I have some basic info of the F1-M53 at home with some measurements and weights that I will post tomorrow morning.

Any updates, wilhelm? Life can get busy. If you do have a chance I know it would make me excited to see it. Always considered the F.1 the best Mirage design, although I’m sure others would find that comment heresy.

That , I don ‘t get :confused: ??? The actual Rafale M F3 has more power at all regimes and a better thrust-ratio than the USN Block2 SH .
Where is the problem ? :rolleyes:

OT, but to answer you: I think the bigger F-14 was more efficient size of aircraft for carrier work. More jets, smaller jets is the reality today. I’d rather see fewer, bigger aircraft take the football to the goalline. If we need more & smaller jets then we have land-based F-16’s for that duty. I’m all for the development of a 100,000-pound class, straight-wing (or lightly swept) bomb truck with true 2,000-mile radius range for carrier use. Could even be a simple 3-engine turbofan-powered contraption with an H-Tail to keep its overall height down. Cuts down on aircraft deployed and the need for bloat in the related infrastructure necessary to fly them. Super cruise and stealth are nice, but those qualities don’t get used 95% of the time in operations. Gives the Navy the necessary size to carry a payload that has plenty of ‘big stick’ to it.

I like the Rafale. From an aesthetic view point I would rather see Rafale on our carriers than the Super Hornet, just because the latter is so ugly. At least the F-35C is a step in the right direction. But I’m also the guy around here that thinks the F-35B is a complete waste of resources and would like to see that program canned. At least the F-35C is a step towards wisdom in spending dollars on defense, and the plane looks pretty good. Might not win the beauty contest against Rafale, but its also no ugly toad..

I’m not going to say they are HQ-9 or not. But what I will say is that there are exact replicas of those trucks down to every little detail that distinguishes the tubes from the various S300 options. If they are not HQ-9 then someone went to an awful lot of work to get it right. These were far more important pictures from the parade to go public than a couple of wooden plane models. The mere presence of real HQ-9 would really be disappointing for any U.S./Europe-Chinese relations, let alone any cooperation Israel has had with them.

Excellent find, roberto_yeager!

actually a nice scenario for a alternate history novel. Soviets trigger Icelandic volcanoe eruptions to make the Western air forces unusable and use their sheer number of troops on the ground to overwhelm Western Europe :D:p

Only our western forces have these nice shiny toys that see a lot further than their nice shiny toys that look through dark sky. Our helicopters with scrubbers on their intakes and night vision would have a field day picking apart the invaders. And you need to supply forces in this nasty overcast. Imagine how dire it would get when the supplies get interdicted behind the forward troops. It would get ugly, fast. Logistics is what wins wars, not always the battles, but the wars. If they can overcome the nature of logistics that would be a nightmare scenario. But they are about twenty years behind in the toys to invade in these kinds of circumstances.

The Gripen is nice and dandy overall, but I still prefer the F-20A Tigershark’s look over the canard. Too bad Northrop couldn’t have pitted a revamped F414-powered Tigershark against the Gripen in a few recent competitions. Not so sure its not still relevant on today’s market.

Best of luck!

None that I am aware of, not that my quote had anything to do with RAAF acquisition of Growlers. I was pointing out how not so great Growler is replacing it’s predecessor in the USN. I do believe you were comparing RAAF potential Growlers to be with the USN acquisition of Growler. I was pointing out the loss of coverage with their ratio.