On submarine Tikuna torpedoes Tigerfish MK24 Mod 1 (future MK-48 ADCAP 6) are established.

Why Brazilian Navy refused to Saab Bofors Underwater Systems with TORPEDO-2000?
Whether it is connected to torpedo fuel??

I heard from a high-ranking Admiral that SAAB Bofors were never able to present a fully functional prototype to the Brazilian Navy. All amounts deposited were returned to our Navy after cancelation of the cointract.

Regards Hammer

the KC-767 is not dead yet! 🙂

Boeing says 767 remains a viable US tanker plane
Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:47 PM ET

By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it could still offer its 767 airliner as an aerial refueling tanker to the U.S. Air Force, even if it did not have enough orders to continue commercial production.
“Obviously, we believe it will be an offerable airplane … even if we had to gap it,” Boeing executive John Sams told reporters, referring to a possible pause in 767 production.
Sams, vice president of Air Force systems for Boeing, said the company was awaiting a decision by the Air Force on how to modernize its tanker fleet, and any offer would be tailored to best meet those requirements.
Despite limited 767 production, orders for other Boeing airliners more than tripled in 2005.
Boeing’s stock edged up 47 cents to close at $69.03 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 36 percent from a year earlier.
Congress in 2004 killed a $23.5 billion Air Force plan to buy and lease 100 Boeing 767s as refueling tankers, after a former top Air Force official admitted to inflating the price as a parting gift before taking a senior job with Boeing.
Sams said the 767 offered lower fuel burn costs than the its main competitor, the Airbus A330, which could spell $2 billion in savings over the 40-year life span of the aircraft, and its smaller wingspan gave it a smaller “footprint.”
Boeing is building a 767 tanker for Italy and Japan, and will deliver its first tankers to them this year, Sams said.
But he said Boeing could offer a U.S. tanker variant based on its larger 777 jet, if the Air Force decided to opt for a larger tanker, rather than a medium-sized one.
He said less than half the modifications made to convert the 767 into a tanker could be transferred to the 777. It will have taken Boeing about four years to modify the 767 when it makes its first delivery to Italy this year.
The company had expected to make a decision last year about shutting its 767 production line in Everett, Washington, but was able to stave off a decision due to new commercial orders.
The company’s Web site currently lists no 767 orders for 2006, and Sams said he was uncertain how long current orders would keep the production line running. He said the company had not set a date for making any decision on shutting it down.
Much would depend on the Air Force’s schedule and requirements, Sams said, noting that Boeing hoped to get briefed on a new analysis completed for the Pentagon within a month.
An Air Force official said the service expected to issue an initial “request for information” from the industry soon, followed by a formal launch of a new competition by the end of 2006 and a contract award sometime in calendar 2007.
That would pave the way for delivery of the first new tankers in the 2011-2012 time frame, the official said.
Boeing is also facing a decision on its C-17 production line, which is slated to end in 2008 unless Congress reverses a decision by the Air Force to cap production at 180 C-17s.
Sams said Boeing was spending money to maintain suppliers for the C-17 military cargo plane beyond that 180-plane level, but could not say how it would continue those outlays.
Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has teamed up with Europe’s EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), the parent company of Airbus, to participate in any future tanker competition.
Airbus on Monday began construction of a new engineering center in Mobile, Alabama, where it could also assemble tankers if it won a large enough order from the Air Force.
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-01-30T224610Z_01_N30308760_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ARMS-TANKER-DC.XML

The plot thickens…

Pentagon tanker study leaves time frame in air
By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — After a year’s wait, the Pentagon’s study on options for replacing the Air Force’s aging refueling tankers was presented in several closed briefings Thursday to select members of Congress.
The good news, said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, was that it focuses on adapting medium-to-large commercial planes, opening the door for Boeing and Airbus to compete for the Pentagon project.
But a new tanker contract could still be months away.
“The study made no definitive conclusions about the timing of the tanker replacement, because it was primarily an analysis of cost-effectiveness,” said Dicks in a news release.
Researched largely by the Rand Corp., the Pentagon study narrowed the possibilities to six airframes: Boeing’s 767, 777, 787 and 747, as well as the Airbus 330 and 340.
Dicks said it did not specifically suggest a combination tanker-cargo plane or a tanker-only aircraft.
The study, called the Analysis of Alternatives, recommends the Pentagon weigh other factors besides economics to determine how quickly to solicit bids, he said.
This was important, said Dicks, a member of the House Defense Appropriations Committee and a strong supporter of Boeing, which is crucial to his congressional district. The average age of the existing tankers is 45 years, he said.
The next step, expected in the spring, will likely be a request for information from Boeing and Airbus, the potential contractors.
“Given the age and the consequent reliability and maintenance challenges of the existing fleet, starting the replacement of these tankers as quickly as possible must be a priority for the Defense Department in the near future,” Dicks said.

