JackonickoThis is not exactly what i said.
Indeed.
But that’s a reasonable shorthand precis of the facts.
You also said 3,500 landings, which might imply a much shorter life.
As a modern fast jet, Rafale’s life will be governed not by hours, nor simply by applications of g, but by consumption of fatigue, measured as a Fatigue Index.
As built, and without structural upgrades, you would assume that Rafale would have a life of 100 FI (100% FI). A subsequent upgrade might increase that to 112 or 125 FI, or more.
The calculation has obviously been made that 100 FI will equate to 7,000 hours, assuming a particular sortie profile, and taking into acccount the 8 g service limit. This might represent an increased number of flying hours, or might simply allow an aircraft to meet its planned life if fatigue was being consumed more quickly than had been anticipated.
A nice easy, gentle sortie might consume a small proportion of an FI point, while a more aggressive sortie, heavily loaded, with lots of low level, high g manoeuvring and a high weight landing could consume a whole FI point.
Fatigue consumption is a complex business – as evidenced by the problems with monitoring it in the C-130, whose fatigue meters are inhibited when the aircraft is on the ground, even though wings flexing as the aircraft taxys on a rough strip produce more damage than flying does! Similarly, flying the Tornado F3 without underwing tanks proved to have a dramatic affect on fatigue consumption, while flying with tanks had the opposite effect on the Jaguar.
If every sortie was a ten minute display, pulling 10.5 g ten or more times, a Rafale wouldn’t last anywhere near 7,000 hours (you’d be amassing six landings per hour, as well, so your jet might last less than 600 hours).
The same is true for any and all aircraft.
JackonickoOK, thanks. 7,000 hours with an 8 g service limit.
JackonickoYeah, ‘cos you (like Flex) know better than the British courts.
No evidence of bribery. End of.
As to Dassault, there have been plenty of proven examples of bribery, and a few unproven. Nothing is proven against BAE.
By your logic, a punished criminal is less likely to offend than an innocent man. Complete idiocy, as I’d expect.
JackonickoIt was quite damp one day at Le Bourget, though……
JackonickoWatch again. There’s a couple of hard pulls, I think, and one turn that looked pretty hard.
JackonickoThat makes sense, TMor, though I’d thought that it was 8.5. It looked like an 8 g display, perhaps with a specific excursion above that at one point.
What do you have as the airframe life limit?
JackonickoTrident,
My understanding is that that is a consideration, but that there are others! (Mod state, aircraft availability, tasking, etc.)
TMOr
That’s not what the AdlA say about the peacetime limits as programmed into the FCS, TMor (admittedly some years ago, though I see no reason why they’d have changed them).
It would be pretty unusual for a peacetime airshow to go above 9 g, especially with standard g pants. (The danger of G-LOC with higher numbers, or with rapid g onset would mitigate against this, and more prosaically, fatigue consumption in a display pushing 10.5 would be a bit tooth-sucking).
And watching the display at Le Bourget, and watching film of it afterwards, it didn’t look like he was pushing the limits that hard (except in roll rate when he flicked it from inverted to erect very smartly and with impressive precision).
I stand to be corrected, of course. I’m not trying to be offensive, but there does seem to be a consensus that it wasn’t one of those ‘knock your socks off’ displays, and I had quite thought that the reason that the display looked unimpressive was that he was flying to relatively modest limits. I didn’t see any really hard turns, and no dynamic nose pointing. If there were 10.5 g turns, why weren’t we more blown away? Why didn’t it look tighter, punchier and more aggressive?
I loved the twinkle rolls, though, and the high alpha turn into the high alpha flypast was astonishing (demonstrating absolutely deadbeat and utterly predictable high alpha handling), though perhaps something more for the afficionado than for the spotter?
JackonickoTMor,
Where did you see anything like 10.5 g during the display at Le Bourget?
Why would an AdlA pilot exceed the service limit anyway?
Trident/Arthuro,
They use a twin sticker for displays to keep fatigue off the single-seaters.
JackonickoSpreading fatigue useage across the fleet, I was told.
Yep, “I was told”…… so clearly a filthy English journo lie. :rolleyes:
JackonickoPretty pictures, Kovy.
