Don’t you dare imply China can learn anything from anyone.
How offensive!

You lost me, sarcasm?

Only thing Chinese have said to public is that they are not in talks with Sukhoi. That makes me think that it’s Sukhoi officials trying to create buzz around the SU-35, and one way to create buzz is to claim they are going to get big order soon. SU-35 has not been exactly a great export success for Sukhoi.

Well I must admit I find the Sukhoi line up slightly baffling now anyway Broccoli. With different factories KnAAPO and IAPO competing to sell slightly different versions of the Su-27 and Sukhoi offering new variants themselves through those factories.

James Cameron the Typhoon sales man busy at work in UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Darn and there was me thinking he was busy working on Avatar 2 and piloting submarines to the bottom of the Ocean! The British Prime Minister David Cameron had better send a letter of thankyou to the American Director James Cameron!

If you really think the RAF lobby was going to see Bomber Command go, TSR2 go, the Navy get Polaris, and then calmly accept that the Navy should get CVA01 as well, you are wrong. They convinced the government that F111K could do the job of CVA01 East of Suez. I don’t understand your problem in seeing this.

Which is an unrelated issue to Polaris.

The 1966 white paper was based on the idea that there was going to be a withdrawal East of Suez and the eventual enactment of that in 1968 was the realisation of that.

Nevertheless this is a pointless argument! We can’t reverse time! Vanguard successor is proceeding and it will carry the already in-service Trident. If you want a minimum second strike capability it is the best choice anything else is a waste of time and money.

Well that is the most believable report we have had so far about a possible Su-35 purchase for China. Certainly J-11B production has been a bottleneck for the Chinese and they can’t build J-10 quick enough to fill their needs. Draw down of J-8 and the Su-27SK squadrons is probably getting more pressing.

I agree on the sticking point, the Chinese could well treat the Su-35 as a technology insertion program so I think an order of thirty plus has to be the baseline if it is to be worthwhile for the Russians.

A stop gap is logical considering the J-20 and possibly the J-31 are a number of years away from full scale production.

Nevetheless I would still be rather surprised if it goes through.

Not really, BAE Systems has sold a large number of Hawks around the world as Swerve said. Retiring them after twenty years is no big deal, that is a pretty good life for a jet so its no snub that could be exploited to knock the Hawk. Anyhow it is clear that South Korea is inducting an indigenous type so to any outside observer it is clear that there is no sense operating two LIFT types.

Certainly the money is in the maintenance but South Korea is still a significant market for BAE SYSTEMS. The second the T-50 was authorised for development and production the days of the ROKAF Hawk 67 were numbered. There is a chance they will be sold on and if not its hardly a disaster for British industry.

What I am seeing SlowMan is plenty of conspiracy talk from you but little evidence except for one link to a wikipedia article which you say is wrong anyway.

It was a temporary stop-gap measure until the arrival of T-50. All surviving Hawk jets are in the process of being scrapped and the UK government was actually protesting why the ROKAF was scrapping 15~17 year old jets. Of course the UK government didn’t understand the ROKAF’s dislike for single engine jets.

That is just silly, the Hawk 67 wasn’t purchased as a stop gap measure until the T-50 became available. The Hawk 67 was purchased as a direct replacement for their elderly T-33. Understandably now they have an indigenous program the need for the Hawk decreases and apparently they have been trying to shift them onto someone else. Whilst I am domestically loyal to the Hawk I am not ignorant to the cost savings for Korea of operating one LIFT type domestically produced.

The ROKAF chose the F/A-18C. The bribe-taking dictator president reversed the decision, and the F-16 remains the only single engine combat jet the ROKAF bought with its own money to date, and also the type with the highest loss rate. The other one is upcoming F/A-50, but this was “Take it or leave it” kind of deal with the MoD, and they took it because of all the retiring jets.

If given a choice, the ROKAF always goes with a twin-engine jet due to lack of space to crash the jets.

OK fine, I know little about South Korean politics so can we have some evidence that the F/A-18 was rejected due to bribes…not discounting it as that kind of thing has gone on it the past but some evidence would be nice.

Well, the current F-X contest originally REQUIRED twin engine, like previous two prior contests. It was only revised upon the US State Department’s protest to let the F-35 compete.

Doesn’t change the fact that they have inducted a serious number of single engine types without to much trouble. Making me suspect the whole massive dislike for single engine types. If it was such a major issue why didn’t they go for a twin engine T-50? If the South Korean airforce was directing the specification requirements they could of ensured the design was a twin whilst still meeting the performance requirements. Fit two Honeywell F125 like the M-346…it is not as if the the F404 was already in service with Korea.

One interesting thing to note that I have only just found when I was doing some idle Google-fu is that a variant of the Honeywell F124 is compatible with the Hawk the F124-GA-400. It was actually test flown in the T-45 Goshawk and BAE offered it to the Australians as an option.