Two definitions of ‘afford’.

I’m saying AUSTRIA can afford to operate ’em, but chooses not to allocate enough money. That is, the budget is too small. Note that the budget is the lowest as a share of GDP of any developed country that does not depend on neighbours or allies for air defence & air policing, lower even than some that do rely thus, & that Austria is one of the richest countries (per head) in the EU, has tolerable government debts, a balance of payments surplus, & a healthy budget balance (deficit of 1.5% of GDP this year, expected to be zero by 2016). Austria can easily afford to spend more on its armed forces.

You’re saying that Austria can’t afford to operate them within the amount it has chosen to allocate. To me, that isn’t ‘afford’. It’s choice. It’s like going to a shop with 500 euros in your pocket having decided in advance that you will spend only 20 of them, finding that the goods you want to buy cost 20.1 euros, & saying “I can’t afford them”.

Pretty good summary of it, the measure of how serious Austria takes its armed Forces is the title of the Government official who controls the MOD in Viena (AKA “Defense Minister” or “Secretary of Defense” in almost every country on Earth). In Austria its the Minister of Defence and Sports… Really…

70000 euros is a perfectly plausible cost if you count purchase price, financials etc. Nothing to do with (already complicated) CPFH.

You are entirely correct. Now there´s something that caught my atention; that number, “70000”, is strangely identical (its the exact same) to the one that appeared severall years ago in one “Hansard” of the British House of Commons, and it was used for the exact same thing, the cost of one flight hour for the Typhoon… Now the funny part is, it was in Pounds, not in Euros…
I am willing to bet, that the chap that wrote that article went somewhere in the net and found the “70000”, stuck it in the article without having a single clue of what or where it came from.

Of the combatant casualties during the American Civil war only 1% was accounted to Bayonets. This was unlike the Napoleonic where the figure was approximately 30%. Of 250,000 wounded Union soldiers in hospitals only 922 had bayonet injuries, improvements in technology in particular the cap and ball rifle musket rendered the bayonet virtually useless beyond the shock value.

True, the “minnié ball” was a self contained “Revolution in Military Affairs” all by its own, but the analogy that Hops did was entirely correct, for all the respect that Sprey deserves it seems that he might be advocating the lance in the day´s of the Musket.

Cheers

@sintra.
Read my post.. again and again.. The EF cannot follow any flanker in such config seen on that pic. Is this so hard to understand?

Talking about the Su-35s is OT in this thread.. But you can do the figures 8.800kgf * 2 on dry thust with no need for ET.
Compair it with a EF with three ET is a no brainer. And no, the pilot of EF would never drop those ET in an escort mission.

Any way you twist this, a Flanker can nd will stay longer on AB vs any other fighter out there. This is an undisputet advancement in this game. And we all know how much the Flanker performance improve as it burn down its weight in its flight envelope.

It is utterly incorrect to compair the senterline hardpoint of an F-16 with an Flanker.. just take a quick look at the totaly difference on both cross section. There are so many differet aerodynamic parameters between those two jets. The senterline hardpoint of the Flanker are the once with the lowest drag coifficent. End of story.

I´ve read it and the two points that i was making was that a) those two R-27 in the center line pylon´s do have more drag than its equivalent semi-recessed AIM-120C´s in the Typhoon, i was specificaly answering to the ” have less drag value vs other fighter design”, while we dont have the dragg coefficient charts for the two aircrafts in those configuration´s, we do have charts for the F-15C, F-15E and F-14, the four semi recessed AIM-7M have identical drag then one single AIM-7M on an external pylon (four much smaller AIM-9´s, and their two pylon´s, have a bigger drag than the four Sparrows), on top of that the R-27 size/mass is around 1.5 times bigger than a AIM-120C, its drag should be (roughly speaking) bigger on an identical scale, and thats the same diference that a Flanker has to a Typhoon. The other point that i´ve made was that a Typhoon without its external fuel tanks would out accelarate a vanilla Flanker, and would be entirely competitive with a SU-35, if your point was that those Typhoon´s while carrying (and keeping) three external tanks would not be able to escort a Su-35 that decides to go a “mit faster”, yes i would imagine that they would have to either light the burners or ditch the tanks, so yes, i have to agree with you.
What i wasnt expecting was that this topic would transform itself into a… well… you know… I have already kicked myself for that one…

Cheers

Seriously, the large Flanker does not get the same penalty in ext drag as smaller jets have. And those two senter hardpoints have less drag value vs other fighter design. The exellent lift/drag ratio on the Flanker really shows in this pic 🙂

The drag coefficient of four semi-recessed AIM-7M in a Streak Eagle is 15.3, that´s less than the central external pylon on a Viper without anything attached to it, expect identical numbers for Typhoon. I would be expecting those two central R-27 to have a worst drag coefficient by multiples.

If it where the Su-35s, the EF would be forced to use AB to in order to escort.

Has off now, the exact oposite happens, if a Typhoon drops the external fuel tanks it goes supersonic without using the burner, a vanilla Flanker is completely incapable of doing such.

If it where the Su-35s, the EF would be forced to use AB to in order to escort.

Based on what?

Hmmm, you could get around part of that problem with soft air ejection out the back door and motor ignition when clear of the aircraft.

(Alert, “tongue in cheeck” well humoured comments “Mode ON”)

Two ideas, a) stick the rockets under the wings, with the exaust pipes facing backwards, or b) create a bomb bay in the midle of the aircraft, drop the rockets (maybe with an internal rotating mechanism) “and motor ignition when clear of the aircraft”…

a)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]229313[/ATTACH]

b)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]229316[/ATTACH]

(Alert, “tongue in cheeck” well humoured comments “Mode Off”)

Aint we trying to “re-invent the wheell”?

Cheers

Not really. I rarely see a fighter in operational combat carrying anything like a full load. If you have air assets it’s just inefficient, not to mention unworkable behind enemy lines in well-defended airspace. If they’re carrying bombs or short range weapons, then they might. It’s simply rare for fighters to strike at targets over 2500km into defended airspace.

Who the hell has talked about “full load” or “strike at targets over 2500 km into defended airspace”? Hello, wake up, Western Air Forces have been awfully busy for the last three decades, and they have massively used external tanks, thats a fact.
By now i am really having problems trying to understand your point!

Let’s forget half-arsed wars for a while. If you were up against one of the 5 permanent UN members, would you try flying over 1500km into their airspace with 3 drop tanks and 2 near-3000lb cruise missiles? Thought not. Very very, unbelievably moot point.

Being able to carry external fuel tanks is a “moot point”?! Tell that to the Israeli´s, the RAF, the Adla, the USAF, etc…
And when was the last time that Western Air Powers went after China or Russia?! That was sixty years ago!
This is getting very strange.

I remember seeing on tv the desert pink Tornado GR1s arriving in Saudi carrying grey F3 Hindenburg tanks. I don’t know if any grey tanks were needed on combat sorties during The Gulf War.

Pink Tornados in Iraq =» 1991 Gulf War
Grey Tornados with Storm Shadows =» 2003 Iraq Invasion
Two massive external tanks on Tornados =» Both Wars

Cheers 🙂