Why the overlap between SH and F-35 missions? What is your component of NORAD for intercepting bombers over the heads of your Inuit populations? Certainly neither one of them was meant for the role, they are both built as strike aircraft.

The SH is not remotely a match for such duty, it simply doesn’t have the legs for it. And the F-35 is awfully risky for this role, too. Little time and effort has been placed into making it suitable for this environment or task. I hope the engine gets a little more dependable before it goes into service up there.

MiG-27 perhaps, but not Su-27. They would love to get their hands on such technology. They’ll be hard pressed to afford F-16’s once the U.S. pulls out with all the infighting that is currently sitting on the back burners for now. If Barak moves too quickly there will be a blood bath and we’re talking Kurds and Shia dying in droves as the majority of the Arab world reasserts their support to the Sunni dominance. They should have broken up Iraq into three separate countries and kept their presence in the North where they are wanted. The Sunni and Shia populations are a powder keg just waiting for a spark. Been there, done that.

Canada should be ordering the Rafale and Typhoon to support their motherlands. What would the SH possibly offer that they cannot get from the similar sized eurocanard counterparts? Perhaps if the Brits want to sell or lease off their idle Tornado F.3’s to the Canadians (like they already do for the Italians) then they would be fools not to even consider them. The F.3’s are collecting dust after the last round of updates because the British have more than enough Typhoons already flying.

With Barak in office they probably won’t find resistance to such an order. The SH really isn’t a worthwhile investment for our northern neighbor. Good for our production lines, bad for their pocket books. If Bush had been in office there would have been trade sanctions that would have backfired and Canada profited from buying European anyhow.

Nice. I was expecting a little bit more in the Rafale’s CFT’s though, but thats a good capacity anyway.

The Rafale already can carry three external 1150L tanks in a supersonic mission, or three 2000L tanks in subsonic flight. I wonder if on takeoff the cft’s will be the only external tanks full and the other wet points empty to begin a ferry flight, then they top off the tanks as they get to an optimal rendezvous altitude. Would they even get off the ground with an extra 8300L load of fuel?

The Typhoon on the other hand is going to be limited to three 1000L tanks and the pair of 1500L cft’s, which means a maximum external load of 6000L. They should be able to take off with that load. Maybe they’ll get to work on converting to use Tornado’s larger 1500L or 2250L under wing tanks?

I had all sorts of cool factoids comparing Lancer C, J-7PG, and MiG-21 Bison. Unfortunately my pc decided to reboot. (I think my p/s is taking a ****.) Lost it all!!

Performance-wise not a lot of difference between the three with the J-7PG and Lancer C being close in capability save for the former’s bvr capacity out to a maximum of 20-odd km. All three seem to use potent helmet sights. All three offer highly capable wvr capability. Not much to speak of when it comes to bvr for any of them if you ask me. The Lancer C simply was never intended for bvr. The MiG-21 Bison radar had much more raw power than the J-7PG. But the Bison then seems to have lacked some of the caveats offered by the others such as large external fuel tanks, a decent rwr, and an integrated self protection jammer. And their choice in radars for the Bison also negated its chances of integrating in any true off the shelf bvr choice other than the R-77.

Missile range is definitely not the problem here, its the fire control radars used. Because both Bison and J-7PG lack the power capacities to track multiple targets let alone paint much further than 20-odd km’s, you can see why I don’t consider either highly capable bvr fighters. The J-7PG’s are fairly new builds so its not really fair to compare a new build fighter against two service life extensions. It would have been interesting to see J-7PG or Lancer with a minimum of the Derby compared to the Bison’s R-77. No official word seems to be out there if the J-7PG supports the sd-10 or not.

edit: fixed for googeler’s sake

Phoenix was more of a hangar queen than the Tomcat herself. Each missile could suck up to 20 hours of maintenance per flight.

No, “At this time we only fly 1000-l–external fuel tanks” my friend told me several hours ago, if you don’t believe, you can ask Eurofighter GmbH by yourself.

But soon the Eurocanards will both enjoy extensive updates to their range…

True, a GT40 is nice, but dam does that F430 sound for lack or a better term orgasmic at Full Tilt…….

Awww, trade that big gas guzzler for something more green like the Lola T70!