This is my take on the mirage cammo issue:Gray-Green!

Regards,

Hammer

My take on Boyd and the “Fighter Mafia”

I read the postings on this subject and apparently you guys left some things out that I’d like to add:

1) 11 Mi USD WHEN? Don’t forget that there is a nasty thing called INFLATION that manages to jack up prices ridiculously. In 1975 a comic book (how low tech can examples get! 😉 cost around 50 cents now you’ll see that they hover around US$1,50 thats a 3x explosion! imagin in the high tech world of aerospace…

2) I Believe that Boyd wasn’t against the F-15 per se, he was against the idea of the USAF having the F-15 as its ONLY FIGHTER TYPE! 🙂 As the older century series fighters were being retired, in the late 70s, the F-4 was moving to become the main fighter type in USAF inventory… The F-15 would replace the F-4s but higher cost might prevent a one-for-one swap….

3) now lets supose conservatively that a generic F-15 costs around the double of a generic F-16, post Vietnam War spending cuts in place might usher in the ideas that the USAF had to be mor “efficient”. Double the unit cost then halve the number of airframes built, halving the number of operational units, less demand for pilots and technicians.. A shrinking (dying Air Force…)

4)Another important thing is the high cost (and growing!) of the American personnel. The cost of the the Chinese, iranian and arab airman (considering the same educational and professional level, please) will always be much cheaper, so operating costs for the US military will allways tend to surpass the “enemies'” defense costs. Unfortunately this reasonng tends to conflict with Boyds conceps for air power… pushing for a leaner and mere deadly (silver bullet) air force. This is the “war” being fought today in Capitol Hill. “Should we kill 183 F-22 and replace them with some 500 F-35”? Lockheed may say “Either way” but boeing will certainly say “No way! We need the F-22” kill the F-35 instead! 😉

Comments?

Hammer

A little more eye candy…

Esquadrilha da Fumaca
Asas de Portugal
Surya Kiran
Sherdils

The last 3 are still in progress

OOPS! Typo Alert, the Fumaça ilustration you posted above says “de Fumaça” when it should read “da Fumaça”! 🙂 Great art job by the way! Post mor images!

Regards,

Hammer

Hi guys!

Unfortunately for us you are quite correct Flex,

Operating modern supersonic fighters is always a very expensive proposition, but there is always a national preservation need that drives countries to invest in defense hardware. The main reason for the Brazilian FX program was to field ONE MODERN fighter squadron equiped with BVR missiles, advanced radar and sensors, digital avionics and capable of firing precision munitions while controled by a AWACS command-post aircraft.

The general idea was to be able to teach a roughly Vietnam-era tech airforce how the war is fought today. Once this squadron is operational these features can be upgraded later on into current designs or further modern fighters could be procured.

I believe the road ahead involves intercontinental industrial cooperation in a a way that anynew fighter would be bought by many countries at once, similar to what happened in Europe with the F-16A/B. This has a side benefit of making any intra-partner military crisis or war prospect even more unlikely. This would suit us nicecely to force us tgo put petty squabbles behind us and move us forward towards the rest of the world.

For such a scenario Rafales, Gripens, MiG-29s our J-10 could nicely fit the bill. On the other hand, certainly Brazil, Argentina, Chile would be the main players with possibly Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as possibles.

Well this is my dream.

Regards.

Hammer

Funny how the whole continent stayed back in time where F-5E is still considered a good fighter 😉 With the exception of Chile, Brazil and Peru the South American Air Force community resembles world’s aviation junkyard 😉 No offense for those involved, please..

On a serious note, I expect Super Tucano to score high on this market.. Besides that, Russian Mi-17 series could finally break thru as replacement for the hordes of unflyable Hueys.. So far they got Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and now Venezuela.. Not a bad start for Ulan-Ude..

Somehow, there is something I fail to grasp in this Franco-british cooperation.

The French are now paying the Brits to have access to the design of the CVF, when they have themselves recently built a brand new carrier. How come, then, the situation is not the opposite, ie the Brits seeking access to the French design?? To me, this seems to imply that from a conceptual point of view the CDG is so crappy that there is no point trying to rely on this project/ship to develop a new vessel !!! Or is there another rational explanation???

BTW, to be clear, I am not against Franco-British cooperation (rather the contrary) but I simply fail to understand the logic behind not relying on the CDG per se.

This is how I see it:

a) the french are joining in on the CVF real late.

b) there has been a lot of development wor up tiuo this point and the only way the British are letting the french in on it is AFTER they pay them back for all the work done before.

c) If the French had joined at the beggingig they would be able to charge the British for the knowhow the had ammassed with the CdG program

d) Since the CVF program is in such an advanced stage there is only a limited amount of CdG expertise that can be inserted without scrapping the previus development work simply put it’s too late for any significant French design contribution to the design.

e) The French are in their case actually SAVING the other 66% (well probably less if you factor in the CdG expertise) of the CVF development money… They would have to pay it up in case they decided to go at it alone…

I’d love to see the Indians join in on CVF for two CVs.. this would sure stir the poilitical waves around the globe

Do I make sense?

Regards

Hammer

I’m a long time proponent of the S-3 As the ASW/ASuW attack, Tanker and COD aircraft for the Brazilian Navy’s São Paulo CV.

The reason I defend this choice is that there sure aren’t many options around capable of operating from our mid length deck and not very powerful catapults..

If we don’t go for the Viking then were do we go?

I just wonder if it would be possible to simply replace the original military spec General Electric TF34-400 turbofan with 41.3 kN (4,210 kgp / 9,275 lbf) with the current civilian CF-34-8 (in the 13,790 – 14,500lbf range)
that powers the Embraer E-170 at an affordable price. The extra power would surely rock the little plane!

The Viking is today still a very competent naval attacker delivering iron bombs, Harpoons, unguided rockets, anti-shipping mines and plenty of sonobuoys.

Second question, how can we add AEW capability to the S-3? Would the Ericson Erieye fit on it?

But then, I’m a dreamer…

Regards

Hammer

The Almirante Brown and the Robinmson took part in last years UNITAS Naval Exercises, check here for many pictures. 🙂 http://www.basemilitar.com.br/artigos/abrown/index.htm

As allways babelfish can translate the text to English… 🙂

Enjoy!

Hammer

How does a “viable, modern fighter force” relate to a handful MiG-21 derivatives?

The newer MiG-21 derivatives aren’t really that bad.. 😉 I was thinking more in the lines of a pretty large country like Bolivia that today only operates a handful of vintage AT-33… sad! real sad!

Do I make miself clear? 😉

Regards

Hammer