Dannatt was in charge of the Airmobile Brigade, and was always seen wearing the light blue beret.

But that apart, and quibbles over the precise costs of the Blackhawks don’t change the facts. The Blackhawks were needed, and are needed in Afghanistan, but they were too big for the AAC to operate, and thus would have been RAF. Rather than face that, Dannatt and his ilk preferred to let the troops do without in favour of the Lynx Wildcat, which is still not in service, and will be inadequate when it finally is. He is a politician to his fingertips, and it makes me seethe when journalists seem to think he is some sort of military guru. He knows how to play the game and get to the top of the greasy pole, it doesn’t make him Heinz bloody Guderian.

Or equally the RAFs petty politics and demands to control all aviation mean the army (despite funding support helicopter) cant operate the aircraft it needs. spin works any which way –

Incidently Wildcat is not instead of blackhawk – blackhawk would be a puma replacement (which would be RAF)

Wildcat is more of a lynx/gazelle replacement (light utility and scout) so youre rant there was someewhat spurious.

For the record
My personal opinion is AW149 or similar should replace puma, and be operated by the army / RM

Merlin SH should Go to CDO aviation (which is I believe the proposed case)

Chinook remains with the RAF, who are without a doubt doing a stirling service with it

(In an ideal world the 149 /similar would also replace RN lynx and army lynx would be replaced by another LUH – which would also provide the basic training twin model – also push for police commonality)

idle is probably around 50-60% mil power, so half throttle translates to about 75/80% mil power.

Reheat has nothing to do with it. 100% throttle = 100% mil power.

Nic

That was my understanding of it as well.

I dont know, if it succedes in pulling all the trolling onto one thread it will be more than worthwhile

what i’m saying is that it obviously has a low RCS and that is visible fropm at least two points:

1- when facing fighters like the eurofighters it managed to get the lock abnd shoot without them being able to lock and fire back, despite the fact that the eurofighter features a more powerful radar (if its “more powerful radar repeadly can’t lock until too late, then the only explanation would be a lower RCS)

2- it could go over lybia on firsdt strikes before massive cruise missiles strikes destroyed most long range SAMs, which, according to CA, rendered the place quite dangerous for any 4th gen fighter…. it was even considered unhealthy for dedicated aircraft like the growler (still according to CA) so, again, it has something that enables it to do so, which is either:

– very low RCS
– very powerful ECM suite
– both of the above (probably the right answer)

I simply gave these two examples which lead to think that it does have a very low RCS indeed, while you stated that there’s no evidence of it

Or the rafale was vectored in behind it and got its shots off before the typhoon was aware of its presence or able to manouvre – thus frontal aspect RCS and radar performance were irrelevant / negated.
DACT proves nothing (a view I hold either way round)

Just saying

Gents –
whats the score with the OSF for Rafale and please dont let this start a flame war.

A few years ago it was determined that some components of the IR camera (optics??) were obsolete and to rework it would be prohibitivly expensive.

the programme to replace the IRST was delayed / put on hold (I think due to budgetry constraints) this meant that later rafales were delivered without IRST and obviously the number in service would reduce over time as kit went US.

Is the new IR camera now developed or installed??

I could google but dont fancy wading through 6000 pages of my ac is better than your ac ,

cheers

Regards

weak argument seahawk… if the internal probe was so important, my bet is that dassault guys would have found the way to put it internally… otherwise, why waste time to put ram coatings into inlets, trailing edges etc…

I have heard 2 stories regarding the probe
1) the Marine Navale were concerned about reliability of a retracting probe and it was there requirement to install a fixed probe ( a little odd given how long retractable air to air refuelling probes have been round but you never know)
2) there is insufficient space to install a retracting probe, because it was a late requirement – something i find hard to believe.

Only if the problem is not related to a shared commonality in design.

Now thats a ****** –

in which case you hope its an installation issue not an equpment problem

curious, at red shark exercises, rafales just did a lil buchery on saudies F15, and it was almost not noticed when debreifing was released!
here all medias scream out “typhoon trounce F15” as the same consortium trys to convince lambs they own such a fu….. 5th gen gem ..

you know RBE2 its €2billions (4 time amount of captor + aesa) with 20 years of R&D and background of operational experiences on E Scan doppling + millions of software code typing, it seems IAF prooved that Selex are great to agglomerate mmics on a gimbal and shot pics for showrooms airshow but that sofware lies around prehistory somes codes of early humanity tribal language ! 😉

It was a US magazine article scaremongering about F22 production cuts and referencing a Eurofighter press release to make its case.

Its hardly a great scource of information for anything

I suspect it ignored the Rafale Saudi thing beacuse it wasnt american.

But again for emphasis DACT does not prove which aircraft is best, they are scripted exercises.