seahawkIt is not that simple. After the re-unification of Taiwan there is no longer the need to accept something like Hong Kong any longer. :diablo:
Until re-unification with Taiwan is reached, China might even be a real democracy. And even if not, the whole problem is an internal Chinese problem.
seahawkWith the improved relationship between Taiwan and China an armed conflict is highly unlikely, as the economic ties are too strong already, Taiwanese firms employ so many workers on the mainland, that a war would be damaging to China as it would be to Taiwan. In the long run there will be peaceful re-unification just like Hong Kong. Selling arms to Taiwan is a provocation to China that serves no purpose. One should tell the Taiwanese that they should expect no support and advise them to start talking about the re-unification process of the breakaway island to the motherland.
seahawkGood luck finding multinational partners on the next design if we fold up shop on this one so soon. They just need to kill the mission creep going on during the LRIP phase and get some airframes out as promised at a competitive price to what’s still on the production lines from the previous generation.
In general yes. But depending on how the economic crisis develops, some partner nations in Europe (Italy, Spain, maybe the UK) won´t be too sad, to get a little money back and be able to avoid buying the F-35 at 120Mil. $ a piece
seahawkForget the future stuff. the point is, that Boeing says that the Navy should buy more, improved E/Fs instead of F-35C. With a frozen budget and the comments on the future Navy released recently by the administration, which questioned the number of carriers, SSNs, etc, the proposal is valid.
The USN and USMC have any F-18 A-D airframes which will need to replaced quickly. A E/F costs around 60% of a F-35C (current estimates) and could be delivered faster, which means less money will be spent to keep the legacy Hornet fleet flying.
seahawkAnd better find some RAM coating that likes a scratch from the refuelling basket hitting it. But I am sure Rafale can do.
Woooohah! Naational bias kicks in…:diablo:
I think you will find that the Typhoon is so amazing it makes the Rafale look like a paper aeroplane…:D
I am just tired of the Typhoon vs. Rafale debate. If you look at the economic situation in Europe, I doubt France or the EF partner nations will have the money to invest in up-grades that are not needed. If you want to look at it in a positive way on another aviation forum people are just discussing if Greece should by Tiffies or F-35s in 2012.
seahawkWhat a pointless debatte. Rafale F3 already blows every current Typhoon out of the water. An upgraded and enhanced F4 would even more dominate the Typhoon, which has no upgrade path.
seahawkAlready Captor-C features the third channel, but it’s not for ECM but ECCM. The Captor features specific hardware and algorithms called ILIC/AnderWave. There isn’t much known, except that prediction algorithms are used to keep a track even when the radar temporarily looses it.
Captor-D says that it can also be used to “jam” emissions.
The initial PESA choice for the rafale over the mech choice for the typhoon is linked to different priorities. Captor M has better range and azimut search than the rbe2 but it can’t interlace modes in the way the rbe2 does which was deemed essential for the nuke role. On another hand a rafale cannot perform has effectively during a supersonic turn in a BVR fight due to the more limited capability in azimuth. So each radar has its strenghts and weaknesses and can’t be directly compared as they have different operational priorities in mind.
For the french side lack of range was thought to be less important due to AWACS net-centric operations, modern RWR to detect enemy radar emission, and the fact that it is an easier step towards AESA radar which will be soon in service with the rafale.
I do agree with you, well except for the last paragraph, as Captor-D is ready to accept an AESA antenna. So it is not too hard to switch either.
seahawkI am not here for a pissing contest but the first true omnirole fighters were the F16 block 60, the rafale and the Super hornet and now the F15 AESA. previous aircrafts like those mentioned were multirole it you stick to dassault’s definition.
You can’t perform simultaneous TF or sea search while scanning and engaging air threats with the aircrafts you quoted for instance. That’s swingrole or multirole but not omnirole.
I didn’t say that The RBE2 was superior to the captor M. They are two different radars with a different philosophy of use with respective pros and cons.
But then it is just the radar, which makes an aircraft omnirole and from all those mentioned Rafale has the least advanced radar.
