So are we to understand that 86, 87 and 88 were built BEYOND the 12 ??? in one year? 1996 or are they the same yardstick a/c. Thats why I had earlier stated that there are only 11 Su-35 left.

And as explained before, you are wrong.

Prototype construction numbers:
bort 703: c/n 79871010102
bort 708: c/n 79871011103
bort 711: c/n 79871011104
For the production aircraft, the 01/11 series has been abandoned:
bort 88r: c/n 79871012304

Yep… it’s also the last of the ring of airfields Den Haag once had. Ypenburg is built up with housing, Valkenburg will be part of Leiden in a number of years, Ockenburg is still a camping ground, Waalhaven is a port, Ruigenhoek has been built up long ago, and Zestienhoven never was a military airbase and didn’t exist in 1940 yet anyway… The camping at Ockenburg still has some relics of the airfield (well, it had when i camped there somewhere in the 1980s) and i think the old tower of Ypenburg has been preserved as well, but it’s definately a part of history which is going to be lost. Especially the events during the German invasion in 1940 were very worthwile – of the almost 400 Ju-52s the Germans lost over the Netherlands in May 1940, the bulk was lost on or around those airfields.

Valkenburg was a perfect base for diplomatic/political flights too, far better than a crowded airport like Schiphol will ever be. Munir, do you know if Zestienhoven has some ramp space they could use to roll out the red carpet and play the Wilhelmus?

That would be the Netherlands, not Norway.

The probable cause for the confusion, Noordwijk is a town on the Dutch coast where there is an occasional conference (like the EU defence summit). It’s also got a massive European Space Agency facility, and isn’t too far from NAS Valkenburg.

They are now with the Russkiye Vityazi, prior to that they flew from Akhtubinsk, and the construction number of one of them was checked by yours truely: 79871012304/88r. You don’t need to read every bit of info in books…

…and Australia is rapidly running out of water (we haven’t had a good rain fall in 3 and a half years).

You guys are running out of water because some moronic farmers there thought it might be a good idea to construct rice paddies in the desert :rolleyes:

The Transall was ment for pure inter-theatre transport, in case of an all-out war on the European continent. The payload of the Tral isn’t that much less than that of the Herk, but it has far shorter range. Of course, if you look at the distance between Wünstorf and the former Inner German Border… range was nowhere near as important as for the Herk, which was more or less designed as an intercontinental para dropper.

The AL21F doesn’t have the J79’s distinctive whine though. For that haunting howling noise, you’d want an R27 engine. On the other hand, AL-21F equipped Fitters have an awesome burner lag…

There are at least two production Su-35s apart from the prototypes.