I don’t think Austria feels maligned by the Typhoon. They just had treatises to navigate in its induction.

Buying up or leasing secondhand Typhoons gives them an edge over Pakistan and China now and buys them time for future programs to bear fruit. They should be discussing this with Typhoon operators now, using secret talks and keeping money off the regular budget, to buy assurances. India is treating this like a game and sovereignty is no game.

The question of India’s involvement in PAKFA is how much transfer of tech is involved. Merely paying the bill without co-development does not get you an advantage over regional threats. The IAF needs to be able to transfer the technology to an alternative program which happens to be idled. Rafale was the hedge against PAKFA failure. And now they’re worried about the triviality of price. No sense of priority. No political game plan. No oneupmanship. India is waffling when they should be calm, cool, and confident.

If the leadership had balls they’d be sweeping up secondhand Typhoons. Even first generation Typhoon interceptors gives them breathing space against Rafale and PAKFA uncertainties.

I kind of wonder why PLAAF never ordered a “Super Fantan”, scale the Q-5 up sharing the same powerplant as the J-7s. It would look a lot like a twin engine F-105.

It’s called the J-8II. Twin engines same family as J-7. Pointy nose improvement over the snub it replaced.

swerve understood the comment. It has to be stretched to mean the ISIS is Shia, which it is not. I don’t understand why Mountain went out of his way to say it as such.

ISIS also will bind the Kurds to the Iraqi nation, and when the Sunnis realize the horror that is ISIS then even they will want to be rid of them.

This is nation building at its finest, when people come together against a common threat. I hope they do rally around their flag and all fight ISIS back to the stone age. The units that would be quick to get Frogfoot into active service are mainly Sunni, not Shia.

ISIS is Sunni, not Shia.

ISIS is a common threat which provides the glue for nation building.