Myanmar Signs Deal to Buy Thunder Fighter from Pakistan

So the crisis on the border with China does not negate buying JF-17. Interesting.

Don’t put too much thought into ‘Urban’. Use ignore functions and move on. You’ll find the same kind of posters get banned on a rotating basis and then there is always a new account popping up with the same behavior. We’ve even experienced one guy using multiple accounts to converse with himself.

Realistically speaking if the UK had chosen F-14 or F-15, it would have been a small fleet augmented later with F-16’s. Neither Tornado nor Typhoon would exist as the UK were the primary airframe developers. Wouldn’t have negated the Jaguar with the French, but the motives behind Rafale might also not exist. That would have kept Germany buying U.S. jets, too.

Not much headroom in the design with 10% better fuel efficiency over the T-38C. That would allow you an F404 that is derated to slide in there, but that’s as long as its not a vis-a-vis comparison. Otherwise you’re limited to all dry thrust around 5,000 lb st in a modern engine with maybe 8,000 lb st in wet thrust. Not many engines fit that interpretation. I think the competitors will all measure T-38C’s wet thrust against their dry thrust, and depending on the design will leave room to incorporate wet thrust or sell it as an upgrade.

I’m still waiting for those ground effect super transports that were only capable of low altitude flight and were 10X the size of a C-5A…

It’s difficult to justify the CWB project from Boeing. Sure it’s an efficient flyer, but the internal volume is a mess for moving cargo without getting exotic. Any time you go that route the price reaches unobtainium.

The USN uses scheduled land-based tankers for most of its current needs. Buddy tanking will always be secondary.

The only real choice in that time frame was Hornets, Super Etendards and secondhand Skyhawks. Maybe even second hand Crusaders and Corsairs. Rafale wasn’t really ramped up for export and they wouldn’t spare capacity so early. At the time the Russian option was pennies on the dollar until hardware started changing hands and the Indian Navy proved that without the Russians they bought a paper project.

The Typhoon would have been way more affordable if it wasn’t using all European parts. Quite frankly they could have swallowed their pride and went for F404 licensing to save quite a bit. EJ200 alone was over twice the F404 cost at little gain. The gun wasn’t really in need of radical changes. It seems silly not to have commonality of drop tanks where Eagles, Fighting Falcons, Phantoms, Typhoons, Tornadoes, and Mirages have so much diversity. It gets even more strange when talking interchangeability between ‘dumb’ bombs. The idea of a N-UAI would have been brilliant.

Propriety is exactly why it is so difficult to market Rafale.