SchorschTuesday, N-G put out a news release saying their contract will create 45,000 U.S.jobs…that’s up 20,000 from last week.
Coincidence with all the Congressional complaining? I think not.:rolleyes:I wonder how they’ll get 20,000 French & German workers into the U.S.? 🙂
Trident, let us know if you hear of any N-G/EADS plans to annex a factory into Alabama.:D
Some people may have noticed, most obviously not.
Airbus is trying to put more workshare into the USD backyard. The KC-45A is the perfect opportunity.
In the end, the European Unions don’t win anything. Fortunately, they didn’t really realize yet.
SchorschI remember reading about the problems the Germans faced in Afghanistan with their Tornados. Loaded with the usual fuel tanks and stuff plus a recce pod, take off performance there seems less than inspiring.
The Tornado could need some additional thrust. But the EJ200 is probably the wrong engine.
The Tornado is not really well powered, but does an EJ200 help? Important to note is the thrust versus Mach and thrust versus altitude relationship, additionally the SFC under such circumstances. With full fuel and load only few aircraft are sporting machines. Add hot’n high and you get a sluggish aircraft. But it does the job.
The EJ200 was designed to bring the Eurofighter above Mach 1 without reheat. And that is something the Tornado never will achieve.
The Tornado can be helped by using an increased thrust version of the RB.199 or just opening the limits a bit. I guess the German Tornados are not using their wartime reserve.
SchorschThe EJ200 has been put forward as an upgrade path for the Panavia Tornado they are virtualy interchangeable.
I strongly doubt that any reasonable person has ever really proposed that.
While the question is what exactly the Tornado should do with that engine. All Tornados spent their duty in majority subsonic, supersonic speeds not really required. In combat missions low level counts, and I guess the RB.199 does not score bad on that one. Only exception would be the F.3, but that is supposed to be replaced completely by the Eurofighter.
Every engine is unique and optimised for one type of installation. Either engine and airframe/intake are developed together, or the airframe/intake is matched to the engine (actually happened a lot in the 50ies and 60ies). Fitting an engine into an existing airframe/intake is a truly stupid decision, especially when the design mission points are so different.
SchorschDelayliner
SchorschWell the fighter is still some time away from EIS , and will serve with the worlds Air forces and Navy’s for Decades to come . I am sure with USN’s interest aswell as USAF’s interest (increasing) to get into a joint program for DRADM kind of missle that we would soon see various A2A , A2g and Anti ship (anti radar aswell) missles comming out of the common platform for the DRADM .. Stealth pylons etc may also work … Rest assured if the JSF is feilded in even a fraction of the no.s it is being looked into then we would see many cheaky weapons being developed for its internal carriage .
When the shiny new systems become reality, will the USAF issue little dictionaries to get the things behind the abbreviations? The JWSIS*.
*:Joint Weapon System Identification System
SchorschI would have said the Typhoon was still smaller than the SH but I could be wrong (probably am) even if not by much. Maybe it just looks smaller because it is a different shape.
The Eurofighter weights about 11t empty according to internet sources, the SuperHornet is at 14.3t empty and equipped according to its manual. That the Eurofighter still has similar range, carries same amount of missiles and has better overall flight performance is another interesting example of combat aircraft design decisions. Not to get me wrong: the Eurofighter cannot land on an aircraft carrier, so this not meant as the next “bash the Hornet” thread.
And the SuperHornet has an impressive 30t MTOW.
SchorschNorway’s next fighter and the relative weight of its anti-air resp anti-ship capabilities will probably be determined by Mr. Medvedev’s first half year or year in office.
If the Russians are out for more games over fish and gas and oil up in the north the Eurofighter might actually see a comeback.
The Super Hornet is not a realistic contender.
Norway should take a little more time, see what Ivan is up to, see how the F-35 develops, see what EF2k T3 will be like… No real need to hurry. A little F-16 update might be an option in the meantime.
Norway as operator of a small fleet would profit from other nations in the area operating similar aircraft. That would basically mean Euofighter (Germany, UK) or JSF (Denmark, UK, Netherlands) as primary candidates. In terms of multi-role and anti-ship capabilities the Eurofighter should be capable. It lacks the stealth, while I doubt that the JSF can swallow a fully grown anti-ship missile in its belly.
P.S.: The only missiles that fits into the F-35 are AMRAAM, Sidewinder and Brimstone. None of them really useful for anti-ship attacks. Of course, being super-stealthy it can fly directly over the ship and drop a pair of good old SnakeEyes.
SchorschThe 767 is 85% Americam.
Twenty percent is a lot…
There is room for improvement…and it may have to be done to silence the growing number of critics of the deal.