But in recent months, it has appeared the Pentagon and Congress, facing the need for budget cuts in purchasing large weapons systems, might be content to let the decision to begin the procurement slide into the next budget cycle, for fiscal year 2008.
The tanker analysis has been a closely guarded secret.
A draft analysis was prepared for release more than a year ago. But objections were raised in December 2004, before it was made public, by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
McCain had complained the Air Force was rushing a study that would support the U.S. government purchasing a new tanker fleet to replace its old KC-135s.
He cited an internal memo from a Rand executive saying it was “totally nuts” to expect such a fast report to be comprehensive.
Since then, the Pentagon and both aircraft makers have been waiting for the final, much-revised report.
Boeing is also worried that if the result of the study is an emphasis on a larger, joint tanker-cargo plane, its Everett-made 767 would be bypassed in favor of its 777 or the wider Airbus models, and Boeing would have to shut down the 767 assembly line.
Some hundred 767s were originally going be leased to the U.S. government for tanker use in 2001, representing a $20 billion-plus contract for Boeing.
But that plan was derailed after criticism from McCain about the way the leasing was handled and arranged, with Boeing’s help.
His investigation uncovered a procurement scandal that sent two Boeing executives to prison and caused upheaval within the company, giving Airbus a chance to sweep in as the untarnished outsider.
Airbus has used the past two years to create goodwill among many on Capitol Hill. It is working overtime on high-profile community projects in the areas where it is setting up plants as part of a major “we are good neighbors and we’re American” campaign, EADS North America Chief Executive Ralph Crosby said in a recent interview with The Times. EADS is the parent company of the European plane maker.
In an earlier talk, Dicks told The Times that despite the scandal caused by Boeing, the original plan to lease tankers from Boeing was the best idea, “because in the end, it will have been cheaper to have leased them at the time, than to build them now.”
He noted that $100 million of the funds appropriated for new tankers in 2003 was still available to seed a Pentagon tanker-revival program this year.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002765131_boeingtanker27.html

But you did not mention, that those F-5E from the FAB are not ordinary ones. Those received an upgrade and can handle most threat now. The cockpits may be even more advanced than those of the Mirage.
In the case of urgency, there will be no problem to accellerate the delivery rate of M2000 or get even further one. The Mirage 2000 with FBW is much easer to “fly” than the outdated MIIIs. You are no longer in need of outdated ‘stick and rudder’ provencies really. The time-consuming training/converting are related to up-to-date avionic, weapons and procedures. All these is to be done at best in such modernised F-5E. A clever solution by Brazil!

But the problem Sens is that the F-5 are not going to be flown by ex-Mirage III crews, they will be piloted by officers from other squadrons… Also up to this day only ONE modernized F-5EM was delivered to the Brazilian Air Force… due to lack of funds this upgrade will drag along for a number of years…

I do not support the M2000C purchase, because it goes agaisnt everything the FAB intended in the last 10 years

a) reduction of the number of different fighter types in inventory
b) Small numbers don’t allow for this model to be included in a similar the upgrade program that is standardising A-29 (Super Tucano) cockpits and systems for the F-5 and AMX fleets. This simplifies dramaticaly the pilot conversion effort between aircraft.
c) Non standard weapons. The FAB is moving towards a standard BVR missile for all the fleet. Probably the Southafrican R-Darter. No shuch missil for the M2000C, o by the waynot even MICA on the M2000C!
d) The M2000 serves only to pospones a very important step inside the FAB the purchase of a new generation fighter planes, whatever the one selected it will be far superior to the Mirage 2000C..

Regards

Hammer
The M2000 was a political move and a poor military choice

sounds like a buying opportunity for the worlds most eminent MirageIII user.

There has been some talk that after the disposal of these planes and available spares in FAB inventory they would be returned to Dassault to be forwarded to “another country”, quite possibly Pakistan…

Regards

How is going to be the paint scheme of the Mirage 2000 in Brazil??

The Commander of the Air Defense Group has told me that these planes will come in standard Adl’A blue-white scheme and that they will progressively changed to a new scheme as they undergo heavy maintenance in the following years. It is expected that they will use in the future the now standard green-gray cammo used by the C-130H, Super Tucano, AMX and F-5E/FM. Check out this speculative art :

http://www.alide.com.br/artigos/desp-mirage/imagem/desp-mirage_137.jpg

Best Regards

Hammer