is there a way around a public vote ?

In Europe yes. it just gets re run and re run until the desired result is achieved. Suspect this thread will be several pages of Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen Gripen punctuated with an occasional genuflection.

Old Rhodesian roundels on Hunter and Spitfire :

That’s a seafire isn’t it? Wonder if it still exists.

Well I normally try to read a whole thread before commenting and as a newbie that’s a lot of reading! In this case I gave up because the discussion became an argument. It is interesting to see the difficulties of the political landscape of the partner nations though. I am hugely impressed by the breadth as well as depth of knowledge I see on this forum but some maybe need to spend less time chasing rainbows.
All I know about F35 is that we have two decks under construction here to take it. I recall hearing that the STOVL variant was to be abandoned and the QE class would have to be reconstructed for CATOBAR then all of a sudden the STOVL F35 is good to go again and it’s back to ski jumps. I don’t know I’m just a taxpayer. But as one who believes that without carrier support you just don’t have a true blue water navy I would like to know.
It is very interesting that after decades of working and training together in structures such as NATO and SEATO (which really paid dividends in Kuwait IMHO) Cooperation is becoming more distant. For years everything was geared to WW3 in a NATO context where the entire purpose of the RN was to get reinforcements across the atlantic and the channel, hence the concentration on anti sub and mine countermeasures. The British army was to be ground into the mud alongside the West Germans, Belgians, Dutch etc and of course the in theatre US forces to hold the line until reinforcements arrived and the RAF was to support that and defend UK based air assets. Simplistic reading I know and perhaps wildly inaccurate but it seems that the niche specialisations of nations working together as a single force have become obsolete and every nation has to look to being able to defend it’s interests largely alone in a new post cold war world. A major NATO partner came to within an ace of being defeated by a second division force in the south atlantic ’82 with a force structure designed to be part of a mutually supporting alliance. So what I really want to know is. Will my country still have a true blue water navy, because it all seems to hang on F35.

i know this is a picture thread but this video is awesome

This is clearly some new and unfamiliar use or the word “Awesome”. Awesome is waking up to a mile wide starship hanging in the sky. This is a pretty dull vid of two helos buzzing around unspectacularly.

And if a film were made about Rudel I doubt this forum would be so critical about any character flaws that he may, or may not have had, never mind any criticism that he supported utterly and unrepentantly a regime that started the worst war in human history and which was openly and institutionally racist and genocidal!

This is rather my point. War puts uniforms on even the biggest R soles and some of them will shine. Being a bad person or a saint is simply not relevant to heroism. It is however very, very relevant to a portrayal of that person, which is, is it not the subject?

Bloody hell! I can’t believe Douglas Bader is being given such a hard time…

…he was on our side, right? :rolleyes:

Like everyone else Bader was on HIS side. You don’t get to chose your nationality of birth. Every nation has it’s share of disagreeable people and in war they will be as involved as anyone and heroes will emerge who are miserable curmudgeons, poets, gay, or any other facet of the human identity. Ulrich Rudel was a complete Nazi no right thinking person in this day and age would have time for and that with all that goes with it remains a fact regardless of his undoubted heroism

The fantasy is less of burying during a hasty retreat and more of burning, with the aitfields new owners burying the wreck.

You can enjoy an airshow without believing a Buchon is a 109. It’s nice and you can suspend belief and pretend and that’s how I would see new build 190s and 262s.
You can enjoy a spitfire without being able to build one. Should there be a new rule? No one allowed to criticise unless they can build an aircraft themselves?