comparison to Spitfire Vb EN830/NX-X which was captured by the Germans in 1942.

After normal flight testing with the Luftwaffe it was decided that fitting it with a Daimler Benz engine would allow a more direct comparison to Luftwaffe types.

She was fitted with a standard DB 605A-1 engine (Wk-Nr 00701990) under a Bf.110G cowling mated to a 3.0 meter Bf.109G propellor. The instruments and electrical systems were replaced with the standard German equivalent operating at 24volts. The armament was removed and even with ballast was lighter than a Spitfire in standard trim.

After the refit it was found that the aircraft had superb performance better than both the Bf.109G and the Merlin equipped Spitfire V.

After testing she was used as a standard test bed and general hack for the pilots. Sadly she was destroyed in an American air raid during 1944.

This one is an interesting one, its been in my referance for years:

Tu-4 Bull, a Russian reverse engineered version of the B29.

The russians impounded a number of B29 which had landed in Russia after missions over Japan. Technically Russia was neutral when it came to Japan and like Sweden was within its rights to impond any combatant aircraft used in combat with Japan.

The first B29 to be impounded was from the 771st squadron of the USAAF’s 462nd bombardment wing operating out of Chengtu air base in southern China. After being damaged in an air raid over a Japanese steel mill at Anshan Manchuria the pilot decided the best course of action was to make an emergancy landing on Soviet territory. She was intercepted by Yak-9 fighters and escorted to a small airfield on the northern tip of Vladivostok bay.
With the aircraft impounded the crew was interogated and eventually returned to the USA several months later. Three more B29 were impounded under much the same circumstances, these aircraft were used as the basis for a reversed engineered variant the Tu-4.

The task of reverse engineering the B29 was assigned to Andrei Tupolev with the copying of the Wright R-3350 given to A.D.Shvetsov. It was not an easy job and there were many snags especially with the electrically operated equipment.

To the casual eye the Tu-4 and B29 look almost exactly the same but there are detail differences including the replacement of the standard armament of 12 0.50in machine guns with 10 23mm cannon.

The captured B29 were retained in service as test bed aircraft and utilised in numerous test programs over the years.

The Tu-4 design was refined into the superior Tu-80 which included a longer nose and larger tail among other things. This aircraft was further developed and used as a basis for the newely designed Tu-85. Whilst being a new design the Tu-85 retained the Tu-80 (Tu-4) fuselage cross section mated to four 4300hp piston engines.

The Tu-85 didn’t enter service but after adding swept wing surfaces and four powerful NK-12 turboprops the aircraft was redesignated as the Tu-95.

This leaves an interesting foot note to the story the Tu-95 Bear operating to this day have a fuselage with the same cross section as the B29 that was captured so many years earlier.

Top Row: Tu-4, Tu-80 and Tu-85.
Bottom Row:Tu-95.

Considering the RAF only operates a couple of training squadrons for the Typhoon its unlikely that the Typhoon will deployed for any international training exercises for a while.

Close in the F.3 Tornado (if that is the variant being deployed) will be overmatched by the Su30MKI and Mig29 but if they bring their Skyflash and Amraam training rounds they may well do better.

With the French joining the Program. Maybe the UK can now afford the Arresting Gear and Catapluts for a conventional CVF and of course the Naval F-35C’s? :rolleyes:

We can only hope!

Sigh the good old days…

Potentially good news as it makes it far more difficult for UK gov to drop the project and hopefully will free up funds to allow a more comprehensive fit for the ships.