Oddly enough, I had the impression that the West sided with Russia more than with Georgia, at least as far as Europe is concerned. Of course you won’t find Europe openly endorsing military action, but general consensus seems to be that Georgia overplayed its cards and that Russia isn’t too blame for the current conflict. It might be portrayed differently in the US, where the US-led NATO-baiting of Georgia might come into play differently.

If Russia stays sensible about the conflict, the current episode won’t do much to hurt their image in the West. By the same margin, I don’t think India is going to be bothered much. They might compare it to their own Kargil War (although, of course, there are differences) and treat it just as a hot episode where Russia was essentially in the right.

That’d make sending them pretty pointless don’t you think?

I wonder if the USAF would even take them in such a case. Why bother filling training slots with useless aircraft? Better get someone else to at least have some CAS training.

Systemingenieur (m/w) CAPTOR-E

http://www.careerbuilder.de/INTL/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?job_did=J3I5ZR6J87QSVXS99BH&cbRecursionCnt=2&cbsid=571e1845e37945e381ae709493d1b9d6-271751026-KA-5&ns_siteid=ns_de_g_captor-e

EADS shown at the ILA the new smaller modules and a new Captor-E Version.
The new UMS (EADS/Thales) modules achieve 30W transmit power.
Preserie 2008, Serinproduction 2009.

GaN
http://www.iaf.fraunhofer.de/pdf/jahresbericht-2007/gan.pdf

Rafale, Eurofighter and Gripen use all the same SMTRM (Standardised Modular Transmit-/Receive-Module)

What’s the current word on GaN modules? Price, performance? Still about half the diameter versus GaAs? How much more expensive are they?

If EF wants to give itself a chance of winning the India MMRCA competition, it has to, doesn’t it? EF can’t wait until it’s specified for Tranche 3. Then there’s Japan, Brazil…

I’m pretty sure I read that Captor-E has indeed been self-funded in its development. Wise move as far as I’m concerned. Especially past 2010 it seems hard to imagine any radar sales other than AESAs (and to some extent big, powerful Russian PESAs).

BW-Plan 2009 for Captor-E.

http://www.geopowers.com/Machte/Deutschland/Rustung/Rustung_2008/Bundeswehrplan_2009.pdf
Page 67

Ein zum Beseitigen der Obsoleszenzen des CAPTOR-M Radargerätes vorgesehener Ersatz durch die Beschaffung eines CAPTOR-E Radargerätes ist ab 2012 eingeplant.

Interesting. So the AESA is a from go for the German Luftwaffe from 2012 on.

Some Typhoon running cost calculated here:- Networld

You could potentially work out some Typhoon running costs, any German speakers out there want to do a proper translation???, and the currency is calculated in Euro’s?

That’s for 3 Typhoons over 30 years in Euro. So, divide by 90 and you (roughly) get the cost per plane per year. 🙂

Material and operating expenses in infrastructure and logistics (2.78 million)<br />
Fuel (0.44 million)<br />
Maintenance (1 million)<br />
Salaries due to the reduction of pilots and technicians (0.42 million)<br />
Not Doing the Tranche 2 upgrades (2.8 million) (this is probably a one time fee)

Perhaps someone should look into the actual report to determine whether other, not given circumstances have to be minded and to determine what the infratructure/logistics footprint contains specifically to the Austrian air force.

A well reasoned response I suppose if you are in denial.

Let me see if I got this straight. Eurofighter GmbH, the manufacturer of the product publishes something that you would think would be in their interest to show in as best a light as possible yet you call it nonsense and would rather use old, out of date information and hearsay.

Yup, I can see I will not be spending too much time on this forum. I have better things to do than to argue with people who have a hard time separating fact from rumour and fiction. The sad thing is you have your head stuck in the sand when what you really should be doing is asking the MOD and BAE what we are getting for 68M.

The same Eurofighter GmbH site says M1.5 some place else: http://www.eurofighter.com/austria/td_lu.asp

What now? Which one is to be preferred? The immediate Eurofighter GmbH statement or the AFM article they hosted?

What would a Scottish Air Force be like ?

Drunk.

:p