And if I look at what Captor-M is able to do, I am not convinced it is really a generation behind a PESA or even APG63 V2 and similar first generation AESAs. It is able to do interleaving, although maybe not as quickly as a PESA, it is a 3 channel system which allows him to Track, Scan and look for enemy emissions at the same time. It also has an ECM capability using the third channel with Captor-D and it has controlled side lobe reduction.
I can accept omnirole as saying that the plane is able to replace all former aircraft in the French Air Force.
seahawkIt was not me that said the PESA of Rafale would be clearly superior to Captor-M.
And at least with the F-15E and the F-18D Night Attack versions there were the first omnirole planes in service. Both can take a ground radar picture and switch back to AA with in seconds (faster really) and the backseater can play with the stored radar image. He is able to get GPS coordinates or point the optical sensor towards it, even while the radar is in AA mode.
And even if we define omnirole as posted above, then the F-18 E7F is the omnirole fighter.
seahawkYou can’t interval radar modes as efficiently with a mech radar so no other mech sacn radar fighter can’t achieve the same performance. Scan rate is much faster so you can search in different places much more effectively allowing TF and air to air surveillance and tracking for instance. You can’t do it with a mech radar. F15E, typhoon and f16 block 52 can’t interlace modes fighter with in the way an Escan radar can do (SH block2, F16 block60 or rafale)
The example you mention is aborting the mission for intercept and then resume it. In some situation it would not be enough.
And in contrast the moveable antenna of the CAPTOR allows it to scan a larger area to reach side of the planes nose. And it has no range loss there either.
And CAPTOR is able to do a limited interleaving.
A PESA is not that much more advanced due to alos relying on one single radiofrequency source.
seahawkAgility is not important if you attack is following a predictable circle around your target. The canon intended for the AC-27J proved problematic, while the AC-27 was always meant to supplement the AC-130 and not replace it. A smaller gunship for anti insurgency missions.
seahawkTo operate a 36 fighter fleet, you do not even have to operate jet trainers. They could do without the Hawks and use different foreign service providers for fast jet training. You could have pilots trained with the US, Canada, Finland, France, UK, etc.
In fact this a very solid idea to get the “co-operate” knowledge of many leading Air Forces into your tiny group of pilots.
And if I look at the size of the country, 36 fighters is a rather small force.
seahawkWhat is the problem. Plenty countries offer their service to train foreign pilots.
seahawkPossibly a combination of many factors. The jags are old, they are not satisfied with the after sales support of the F-16s and they can make a nice gift to their long taime ally the UK.
If you consider the other arms deals in the region this one is indeed very modest. And although they have no dorect confrontation with Iran, the realtionship between both countries is not the best.
seahawkfalse, there are significant construction costs for the KC-767 too
not as much as the KC-30, but to say there are none is flat out wrong
in the end, so what?
the construction cost is included in the bid analysis, so if KC-30+milcon+fuel costs less than KC-767+milcon+fuel, then what are you complaining about?
and it’s more capable so it can do more with fewer planes
the ifara score, which is a FAR more sophisticated analysis than anything us armchair logistics experts can do, showed that the KC-30 was still more effective AS A FLEET
and to pfcem, before you come in whining about how ifara “isn’t fair” or how they “cheated”, i have one simple request: proof
you have repeated your claims thousands of times without ONCE offering up any evidence that they are true besides boeing press releases
If you look at the missions from Desert Storm you will see that the limiting factor was the number of available booms. fewer, but more capable KC-30, would not have compensated for the missing number of airframes as 3 KC-30 can not run 4 tanker tracks, even if they could off-load the fuel of 4 KC-767.
With the decreasing number of airframes in the US military and the often large areas of operation the time on station is important (KC-30 is better), but the number of available airframes running different tanker tracks is even more important.
Do not get me wrong, in general I think that the KC-30 is the better airframe, but for the needs the USAF it is not. The needs are tailor made for the KC767 if you want to say it that way.
Just the fact that they have not put much emphasis of the cargo capability of the KC-30. But the USAF does not seem to want that.
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