The F-111 with all 8 stations loaded was just the ground crews having fun.

The French government drives the price up by trying to force sunken costs already incurred onto new sales. This puts the price out of line with the product.

My only beef with the Australian F-111 is how they handled the tank seal maintenance. Was it command’s decision to do it that was or did the politicians simply refuses to pay for doing it right? Otherwise it was an irreplaceable big stick policy that has served well and otherwise popular with the home crowd.

I have a hard time believing that new build F-18’s are much cheaper than new build F-15’s when it comes to operational costs. Any time you reach the maximum range of the F-18 but stay inside the range of the F-15 you incur a huge financial penalty (aerial refuelling) to cover that gap. Especially when you figure in the much higher all around flexibility the F-15 gives a country with such broad borders, like Australia. F-35’s will help alleviate the problem, considering the F-35 is every bit as big and powerful as the F-15 – if not more all around flexible – when it gets down to the nitty gritty details.

“only” is a strong word. You failed to mention how handy stealth qualities are for sead, reconn, pgm delivery, etc etc.

The A400m has too many operators in need to kill the program now. Expect a lite version pushed for the export market. Maybe they can get Embraer to co-develop the engine for a spinoff twin-engine transport.

Aspis-

I take it dynamic energy = potential energy and cinetic energy = kinetic?

I would go with the F-111 since it was an airplane nations like Australia should not have had.

By fluke and circumstance they wound-up with an airplane few in the non-Superpower class of nations could and made hay with it while the sun shined. Tech has now passed it by, by and large, so it’s sunset is with us.

Considering how many operated Su-24 I find your statement untenable.