Aircraft seem to be getting progressively denser in mass for the amount of area they cover; by being taller, shorter in length, and less wide in proportion to their weights. Shaping strategies were never the problem with this approach, rather engine power was the handicap. Would lend one to believe that engine technologies are progressing to the point where they can push a proverbial cannon ball up in the air through maneuvers much easier than the long spear.

Can you clarify what you mean by the “poor track record” part? Also what are your thoughts on, in no particular order: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia?

Bulgaria lies at a crossroads of empires and has been forced to choose sides with each conflict. They chose the losing side of the Cold War, the Nazis, the Central Powers, the treaty of Bucharest, and trusting the Russians on the treaty of Berlin. They are something like 7 million in population, hardly numbers to support repelling a great power from aggression. I don’t recommend throwing any more modern machinery into the hands of any of the nations you cited than our U.S. state department has metered out, regardless of the price they are willing to pay. Throwing powerful toys into their hands, especially with the track record of these countries and/or capitulation before a fight, is a recipe for disaster.

There is a reason they were formed, to buffer the West from Russia. They play a pivotal trade role. They don’t need Typhoons to play their role in the EU. What amounts to trafficking Typhoons to these countries is destabilization of the buffer zone, something neither the U.S. nor Russia wants.

You pointed out a few of the more obvious differences. People were trying not to spell them out when a nameless fellow insisted they were the same. 🙂

If they bent over backwards as a NATO ally then maybe an American company could cross-license the production so that there is a bigger market for it. You will have to make it use turbofans as the USAF doesn’t seem too keen on anything else. But its frame is superior to anything between the C-130 and C-17 families.

:confused:

Sorry, my mistake 🙂

Are those emissions IR? AFAIK WVR is normally considered to be less than 5 nm (10 km).

No, they are electromagnetic. You can detect wind shear by listening to the same frequency range. The biggest problem or limits to this is of finding specific direction to the source.

Arka_Voltchek, please don’t correct gammar if you are going to misspell. 😉

SPECTRA does play a role in any engagement. You’re infrared seekers are slaved to fire control, which in many situations uses a radar lock to align the seeker to a target. There are few countries with the technical know-how to silently intercept without some kind of emmissions. SPECTRA gives the pilot awareness 90% of the time by that fact alone. Not all emmissions are from transmitters. The mere act of cutting air with your airframe gives off emmissions detectable out to about 10km.

I don’t buy your arguments, ST-21, because they used to do that from the 30s to 60s. Ever since the government lost ownership of the process it’s turned into a mess. Most every fighter during WW2 was actually made by multiple manufacturers. That doesn’t happen today.

The USAF should be dictating individual criteria for performance and kit, whereas the rules now basically dictate the performance criteria. The engines, probe/boom, tires, etc. – and other tangibles of the refueler – should be a whole separate competition with the actual tanker competition all about integrating these into their airframes. It doesn’t make any sense for such broad generalized competitions where the USAF is stuck supporting something that may disproportionately cost them to maintain simply because bean counters made the numbers work in their favor during the bidding process.

It takes some of the weight of the costs off the shoulders of the competitors. If two bids on the tanker airframes are close enough to be insignificant then they should be declared equally qualified and invited to enter into a competition centered around building airframes.

The two equals would operate in a competition where they each receive an order of 10 completely furnished airframe units at a time and whomever gets their share delivered first gets a bonus of 5 more orders each round. You split the deal in such a way its about performance and the final product is actually favorable to the USAF.