With regard to air policing, they could, like I suggested before, acquire a supersonic trainer, perhaps even join the USAF’s T-X program, cost and politics permitting. Being capable of Mach 1.5, a stripped down variant of the KAI T-50 (unless the AF would like to utilize it for training as well) could carry out routine interceptions as well as most modern fighters, freeing up the F-35 fleet for expeditionary operations, while costing a fraction as much as even the Gripen.

It might be a solution, albeit the Portuguese experience with the T-38 doing exactly what you propose wasnt exactly a spetacular sucess.

Also how does Ireland manage air policing?

AFAIK, with Typhoon´s… Any Irish around to shed a bit more light into the subject?

Cheers

Both heavylifters and freeloaders appear to have their defence needs catered to. But again, who’s this defence against? Carry on east from Ireland all the way to Belarus and you encounter nothing but allies.

Countries in Europe that are NOT members of the NATO –

1. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia (NATO applicants)
2. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Finland (EU members)
3. Albania, Serbia (EU applicants)
4. Moldova, Kosovo (EU aspirants)
5. Switzerland (St. Switzerland)
6. Russia, Ukraine, Belarus

(Not included states like Andorra, Malta, Monaco etc)

Effectively only Russia, Ukraine and Belarus exist as potential ‘threats’. The majority of people in the both the latter countries support accession to the EU and Russia is apparently comfortable with buying warships from France and offering to sell attack helicopters back.

I wish my neighborhood was so cozy.

I’d imagine operational availability for the fleet would be over 75%. (?) The aircraft deployed to the Baltics remain do four months stints while the RAF flight at the Falklands has aircraft permanently stationed there with aircrews rotating. QRA is provided without any additional aircraft deployment/rotation.

In any case, I’m not suggesting that the Dutch cut their air force to four aircraft. As long as policing of civilian traffic isn’t a overriding priority, the KLu should have the bulk of its strength available for short expeditionary operations and at least a squadron strength available for longer deployments.

1) The bulk of QRA job is not composed of flights in order to intercept TU-142´s. Typicaly more than 90% (unless you are called Norway, Sweden, Greece or Turkey) of the QRA job in Europe is intercepting and escorting unidentified flyers, that tipicaly turn out to be civilians, and in that bag there´s absolutely everything, from the news helicopter who entered denied aerospace and doesnt answer callbacks because the dam operator is an idiot, to the Boeing 777 with a malfunctioning transponder, etc, etc. In order to intercept this kind of trafic in a small airspace we might think that any light trainer would do the job, but hell no, in order to intercept something like an Airbus that flies at 10000 m/900 km/h while you just have a country with a width of lets say 200 km´s (the Dutch), afterburner (lots of it) and a high supersonic speed are paramount, the KAI T-50 might be able to pull the trick, but something faster and with more fuel (afterburner) would be a much better platform.

2) You can maintain high availability for a given time if you have airframes in a decent state, but we are talking of QRA 24/7 for three decades, your four/six airframes wouldnt last a long time if they were permanently flying.

3) This discussion is a bit redundant, the Dutch have already stated what´s the plan, 37 airframes of wich FOUR will be available for external detach. This means two small active sqn´s, 1/3 of the airframes being either in storage or being rotated in order to lower the flight hours, one sqn permanently doing QRA, another one doing training, and four airframes for “somewhere outside of here” on a semipermanent base, with a possibility for doubling to 8/10 (?) on a pinch for short periods.

Cheers

The detachment recently dispatched to protect RAF Akrotiri from ‘rogue’ Syrian jets consisted of six Eurofighters. Why would it take 18 F-35s to merely police Dutch airspace in the heart of Europe? A non-essential job that if still deemed necessary, $250 million worth of KAI T-50s could do perfectly well.

And how many Typhoons does the RAF operate? How many Typhoons are needed in order to maintain a six jets detach? How many Typhoons airframes are in maintenance in order to have six permanently capable of operating at 24/7? How many airframes besides the ones who are in maintenance are needed for training?

Slovenia and Ireland are almost the same size as the Netherlands. Neither operate any fighters and appear to be managing fine.