And it was a very pretty display that was nice to watch. Very smooth. But it could have been flown in an M2K – or perhaps almost even in a Jag!
The F-16 display was impressive, but wasn’t that hard on the airframe or the pilot, who was as old as the hills and fatter than Santa Claus!
JackonickoSekant,
What a surprise, XXXXXXX!
Bandar was one of the principals, so his view is pertinent. He was one of six sources I quoted, however, and the least significant.
You give a single unsourced quote, out of context, purporting to be from Blair. (And quoting Blair is like quoting the bible, he’s said so much that he can be used to support any position).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxto go back and read my reply No.13 (on page 1)
Paragraph 47 of the judgement reads:
“According to the Attorney General’s evidence, BAE has always contended that any payments it made were approved by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In short they were lawful commissions and not secret payments made without the consent or approval of the principal. The cause of anti-corruption is not served by pursuing investigations which fail to distinguish between a commission and a bribe. It would be unfair to BAE to assume that there was a realistic possibility, let alone a probability, of proving that it was guilty of any criminal offence. It is unfortunate that no time was taken to adopt the suggestion (referred to in evidence) to canvass with leading counsel the Attorney’s reservations as to the adequacy of the evidence.”
3) Because the Saudi deal was conducted on a government-to-government basis, with BAE acting only as a sub-contractor, any payments by BAE to Saudi were specifically authorised by the UK Government. FACT
This was a Government to Government deal, and all payments via BAE (BAE was a conduit, not a source) were approved by HMG.
If anyone was guilty of anything it was the two Governments. (That might be a heartening thought to the most Anglophobe among us, but it’s frankly not credible).
BAE acted with the full knowledge and consent of both governments throughout Al Yamamah, and the payments were approved by the Ministry of Defence. This was effectively an automatic process that was “out of the company’s hands.” Howard Wheeldon, defence analyst at BGC Partners (and one of the most respected observers of defence economics and procurement), suggested that the worst that the British Government could be accused of was “a degree of naivety” and that successive governments had “no case to answer.”
4) All Al Salam Typhoon payments and all Al Yamamah payments were authorised and legal. FACT
The payments were written into the contract (does that give you a clue?) in annexes, and were probably required because Al Yamamah was originally paid for on an ‘Arms for Oil’ basis. This was not illegal either under UK corruption law nor under the US Foreign Corrupt Practises act.
JackonickoOPIT,
As usual, you French chaps get obsessed with semantics.
I described Benco as a junior officer. He’s not a squadron commander, and perhaps looks younger than he is. He’s effectively a second tourist (I know about his 2000D exchange – many Rafale pilots had an M2K exchange, while the ex AD AdlA blokes had Jag or 2000D exchanges). He’s done a (full?) SuE tour, a brief 200D exchange, and now he’s a first tour Rafale pilot. I’d call that junior. You might not. It doesn’t matter, that’s not the point.
The point is that what he’s been quoted as saying is consistent with what you’d expect from a bored young fighter pilot who’d drawn the short straw and was on the barrier at an air show.
In point of fact, I’d agree that such pilots often have interesting things to say (and I talk to them a lot), though they’re often a bit insular and parochial about their type/fleet/squadron, and that the flight commanders and squadron commanders may give a more balanced and mature view.
Arthuro,
Suffice it to say that there isn’t a Typhoon pilot alive who’d envy Rafale’s MMI (or, as long as he’s flown Block 5, its sensor fusion). They’d envy Rafale’s maturity, weapons integrations, and range, yes, for sure, but what you ‘quote’ is nonsense.
JackonickoSekant,
“You’re entire defense rests on the testimony of Goldsmith.”
No, it doesn’t.
I refer you to my reply *13
I’ve quoted Goldsmith (in his capacity as Attorney General – making him Britain’s top law officer), Wardle, Raymond Lygo and Howard Wheeldon. I’ve quoted Prince Bandar himself. I’ve directly quoted the actual judgement into the dropping of the SFO probe.
The latter said: “The cause of anti-corruption is not served by pursuing investigations which fail to distinguish between a commission and a bribe. It would be unfair to BAE to assume that there was a realistic possibility, let alone a probability, of proving that it was guilty of any criminal offence.”
