The RAAF’s fleet of C130H’s will be retired at the end of this month after serving since 1978, all a part of the current governments cutbacks.

Lets see… 12 C-130As (A97-205 through -216) which were delivered 1958-59.

These were replaced by 12 C-130Es (A97-159 through -190) which were delivered in 1966.

These were replaced by 12 C-130Hs which were delivered: A97-001 through -003 7/78, -004 through -006 8/78, -007 through -009 9/78, and -010 through -012 10/78.

Then you get 12 C-130J-30s (A97-440 through -468) which were delivered in 2000 AND 6 C-17… and you say that finally retiring the C-130Hs 12 years after their replacements began arriving is due to bad government policy?

No… it is simply that the government has spent all it can afford on worn-out old airframes, and now that Afghanistan is winding down they can finally stop extending the long-postponed retirement of aircraft that were supposed to have been deleted 10 or so years ago!

Just four UNSC permanent members(China excluded). Add Canada to the engine maker list.

Japan can make more dependable and reliable jet engine than China does and Japan is not called a jet engine power.

P&WC does not make supersonic military jet engines… and they are a subsidary of the US Pratt & Whitney (P&WC stands for Pratt & Whitney Canada), so they can be considered just a satellite plant.
:diablo:

Barham, Barrosa, Bellona, Berwick, Blake, Brave, Briton…

Remember, the F-117 was designed in the 1970s, and the (relatively) limited materials & computing capability of the time meant that it was targeted specifically at the then-current Soviet ground-based fire-control radar wavelengths… radar of different wavelengths were less-affected by the facets & materials used.

By the time of the Serbian operations it was known that different fire-control frequencies were also in use, and that techniques of using search radars (which used very different wavelengths/frequency bands) to localize an F-117 for IR & optical fire-control units to target were being developed, so they added the EA-6Bs and so on.

Political restrictions forcing them to use the same ingress/egress routes made things even worse.

Our current stealth designs are effective against a broader range of radar wavelengths/frequency bands, but they still cannot be made “LO” against all radar wavelengths/frequency bands.

There are those (like myself) who didn’t know what aircraft type you were discussing… as the only association “Nomad” and aircraft had to me was the Vietnam-era Aussie light transport built by GAF.

So, for those like me:

The Northrop Gamma 2F was an attack bomber derivative of the Northrop Gamma transport aircraft, developed in parallel with the Northrop Gamma 2C, (of which one was built, designated the YA-13 and XA-16. The Gamma 2F had a revised tail, cockpit canopy and wing flaps compared with the Gamma 2C, and was fitted with a new semi-retractable undercarriage. It was delivered to the United States Army Air Corps for tests on 6 October 1934, and after modification, including fitting with a conventional fixed undercarriage, was accepted by the Air Corps. A total of 110 aircraft were ordered as the A-17 in 1935.

The resulting A-17 was equipped with perforated flaps, had fixed landing gear with partial fairing. It was fitted with an internal fuselage bomb bay that carried fragmentation bombs and well as external bomb racks.

Northrop developed a new undercarriage, this time completely retractable, producing the A-17A variant. This version was again purchased by the Army Air Corps, who placed orders for 129 aircraft. By the time these were delivered, the Northrop Corporation had been taken over by Douglas Aircraft Company, export models being known as the Douglas Model 8.

The A-17 entered service in February 1936, and proved a reliable and popular aircraft. However, in 1938, the Air Corps decided that attack aircraft should be multi-engined, rendering the A-17 surplus to requirements.

From 14 December 1941, A-17s were used for coastal patrols by the 59th Bombardment Squadron (Light) on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.

In June 1940, 93 ex-USAAC aircraft were purchased by France, and refurbished by Douglas, including being given new engines. Not having been delivered before the fall of France, 61 were taken over by the British Purchasing Commission for the RAF and given the name Nomad. They were assessed as being obsolete and sent to South Africa for use as trainers. The remaining 32 aircraft from the French order were transferred to Canada, where they were also used as advanced trainers and target tugs.

The last remaining A-17s, used as utility aircraft, were retired from USAAF service in 1944.

rafmatt, I’ve seen it before on this forum and we’ll see it again.

Most frequently on photos of aircraft doing things they shouldn’t, which then generate mass cries of “Photoshop fake”… until someone comes up with the same photo having been printed in a book back in the 19706, 60s, or 50s… and then someone comes up with an official report where the pilot was reprimanded for doing what the photo shows him doing.

The arrogant “know-it-alls” here never seem to learn to bide their time and do research before posting their cries of “Fake”.

These two links have some of the pics I took during the CV-61/CV-64/BB-63/CGN-9 joint formation and 16″ gun-firing photo-op just south of the Aleutian Islands in November 1986, which is where that photo of New Jersey firing comes from (that was taken from the island, by someone else… all mine were from the flight deck, like the pic posted below).

http://s22.beta.photobucket.com/user/Bager1968/library/misc%20ships/Norpac%201986

More here, mixed in with a bunch of other things:
http://s22.beta.photobucket.com/user/Bager1968/library/misc%20ships/Battleships

I’ve got a bunch more that I haven’t scanned in yet.

Cheers!

USS Ranger (CV 61) and USS Long Beach (CGN 9) – May 1987
[IMG]

Yeah, I was there when that photo was taken… two decks below the flight deck, and between the two deck-edge elevators aft of the island.

You see the balcony on the sponson section just forward of the elevator and above the crane? My shop was just inboard of that, with the aft bulkhead of my shop being the one you see!