They are “managing fine” because there are these “thing�s” called the RAF and the AMI… Both airspaces are protected by someone else�s air force, i really have doubts that the Dutch state would agree to let the Adla or the Luftwaffe do the same for them.

Nor for that matter do any of Baltic states and the NATO air policing mission there consists of just four aircraft.

And how many airframes are needed to maintain a four fast jet detach in the Baltics?

You dont do QRA with four jets, thats entirely nonsensical, those are the numbers to maintain ready to take off, on top of that you need severall more to use in training and part of the fleet will always be grounded in maintenance, you need a full sqn, anything smaller and there�s no way to maintain jets available for the QRA job.

Three key points that could lead to success for this plane.

One US buys some.
Two US foreign military aid is used to support sales to other countries.
Three plane has a low cost global maintenance system in place and also plane has a reasonable purchase cost.

If the above three items fall in place then there is no reason this plane can’t find a market.

Completely agree, if those three items fall in place it could find an interesting market. The dam problem (IMO) is the chances of that happening “are slightly better (but just) than North Korea being invited to be part of the JSF team”. Unless a miracle happens the Pentagon is not going to order it, end of story for the Scorpion (unfortunately).

Cheers

No, in fact the turboprop is only marginaly cheaper. A military operator won’t even notice the cost difference.

Let’s compare two very similar civilian platforms: the PC-12 (6,500lb light turboprop) versus the Citation Jet 4 (10,000lb twin turbofan). Critics will complain that the CJ4 guzzles fuel and has two engines. And indeed, it at first blush it costs twice as much per flight hour: $1,800 vs. $750. BUT, the CJ4 flies 50% faster and 30% farther than the PC-12. Once you adjust for the jet’s much shorter block times, the cost difference is reduced to only $500 per hour.

Now $500/hr may be a big deal in the civilian world, but it’s peanuts for a military operator. The overall mission cost will be dominated by all the other factors like pilot training, avionics maintenance and weapons costs. Not to mention that the jet’s extra speed, payload, range and survivability makes it much more useful.

IMHO that’s why this annoucnement is a big deal. We have a potential Super Tucano killer.

The EMB-314 at MTOW is lighter than a completely clean Textron Scorpion, we are looking at a twin engined AMX/A4 sized combat jet against a 50% smaller (area) single engine Turboprop, the diference in costs is not “peanuts”, its massive. The only chance that this “Scorpion” has is the Congress to force it down the USAF throat, no one else is going to buy it without the Pentagon ordering it, and the chances of that happening are slightly better (but just) than North Korea being invited to be part of the JSF team.
It will end up like the Scaled Composites ARES, unfortunately because its a pretty neat concept.

Cheers

How LITE- can the Gripen_LITE get? This could be one potential solution..A Hi-Low mix of Very BASIC Gripen trainers and something that is a bit more capable for aggressor roles etc..Perhaps both Boeing and Lockheed think that the USAF may look for added capability over and above a trainer…

Almost certainly it can be made very LITE. Saab and Boeing should be able to substitute the entire sensor suite and datalinks with a mix of “ballast” and training avionics, and looking at its size, weight and thrust, a variation of the Gripen “D” would be all over the Lockheed offer, including on costs, the main diference would be that the Swedish bird is a much better flyer.
A high end variation on the Gripen “F” (including things like RACR and L-16) would make Lockheed Martin and the JSF Bureau cry “bloody murder” all over the Congress, so i think its a safe bet that particular scenario is not going to happen.

Cheers

ps – I must admit i wasnt expecting this one… Interesting times ahead :applause:

Action talks bigger than words. F-22 has lower RCS, perhaps, but no way it’s stealth. Look, I don’t make the rules of physics. God does that. F-22 has never been proven in combat against any fair adversary. Unless it is proven, it is but a paper raptor.

:rolleyes:

Yes, those HT-233/HQ-9 combo´s are combat proven and China has had the oportunity to measure the Raptor RCS in such a way that one of its aerospace specialists, you, can come here and tell everybody that such a system can detect, track and target an F-22 at “100 km´s”, right?

Dear god…