A bull**** story, The set-up was meant for the Tiffies to be victorious. That is a DACT and you set-up the training mission so that the Blue side has a very decent chance of winning. Tiffies were on the blue side.

The cut is ok, if they cut the commitments as well. If the UK leaves Afghanistan, it does not need more helicopters. If it limits its operational reach to Europe and the few overseas islands, it does not need 2 carriers. It does not need any F-35s.

Most European countries could save money on their armed forces if they would cut commitments the same way. No european country has the resources to play world power.

Before you ask, I am in favour of cutting the German Armend forces by 30-50%, if we return to our stricter policies on out of area operations.

Block 25s though. the least capable Block of the C model and Romania will be the only user of that verion, when the US retires their Block 25s.

Well, General, if 1:1 replacement would be the issue, restarting the A310 would be just perfect, as it mirrors the KC-135R offload/range and ground foorprint just beautifully. And for 400 tanker a restart, best in an U.S. location, would even be economcially viable.

Or, and that is just my humble opinion, you should better lobby for a stealth flying wing tanker, General, because F-22 and F-35 will be only half as mission effective if you have to position your airliner legacy tankers outside the enemy long-range radar horizon for the final refuelling, or risk giving away your colleagues ingress vectors.

But that new tanker has to play the role of a true multirole platform (tanker, pax & ULD transport, NCW node, boost-phase BMD missile carrier, &c), plus the logical replacement for all the Dash 8/135/707/720 based electronic aircraft. And that makes the larger 330 more interesting than the 767.

Airbus does not want to do this. They are not willing to offer an airframe that fits the need of the customer, and are instead using political moves to force a way too large aircraft on the USAF.

Yes, Airbus should have offered the A310, but they did not, so it is obvious that the logical winner can only be the 767.

It is a strategic discussion.

F-16, F-18 and you will depend on the goodwill of the Americans, which is risky, if you look at geopolitics.

Grippen is a great plane but as too many US components.

EF. Overpriced, no AESA, not good at AG. Partnernations not really supporting it, but they would get full partner status. A possible option.

Rafale – excellent plane. Only a little expensive.

MiG-35 – modern, cheap and from the trustworthy ally Russia. Also the Navy will fly the MiG-29K so it is in service any way. – The best choice.

Good move. Germany does not need the planes and we can spent the money on useful things, like social security or such things.

Now, we just need to cut the remaining F-4 wing and all Tornado wings, so that we get rid of a few airbases and many unneeded personnel. 143 Eufis is enough for Germany, we do not need one plane more.

years ago i was told a story during a tour of heathrows maintenance department of how a Boeing 767 pilot had a problem with his FMS and it told him that the ground was actually lower than it really was. The guy came in at high angle of attack and crumpled the front nose section of the fuselage.

suffice to say the aluminium skin could not be repaired they had to patch it up and the pilot apparently took danger money and flew back to the US or some place to have the skins replaced or something.

just a story how its not always easier to repair ali. yeah you can use the 1inch rule of thumb and drill a hole 1″ from the crack tip to arrest cracks or rivet somethign new into position.

Also from experience at college i know not all aluminium alloys used in Aero are easy to weld.

so there is a bit of difficulty in repairing both types of structures…

(feeling very vulnerable at this stage as i have no memories of lectures on metalic repair!)

That why I said patching solutions. Once you are at a qualified repair facility it will be a different process but in the end there always will be ways to repair it.
The quick fix could become harder though.

And there is a healthy chance that the testing will show that they can save some weight with future batches.