Whenever Scotland would opt for indipendence, there would be some months to work out a decent arrangement for the two really pressing requirements, Coast Guard and SAR.

Both of them wouln’t be too difficult provided lots of present servicemen come from Scotland and a few of them could be lured to swap to a new estabilished scottish service by a fair mix of national pride, pay rise and improved career.

To answer the long term sustainability issue, it’s all on scottish priorities: they could just negotiate with London the way Eire did, or they could gradually build up someting not too pretentious.

They could even arrage some serious kind of “celtic forces”, either only on SAR and MPA issues, or even in military ones, closing some gap with a serious collaboration with Eire.

Real pros or cons about independence don’t lie in the military field, actually it’ all about if Scotland really has a way to both improve social and economic status and still retaining a close relation with the rest of United Kingdom.

If scottish people won’t believe it as attainable, No will win without any refence to military issues.

“Pay rise and improved career” on a 2.5 billion pounds annual budget?

None of these examples are “bad decisions” by the Pentagon. Why go to the extra expenditure of a second engine choice? The F-22 met the specifications and demands required and was cheaper than the F-23. B-70 had become irrelevant with the development of ICBMs.

X2

The B-70? Goosh…

Saab official data about Gripen NG now cites an empty mass of 8.0 tonnes (page 3 of the PDF) :
Gripen Publications
Gripen NG – performance, facts and figures
So the previous values cited by the Swiss Defense Departament, around 7.6, 7.8, 8.0 tonnes for the Gripen NG, are now confirmed.

Anyway, 8.0 tonnes are more than 10% higher than 7.1 tonnes expected (and promoted) in 2008-2013 by Saab.

Thanks, fine sources.

I think its strange that US or NATO did not design a similar Striker like the Hellduck.

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Cheers

When did russians bomd ukrainian cities?

I would imagine that Swerve was refering to Grozny in 2000.

It was a dazzling follow on to the F-5 and would have garnered many foreign orders. .

?!

Northrop tried to sell it to everyone that was not called “The Soviet Union”, no one took it… The only ones who expressed a real interest were the Taiwanese, and the sale was blocked not because of the “built by Northrop” tag, but because the capability that it provided was way over what the White House was willing to export to that particular “client”, the Viper was only cleared to the ROCAF more than a full decade after the Taiwanese tried a “go” for the “F-5G”.
The F-20 was too much of an overlap over the F-16 and every one chose to acquire the aircraft that the USAF was operating, and it was a wise choice.

Steve49 has nicely summed up.

Until we get the crash investigators report, or at least preliminary findings, there’s probably nothing more to say here.

Yep.

Why all the fuss about the F35? Last I heard the aircraft was a dog, unable even to outrun a 50 year old SAM7 and with all the dogfighting capacity of a Sopwith Pup. Even the yanks accept that the procurement process was deeply flawed and possibly illegal, and the resulting aircraft has nowhere near met initial specifications. The biggest problem with an aircraft of this complexity is integrating the systems into a coherent fighting machine and that’s something they have signally failed to do. UK would be better off buying the PAK 50 — cheaper by far, and it actually works.

Yes, the Sukhoi T50 is a highly usefull asset in an aircraft carrier, that and a Avro Lincoln.
Congratulations fantastic first post.