Erm? Okay……………..its an RAF Tristar tanker transport I know that much………….I know nothing more. Sorry boss.:) Did somebody shoot at it?

For my money its gotta be a nice smokey Islay straight up. I got 2 bottles of Laphroaig for Christmas, last year I got Ard Beg. I tried Ton Mohr one year but I think it was a rebottled Laproaig sold cheap. I tried a Bowmore once but it wasn’t smokey enough for my taste.

Yum yum.;)

According to last earthquake in Iran…IIRC…few weeks…and it should be that way. Please don’t use the “world” with authority…who the hell are you, the “world”? Please, speak for yourself only. Americans never have issues with the people of IRAN much like Americans never have issues with the people of IRAQ or the people of N.Korea. If you believe so then obviously your mind is darker than most and having sick fantasies that you like to fulfill.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What sick dark fantasies do you suggest because I was just trying to make conversation? I can see where you are coming from though and I think you might find less difference between us than you might think. I have inadvertantly (scuse spelling) said something slightly uncharitable about your country and you don’t like it. I am not critcising you because I do it all the time. Just bear in mind that when you make glib comments about another country you might find yourself on the receiving end of your own medicine. Unless of course you invade the whole world and ban freedom of speech for all non Americans or those Americans who do not conform.

My criticism is not of you but I might have issues with your president who afterall is indeed the most powerful man on earth. If he is not prepared to take criticism or responsibility for this power and yet understands that if it affects people across the world then ‘the world’ has, at the very least, the right to make comments about it. Or you could go back to Plan A and simply spend the next century or so invading everybody and ensuring they all think the way you do. 😀

I tried some rice wine once and that was hot. It tasted like hot lard to me. Not nice. I’m not sure about hot whiskey. Jamiesons maybe its got the right taste but not scotch. Then again some people have water and ice with their scotch so who am I to argue?

I am sure they would love to live in better constructed houses made out of the best materials but as long as the last superpower still calls them part fo an Axis of Evil and has troops in four neighbouring countries then that isn’t really an option to go without a military.

Who said they should go without a military and who said he was talking about Iran? 😉

First of all, there’s plenty of ugly airplanes in the USN service…and secondly, Boeing’s lift method is different from the Harrier’s so i don’t know where this “Not an American idea” complex comes from.

Okay fair enough I’m just being silly, however the direct lift method of the X32 had more in common with the Harriers four poster system than the F35s lift fan method which is all I was really trying to point out. Although it is only the opinion of a layman I still beleive that the direct lift method is the way to go.

Every nation who was interested in aviation manufacture tried a myriad of different methods to acheive effective STOVL flight for fast combat aircraft and only the Yak (38?) Forger and the Harrier ever went into service. You can argue all day about which one was the better aircraft and in this I have my own opinion but the Yak used how many engines? Two? Plus a lift fan and (if I am correct) a vectored nozzel system similar to the Harrier. However it was way too heavy, way too short legged and way too low on the stores capacity capability. Even when it was compared to the Harrier. Also the Harrier went on to be further developed, the Forger wasn’t.

Okay all this happened many decades ago now and of course technology has changed and matured and new technologies that were less than a dream at the time of the Harrier and Forger are now the norm. However to use an analogy you don’t stop drinking water just because you have access to Coca Cola. If a method works today you don’t kick it into touch just because the original concept is 40 or 50 years old and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

So far as I know the Soviet Navy was less than satisfied with the performance of the Forger which is why it is no longer in service yet the STOVL ‘concept’ was (almost) perfected by the Harrier and IMO all it needs now is the investment of capital and new technology. This technology can be quite easily incorperated into the F35 and was incorperated into the X32 from the start. IMO the lifting fan is a big, heavy and expensive turkey and it could ring the death knell of the STOVL F35.

So, my question now is what part of “compromising” are you talking about in reference to the F35?

The compromise that I am theorising is the internal space and of course the extra weight and complexity of the lifting fan. The CTOL F35 has greater internal fuel (as I understand it), less weight and a greater internal weapons load (again this is only as I understand it). I know it would be unrealistic to expect the STOVL version to match the CTOL version in these areas of capability and indeed it was expected up to a point but this compromise looks like a big one to my untrained mind.

Shame so many had to die to get such good will from the world. Right now they are treated like just another country that has had a natural disaster… wonder how long that will last… then they have to go back to Axis of Evil BS.

We can but hope you are wrong Gaz but experience tells me otherwise. You never know though. Maybe GWB is beginning to listen to what the world is telling him. “don’t take the p!ss America”.