For those who don’t know yet, Franck66’s photos show both F-16s lost:

FA-93 (the one with the yellow tail and the jumping tiger, top and second picture) and FA-122 (with the oversized tiger’s head on it’s tail, lower two pics).

Snapper, i assume Steve sent you the names of the pilots? Anyone else interested, take a look at the squadron’s website at http://www.31tigersqn.be/

Contrary to what most people will think of me, F-16s will be perfect for Poland. Those low-mounted intakes will be perfect to suck the FOD during DOL (=forward airstrips) operations, which then won’t bother the Fitters.

On a more serious level, i can understand why Poland opted for the Yawndart ( 😀 ). Unlike Hungary and the Czech (and Slovak) Republic, Poland has decided to stick with a large airforce, instead of scaling down to almost nothing as the Czechs did. While i am big fan of the Gripen, i have serious doubts whether the Swedes could actually deliver such a relatively large order of export-Gripens on short notice. Lockheed obviously has the production capacity, while i am not so sure of Linköping. Even though i would definately love to see Polish-marked interim-Viggens flying around, a nastly annoying little voice inside my head says that is not a logistically feasible solution. Rent-a-Yawndart, buy-a-Yawndart. Boring, but understandable.

As for countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic who at least keep a token fighter force even if only to maintain the ability… Being designed for conscript line maintenance, good deployability and systems integration (especially if they eventually opt for the full package including Erieye and such) i think the Gripen is an excellent choice.

As for the JAS39 being a modern-day F-86… Saab has a decent reputation in providing spares and upgrades. Quite unlike a few other countries i could think of.

I think this is a variant-mixup. Not only is it an unlikely and even non-existant variant for the VVS, but also because if any of the ‘new’ variants would be deployed to a FOL, i have little doubt the Sukhoi marketing machine would hijack that story and tell us poor enthusiasts over and over and over again.

As for the Flaming Vagina: when looking at the Lord of the Rings-films, what did you think Lord Sauron looked like? From the description in the books i thought it was an eye. That thing on top of Mount Doom is not an eye!

Yeah, there was a Viggen-recycling-thread a few months back, it’s in the archives. I believe some 100 are scrapped by now…

Puzzle time!

Here is HB-HPF from the Pilatus website. This one is c/n 107 according to all lists i could find, and even the picture is called like that. But if you look at the fin, it has a single kink in the leading edge. So either this aircraft has undergone a rebuild to PC-9(M) when it went to Croatia (something i didn’t think was possible as it requires a whole new rear fuselage), the Croatian 051 is not c/n 107, or something else is going on which might even have something to do with the Bxxx construction numbers…

Without looking in red
… and my cheats are in purple

1. How did an Su-27 crash affect the Russian space program?

2. What aircraft does VMGR-252 operate?
KC-130, used to be H but it could be J now

3. What was the Tu-160 design based on?
T4MS

4. What is an NSA 330? Who operates it?
Nurtiano (in Indonesia)-built Puma, is definately in use with the Indonesian air force and navy, not sure (but likely) about the army.

5. Name two aircraft given the nickname “Snoopy”.
The Hercules W.2 which used to be operated by the Brits is another one

6. Name two objects sharing the MB-1 designator.
Well, the Martin-Baker 1 experimental fighter from the 1930s was one… in my cheating round i’ll come up with another one
Another one was the 1917 Martin MB-1, a bomber from the US

7. How many Tu-160s have been lost? Crashes only, slice-and-dice doesn’t count What were the dates?
I believe two, one a few months back…
Bort 01 crashed on September 18th this year, and it was the first crash of an operational aircraft. However, the second production aircraft crashed on take-off somewhere during trials, before the aircraft got operational in 1987.

8. What happened on July 2, 1956?
Contract AF33(600)-32863 was signed, which bought the USAF 16 Seattle-built B-52E’s serialled 57-0014/0029. I think you mean something else though… but U-2 overflights over the Soviet Union began two days later. Me puzzled!

9. What aircraft did the 55th SRW operate in the 1950’s? Where were they based? Include overseas detachments.
RB-47, EB-47, RB-50, C-130… I believe their homestead back then was Lackland AFB, OH but i’ll get some more in the cheating round 😀
The home base was Forbes AFB, Kansas. I was wrong on the Hercs, but the 55th did fly RB- and EB-47s, RB-50s and RB-29s (in 1951, so that one counts). Overseas detachments would include Ben Guerir (French Morocco), Lakenheat/Fairford, Thule, Eielson (don’t know if Shemya was built by then or not), Guam, Taiwan, Japan…

10. What aircraft was operated by the 1230th APSZ? WHere were they based? What aircraft/unit were they colocated with to support?
The 3M/3MD Bisons tankers at Engels. I don’t know about their colocated base, but i would guess with the Bears at Ukrainkap

11. What is a “Carlucci Panel”?
Engine start-up panel in the nosewheel bay/crew entrance of the Tu-160, i believe

12. What are the following:
a. RAM-K
T10
b. RAM-L
MiG-29
c. RAM-M
Myasishchev M17 or M55
d. RAM-P
Tu-160

13. What is a “Frog”?
A UH-1B or UH-1C Huey gunship

14. How can you visually ID an Iranian F-14A?
No door on the refuelling probe

XH558 in 1988… back then i was only vaguely aware something like the Vulcan existed, actually seeing one fly definately dropped my jaw! It wasn’t at an airshow or something either – the Vulcan was flying in to RAFG Brüggen for a squadron anniversary, i saw it fly over (low!) at school.

Re: On the occasion of my 250th posting – my turn for a QUIZ!

Originally posted by Distiller
#13 – name five helicopters with multiple piston-engines
…
Kamov Ka-26 – grandfather of Ka-28
…

Allow me to nitpick!
The Ka-28 is a member of the Helix family (Ka-27 ASW/SAR, Ka-28 export, Ka-29 assault, Ka-31 AEW, Ka-32 civilian) which are direct descendants of the Ka-25, and as such come from the Ka-15/18/20 series of single-engined fuselage-mounted piston engined coaxial helos.

The Ka-26 is a different design. While it has the coaxial rotor system, it’s main design feature was to make a small, light, easy to operate helo with a removable pod for cargo, passengers or (turned out to be it’s most important role) agricultural use. Putting two well-known and widely available M14 radial engines next to the fuselage made sure that the engines were easy to maintain (shoulder height), and also kept the size of the pod-carrying fuselage small since it only had to house the gearbox. In the end the Ka-26 became a really nifty, agile, small, nice-sounding helo with quite a reasonable payload. Perfect for agricultural use, but there were also some (para-)military customers. Unfortunately i think only the Lithouanian police operates a ‘military’ Ka-26, one survivor from the spectacularly looking H-01 to H-03.
The Hoodlum did evolve into the Ka-126 and -226 turbine powered helos, but these weren’t really successful.