We can all cherry-pick the behaviour of some other creature to justify the behaviour of man when it suits us.

To take your example, it is common for the dominant male lion to be driven from his pride by a rival. The rival will then kill any lion-cubs before mating with the females in the pride.

Does this give humans the ‘right’ to behave in this way?

Are you advocating that we should look to nature for guidance on the treatment of the elderly, the disabled or those with learning difficulties?

Racism, murder, cannibalism, and slavery all occur in nature too, are these also ‘rights’ that human beings to take as given?

I am not cherry picking at all, that is you. You are raising the particular social activities of one species to remove the relevance of the most basic principles of human activity. I was merely making a comparison whereas your approach is flawed.

Human beings are omnivores, they eat meat and plants, they get the meat by killing other species.

I agree, but one vital fact is missing from all this ,evolution ,that’s what separates us from our animal cousins, we know are actions are killing this planet, we know whats morally write and wrong killing an animal just because its horn is supposed to be an aphrodisiac ,clubbing seals to death for their pelts when man made materials are far better ,is morally wrong. hunting the leviathans of the sea to extinction just because its a tradition to eat whale meat is also wrong.
Given our exhalted position at the very top of the food chain its our duty to keep this world alive.

Exactly why I said it should be done sustainably.;)

I see absolutely noproblem with Humans hunting for luxury goods or fun so long as the manner in which it is done is sustainable.

Just a tip, by the way. If you are trying to say “you are” it’s “you’re” not “your” – just something I’ve noticed from your posts in general around the forum, which leads me to believe you aren’t too bright (or smart) in general.

So let me break it down for you, really simple, like for a ten year old: If the pilots are completing assignments with 100% efficiency, what do flight hours really matter.

And secondly, as much as you hate to see it happen, with the improving economic situation / increasing defense budgets, the flight hours are going to increase whether you like it or not, especially for strategic aviation.

How pathetic, realising that you have been made to look foolish you resort to insults and criticising spelling and grammar. Just reinforces the image of a child that you seem so attached to.

I find it mind boggling that you do not understand the relationship between flight hours and personnel proficiency, it is a commonly accepted fact.

Could probably fit it all in an A321, which would be cheaper to buy & operate than an A330. For extended range, you could fit auxiliary fuel tanks in the hold. Containerised tanks are commercially available (so relatively cheap) & already tested & certified to civilian safety standards for the A320 series, because of the extended-range corporate jet models.

But that is far to simple………..the obvious solution is to have a decade long study and design process that will ultimately pick some nonsensical solution (say putting the R.1 through the MRA-4 re-winging program) that will then suffer massive cost escalation and probably result in less capability.

Sarcasm aside I think we have a solution, its just a shame that we got to this point in the first place.

Why did you waste time typing all that, the point was that the 117 was not “unparreleled” as one poster posted it was brought down by 60’s era SAM,
which is in itself a testamony to just how advanced Russia is.

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Your hilarious.

On the Patriot issue, in many cases the missiles did actually hit their targets but they failed to destroy the warheads.

Once again the UK MoD is reaping the misery of its own incompetence. A decade+ ago they should have sat down and asked what their future large aircraft requirements would be, the answer, Nimrod MR2 replacement, Nimrod R1 replacement and future tanker. With that in mind an airframe should have been picked and the then work carried on from their. Hell BAe have even said they could build new Nimrod airframes and they are doing wings as we speak so there is at least one option there already. If they really wanted they could have thrown ASTOR into the mix too.

Instead we have the old Nimrod airframes falling apart, with no R1 replacement on the cards (proper one anyway), BAe scrabbling around for airframes good enough to attach individually unique wings to and the joke that is the tanker program. Why on earth the MoD is so incapable of decisiveness I do not know. I can actually not find word strong enough with which to criticise the organisation.

I’m just off down the river to kill someones dog for tea, well, I’m a human, I’m a hunter, wer’re morally all Lions deep inside, doubt whether I’ll find any Zebra though, but you never know.

Where there ownership issues there so be careful, otherwise my only suggestion would be to make sure you have a good recipe at hand before making the kill, it would be a shame to get a prime specimen and then ruin it through poor cooking.;)