Just naming the source I’73 – thought you wouldn’t mind. As for you being a mod, anyone could have applied and voted for.

Over G,
It would be nice if you actually backed up your claims. Where have you found out that the MiG-25 can pull “5g supersonically and probably even more subsonically” while both the chief designer himself (Rostislav’ Belyakov in his book) and a well-published former MiG-25 pilot (Viktor Belenko) say that it was 4.5g maximum? You come up with different figures, you put up some evidence. Surely, you don’t expect me to send an email to Belenko saying his figures on the MiG-25 are wrong because Over G said so?

As for the “famous” F-15 vs MiG-25 incident which you also refuse to clearify, are you talking about the Syrian vs. Israeli clash of the early 1980s in which an F-15 was badly damaged by an R40T? There was no dogfighting involved in that. The setup was such that a MiG-21R lured the F-15s to intercept it, while two MiG-25s made a fast dash from below in the rear-side of the F-15s. No high-G flying whatsoever.

The fact that a MiG-25 has survived a 12g maneuver (somehow i find Sean’s remarks to be totally reliable, in case you doubted) is a remarkable achievement, but you have to realise that the central fuselage plus the wing box are built almost like a tank – a massive, steel structure being some 70% of the fuselage. High-G maneuvers, especially repeated heavy maneuvring at 5g or more, wouldn’t only bend this structure (don’t know if you’ve ever seen a MiG-25, but it is biiiig), but would probably also have serious impact on the welds which hold the structure together.

Your turn (there’s nothing from Jane’s here by the way – mostly Belyakov, Gordon and a bit of Belenko).

Lightly loaded Lightnings, Vigilantes, Starfighters, MiG-19s… a lot of aircraft can/could have a TWR greater than one. It’s nothing special, as long as you remove enough payload. Good thing about the current fighters is that their TWR>1 even when they are carrying a fairly reasonable weapon- and fuel load.

I’m curious about this continuous mentioning of the M2K-5 as a striker for the IAF, while the Mirage 2000-5 is a pure air-to-air machine. The RDY-radar-equipped version of the M2K ment for ground attack (with mapping and SAR modes on the radar) is the Mirage 2000-9, formerly known as Mirage 2000-5MkII.

I don’t know, i think the German ones only ever carried -J’s at best. They only had them fitted as an extra, and were by no means ment to really act as fighters. I guess that if they were to have put their pylons to use, they would probably just be getting reserve-stock AIM-9Bs.

But on the other hand, since the RF-4E doesn’t have any fire control system anyway except for the missile’s own seeker head, i’m not sure if it actually needed an upgrade at all. From what i can tell, the firing solution was only given by the ‘beep’ signal coming fromt the missile to the pilot’s headset. I can’t see how that would be much different for a -B or a -J model.

Erez, there just aren’t any airbases in the Antalya area, except for the FOL at Alanya (across the runway from the terminal) where there usually are a few F-16s deployed. And the Izmir area is pretty quiet during the summer, since the two airbases there (Cigli and Kaklic) are trainer bases with little or no courses during the summer months. But in general, you can expect some individual 20 Phantoms to be flying one or more sorties during a reasonable day of operational flying.

Are Turkish RF-4’s capable of being armed like their Greek counterparts?
Self-defense AIM-9’s possibly?

It wasn’t just Greece which got ex-Luftwaffe RF-4E’s, Turkey also got about half of that fleet. And they are obviously also Sidewinder-capable. I don’t know however if either country has retrofitted this capability to their original RF-4E’s.

Wow, no deal has been signed yet for this offset deal and some people are already pounding how this should count as an export success for the Dhruv. May i remind you that it is unlikely that this deal will see a flyoff between the Dhruv and any other types because of IAI’s involvement in the Dhruv? Besides, it would be kind of weird if the country that is marketing the Dhruv on the international market (which is of course Israel) would not be operating the helicopter itself.

Since the construction as described by Erez shows a lease deal between IAI and the IDF/AF for the use of the helicopters, the question remains to be seen if there is anything for the IDF/AF to like or dislike about the helo. Or did anyone lately ask the RAF how they liked the SA365 – nope, because that is a Bond Helicopters machine.

A purely econo-political deal. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but don’t think it is anything more than that.