>>>PS: Until recently, I thought China was preoccupied with big projects like J-10 and neglected F-7 project. So I though SK has potential to sell F-50 to Pakistan. Since Pakistan is in favour with US, SK wouldn’t have any difficulty merchandising to Pakistan. Then China accelated JF-17 program and Pakistan are now fully committed to it. RATS!!

Pakistani government is intrested in Gripen. They can probably not buy it cause of US components (?). Besides that the Swedish do not sell offensive weapons to dangerous spots. There are US parts in F-50 so that would make it still problematic. Besides that it is a big question which avionics and BVR missile will be sold. IMHO no Amraam. Look at Egypt. Without that the plane is not an option. And Pakistani government did even delay foreign avionics for their JF17. So they are speeding up to get some kind of BVR. Probably they saw the effects of that in their training “Anatolian Eagle”.

What wonders is that UAE is allowed to have super high tech plane and Amraam. What makes them different? And are they no danger for Israel?

IMHO it is difficult to have a constant approach. Mr Bush did act fast and direct. At that moment there was no other option then find the terrorist. But environments do change. These dynamic forces are often resulting in changed policies hence flipflopping. One can argue about politics. But democracy has been seen as the best solution and since leaders have a shorter time frame (compared with dictatorships) to act the policies can be fluctuating.

I think that the non pilot age isn’t completely without pilots. I agree with mr Distiller that UAV will get more sophisticated and able to perform cheaper and less dangerous (no pilots in risk). But I do think that there will be still real pilot(s) on the side lines to give orders. So we might end up with callcenters filled with joystick pilots that are active in an war somewhere on earth under guidance of a few pilots that control the scene. The problem is that the frequencies will have no space left. Remember that two big UAV’s above Irac are filling the whole spectrum. And let us not hope that the wrong person gets the hands on these small but still dangerous UAV’s.