I have pointed out the FACT that the SFO probe was into Tornado sales in the 80s and 90s, not Typhoon sales today, and that it found insufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution, and that the money paid was Saudi Money, paid as legitimate commission, authorized by HMG, to a Saudi Minister, via Saudi MODA Accounts, and that BAE acted only as a sub contractor, doing HMG’s bidding.
Whereas you do rely entirely on extremely selective second hand reporting from discredited sources – primarily the Guardian – whose own tactics have been utterly reprehensible. It’s your case that’s ‘void’, chum.
Rom_un,
I thought that I had made it clear: that The Federal initiative Against new fighter aircraft (a loony left, Francophone Swiss anti-arms trade pressure group) had missed (eg: failed to include) one key target in their tirade against corrupt arms dealers.
While moaning on about EADS and Saab having been “suspected of corruption in connection” with fighter sales, the key missing phrase that they failed to say, and that would at least have made their point accurate and balanced was, that while others have been suspected:
“Dassault have actually been tried and convicted of bribery and corruption.”
That was the phrase that they missed, and that I helpfully provided, in bold and italics, just in case anyone didn’t realise…..
The subject is allegations of BAE bribes, and the effect of those allegations on the Swiss fighter competition.
It is entirely relevant
1) that the allegations against BAE are historic, and don’t relate to Typhoon. 2) That they are the product of a biased left wing newspaper with an agenda.
3) That they have been taken up by desperate people with an axe to grind, in an effort to derail Typhoon’s chances, and in a pathetic attempt to boost Rafale.
4) That they have been thoroughly discredited.
And it’s also entirely relevant that while there have been unfounded and unproven accusations against two of the bidders (Saab and BAE), a third bidder has a long track record of actual bribery and corruption, and has actually been found guilty of those offences.
That’s simple balanced reporting, matey. Bring up the subject of corruption in fighter sales, and the first two names on everybody’s lips will inevitably be Lockheed and Dassault.
JackonickoGlobalp, The Austrian Typhoon deal was EADS, not BAE.
The rest of your charges are about as accurate.
As to Dassault and ‘commission’, they didn’t sentence Serge Dassault to jail time for legal commissions. :rolleyes:
Sekant, I’d call ignoring the statements of Goldsmith and others, and the facts as I’ve outlined them (again and again) ‘selective’.
Romun, Should I really answer anyone who can’t spell Guardian?
More tedious, inaccurate and unfounded Brit-bashing from the usual suspects.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
JackonickoArthuro,
I didn’t mean the plastic pig outside (which belongs to EF GmbH, not BAE), I meant the baby active cockpit inside!
The plastic pig is just a mock up. But the cockpit inside is ‘live’. You can fly a sortie, or stand next to the cockpit as one of the TPs flies one and talks through what he’s doing. Hold on though, or you will fall over, even though it’s fixed base, with no motion and relatively crude visuals!
The serious point, though is that you can’t judge Rafale’s MMI without talking to the Typhoon, Gripen and Super Hornet blokes, and without seeing the cockpits in action.
Like you, Arthuro, I’m more interested in what I hear ‘from the horse’s mouth’ than in what I read. I can quite understand why you’re impressed by what Benco had to say to you.
I would add that in my experience, the blokes who ask you to respect their anonymity tend to be more honest, more helpful and more chatty than those who know they will be named. And that’s as true of Rafale pilots as it is of anyone else.
Re SH/Rafale. I first heard about it in conversation with VFA-213 pilots. It was confirmed by one of the MN blokes at Le Bourget. The XO or CO of VFA-213 was quoted as having claimed a Rafale in ‘The Hook’ (or perhaps Naval Aviation News), as I recall.
Re Gripen/Rafale. The CO of the QRA det in the Baltic States told a host of journos about it during a press trip before Paris. It would have been written up in Defense News, Flight and/or JDW, and in German magazines.
Re F-16/Rafale. I was told about it by 31 Smaldeel, who had a cutting from a Belgian or French magazine (possibly an air force magazine?). An EC7 pilot confirmed it.
I heard about the Jag/Rafale kill from blokes on No.6 Squadron, including the victorious pilot. I can’t remember where I’ve seen it reported.
Nicholas 10,
Do please put me on your ignore list if it means an end to your childish abuse and silly replies to what I post.
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