Australia may send more Iran aid

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8277276%255E1702,00.html

December 29, 2003

THE Federal Government would be willing to provide more aid to the Iranian earthquake relief effort if there was a substantial need for it, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said today.

Australia has already pledged $2 million to the relief effort and sent an RAAF aircraft filled with emergency supplies to the devastated city of Bam.

A quake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck Iran’s south-east on Friday, levelling 70 per cent of the city and killing more than 22,000 people.

The RAAF C130 Hercules aircraft, loaded with blankets, tarpaulins, plastic sheeting, emergency shelters, water purification tablets, jerry cans, stoves and medical kits, is expected to reach Bam tomorrow.

“It’s the worst human disaster that I can immediately remember and I think it’s only reasonable that Australia can do everything it can despite our distance from Iran to try and help the people of Iran,” Mr Downer told Sydney radio 2GB.

“We’ve provided aid from the aid budget, but we’ve also sent a C130 Hercules aircraft loaded with particular material for shelter because it’s very cold in Bam and they need shelter more than anything else.”

Mr Downer said Australia had not yet been asked to provide any further assistance to the relief effort.

“What we’ll do is have the plane arrive in the next day or so in Bam at the airport … and having unloaded that plane we’ll have a look if there’s anything more we can do.

“It’s hard to tell at this stage, but we would be happy to provide more help if there was a special need for it.

“It’s very important that we do help people wherever they are from and wherever they are in the world.”

Originally posted by HURRICANE 477
Come guys!!
I wanted to be serious about it and find out if anybody had any real imformaton, but abit of light heartedness isn’t too bad.

Its BS. He was dead. The Soviets got the remains.

For the USAF the Pave Hawk rescue and special forces birds are OK but still just couldn’t do the job like the bigger helos. They kept trying but ops like Afghanistan w the altitude just stress the problem. They are nices helos, fun to fly easy to work on etc. and of course the bean counters just loved them. A figure told me by someone in the biz was that you could maintain 4 or so Pave Hawks for the price of maintenance on a Pave Low. Thats all very nice but the bigger helo just does the special ops and rescue job better. As the 101 is a newer airframe it shouldn’t be all that expensive to maintain.

Well, of course… 😎

I like the old one. Used during WWII as a troop transport. One terrible accident it ran down a AA cruiser ( really a destroyer sized ship ) like a Mack Truck hitting a puppy at about 20 knots, like it wasn’t even there. Terrible event, but that is some brute muscle.

Every jet has weight issues in the design process. I will wait till it flys some and then see.

The Rafale is completely operational with its’ A2A setup.
They did massive amounts of A2G testing in 2003. 2004 will see the completion of the AASM testing on triple ejector racks ( the same new racks that hold the GBU-12 ). Assuming there are no holdbacks, 2004 will complete a large portion of the testing on the important all weather wep: AASM (Sagem) ( GPS/INS or INS/IR target recognition ( much like the Israeli SPICE in some ways. ) cheap kit on their iron bombs.). By 2005 it will go operational. There are other weps but this one is important because it is ALL weather and cheap. The jet can hold a lot of them too even with drop tanks. Unlike an F-16 or F-18, The Rafale can do 6 of these things, the 2 giant drop tanks and a few A2A missiles. ( wish we had something like this for the Afghan op a couple years ago )

The already operational Rafale provides useful real world maintenance info. This is also an advantage.

The point being: Currently the Rafale has a sales advantage over the EF2000. Like it or not, the progress Rafale is making on getting weapons checked off and including not losing one to a double engine failure and minor as it is the nose gear thing of late. These are petty issues but ones that a sales team might bring up. A flyoff today would leave the Rafale at an advantage.

Can the EF2000 match this someday? Probably, but it is behind compared to the Rafale on getting real world items checked off. That only can help the Rafale in a sales environment today.