Not only him, but also other guys such as Fonk, LordAssap or Dare2…:p:D:diablo:

Fonk, LordAssap, Dare2, Thunder, Sampaix, etc, are the exact same person.

Your yesterday thinking aside. Russian bolts are politicaly acceptable as American ones today. Within two years you can have a rising number of An-70s from the Kiev-plant. There is no shortage of a skilled work-force willing to work around the clock payed with hard currency[/SIZE]. You can order a dozen at first to verify if all is up to the specification. When satisfied you can place the next order in short notice. The Russians are eager in cheap An-70s too as many other countries looking for replacements of their former SU transports.
The Ukrain is in need of European support at all. In that case the taxpayers money is well spent too. Neither the C-130J nor the C-17A is an economical buy for the Europeans.

Do you really believe that the level/typel of Russian content in the AN-70 is aceptable to NATO Armed Forces?
Yes, i can really see His Majesty´s MOD acepting one aircraft with a vital mission that is dependent on a suply chain that is completely based on Russian equipment… That and snowing in Ougadougou.

Then there´s this problem that Antonov has lost roughly 80% of its skilled work force in the last decade, coupled with the fact that the Antonov plant in Kiev was starved of funds for the last two decades and is in dire needs of a total re-tooling “revolution”.

Kiev churning up AN-70 in two years? Good luck for that.

It does not work, because the development cost are behind a realistic break-even point already. It is not the task of the European taxpayer to subsidize such an uneconomical product. By the way most delays were related to the A-380, when Airbus diverted personal and money from the the A-400M program to prevent further losses. EADS forced the A-70 from the competition with promises made about performances and price. There is no shortage of IL-76s to win some time to look to Antonov as the other European option again.

Pick the AN-70, get rid of every Russian bolt for something politicaly aceptable, build a prototype, test it, then re-tool the entire Antonov factory in Ukraine, start mass producing the aircraft, deliver the first aircraft in… 2021.
In 1999 the AN-7X was being marketed to the Luftwaffe for roughly 60 million Euros a piece, after a decade, i can only imagine how much it would cost and how much time the Air Forces would have to wait.
The AN-7X had a chance a decade ago, not now, today, its either the A400M or a mix of C-130J/C-17.

it’s his cover.

😀

the af dont use a growler as a sam locater, but even fanboys know that
i read about the optic & ir warner claim, but tell me what harm/sead weapons do rafale carry and if you use the aasm, where are you getting the gps fix from

Jackjack

Before labeling anyone has “fanboy” check the facts. One of the primary missions of the Growler is SEAD, there are literaly hundreds of texts in the internet mentioning the fact…

Here you go, from flight International:

Enhanced Functions

That replacement is the $60 million EA-18G “Growler”, a platform with enhanced SEAD capabilities, self-protection and networking abilities that will allow it take on command and control functions as well as SEAD.

Receiver System

The EA-18G also has a more compact version of the Prowler’s ALQ-218 RF receiver system (sensors carried on top of the tail of the Prowler and on the wingtips of the Growler), that when combined with the long baseline interferometer (LBI) antennas located fore and aft of the aircraft, geo-locates radar locations and provides selective reactive jamming capability.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/07/08/225072/ea-18g-growler-new-platform-and-capabilities-set-to-un-level-the-sead-playing.html

From Naval-technology:

The Growler is a derivative of the combat-proven two-seat F/A-18 Hornet, the US Navy’s maritime strike aircraft. The aircraft missions are mainly electronic attack (EA) and suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), particularly at the start and on-going early stages of hostilities.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/ea-18g-growler/

This time, the Rafale won. We can speculate or not about the RoE, but would the Typhoon have won, it wouldn’t have surprised as much, it wouldn’t have brought as much scepticism.

What?

Wanna bet on that one TMor? 😉

It heavily depends on were we are discussing the issue, we just have to go to, well, air defence net, avion militaires net, etc, and if the reactions to the severall exercises between RAFALES and the Hellenic Air Force, or that most famous “Rafale Eater” Phantom photos are any indication then the “Scepticism level” would have been rampant…

Cheers

12 Total Flyaway
26,315,218.774 / 389 = $67.65 million
02,289,464.932 / 037 = $61.87 million
01,417,297.313 / 023 = $61.62 million
00,663,412.169 / 009 = $73.71 million

Get a calculator.

And as I have said before something just does not ‘jive’ with these flyaway costs being so comparatively low compared to the weapons systems cost at this point in the F/A-18E/F program.

pfcem

I was discussing the unit recurring fly away cost, and i think that those 58 million US$ for the F-35A are without ancilary equipment…