The B767 is a dead program.
The tanker deal would have been a cash cow for Boeing, prolonging the 25 year old technology without the need to invest a single USD. Interestingly, Boeing could not compete with NG/EADS on the delivery schedule.
But if it had discouraged Boeing from entering the 777 into the comp., but then selected the A330 because of its close to 777 size, doesn’t that bark?
The original RFP much favored the 767, then they changed the RFP to allow for closer wingtips…because the Airbus team was going to drop its bid, because it could not have won with the original RFP.
I am not saying it was a wrong decision, I am just saying this isn’t clean no matter how you look at it. Too many questions unanswered.
According to this logic, Airbus had won when it had offered the A380. The USAF obviously wanted a medium size tanker and felt that the A330 is what it wants. The B777 is another huge step in size. If any B777 version can be used as tanker, it would be the B777-200LR, and that has an MTOW of 340t, 110t more than the A330 and 150t more than the B767.
SchorschOne can only repeat what have been said often enough: The KC-x is about 60 to 65% American content. That means, 35% is foreign content.
These 35% do not go directly into the pockets of the French unionists, but are in majority spent in Germany (center and aft fuselage, VTP, flaps), the UK (wings), Spain (HTP) and finally France (forward fuselage, cockpit, pylons). The French work share is lower because they have the final assembly.
The money that goes into Europe is compensated by the extra aircraft assembled in Mobile. These are the freighter versions of the A330-200 and -300. This aircraft has a market of at least 100 aircraft, potentially as much as 300 aircraft. With large American content Airbus is freed of the Euro-USD problem and can sell it even when the A330 as passenger version does not sell any more. Remember: the A300 was built for another 5 years as freighter after passenger version stopped delivery.
SchorschIf it was Tank vs. Tank with the Kontakt-5, Thermal/Nightvisionit, DU Rounds, and 2 Mile reach it would have, remember most of Iraq’s Tanks (T-55/62/64 and 72) were destroyed by L.G.B.’s/Hellfire missiles by F-16/18 Apacheys.
Sure, although they would have probably blown up few Abrams to restore some pride. Other than that, the effect would have been less than meaningful.
Well considering the vast majority of Iraqi tanks were T-55s or T-55 based and of course that most Iraqi armour was destroyed by airpower…
This level of agreement is irritating. I guess using its own armor defensive against an enemy with a huge information advantage and guaranteed local superiority, the sophistication of the individual tank becomes pretty much meaningless.
The GDR largely consisted of modernized T-55, too. It looks like their equipment wasn’t so much better than that of the Iraq in late 1990.
SchorschAirbus getting under control of Russia is equally probable as Boeing coming under the control of China. All American aviation companies are traded free on the stock market and through capital investment companies any nation can buy itself into it. Europe has recognized the potential threat by non-EU “investors” to its strategic industries and has modified the laws. Hence, I don’t see a problem.
SchorschMaybe they make an agreement with France about particpating in a fleet of A330-200 MRTT.
SchorschYes, correct. The whole aiming complex, including the RP-21 radar were taken from MIG-21MF.
I believe Russians knew very well. They simply didn’t give damn or had different priorities.
The truth probably is a mixture of “can” and “will”. The Soviets knew that Syria not exactly was a safe place for latest Russian technology, and that was in the beginning of the 70ies the not really mature MiG-23M. Giving away those was not acceptable, the Arab nations already leaked other aircraft to the West (think of Have Doughnot).
The Syrians later got MiG-23MF and (if I remeber correctly) also MiG-23ML, but that was later. Large part of the “failure” of Soviet aircraft in the conflicts against Israel can indeed be blamed to the Syrians themselves (esp. in 1982). The GDR air force hat many aircraft in inventory Syria trashed in 1982. The MiG-29 the got did differ too significantly from those the Iraq got.
However, the Soviets could deliver very useful air defense assets and they did. The SA-6 and SA-2 did cause considerably headache for the Israelis in 1973. For those systems the deployment of “advisors” was less critical. I once read that the Egyptians were unable to put an SA-2 site apart and together again in acceptable time. The MiG-25R were also operated by the Soviets, as long as it was reasonably safe.
The Middle East was a pulverkeck since we can think. Both superpowers did not want to threaten the others superpower’s influential zone, and in case of the USA not to disturb the other Arab nations too much. The USA could have delivered F-111 or other very capable aircraft in the early 1970ies.
Tank-wise even latest T-72 models wouldn’t have changed the game in Iraq in 1991 too much. Against Iran even less so.
SchorschSome actually have but they quickly transferred to regular Block 5 or 10 OCU as soon as they became available.. That alone is irrelevant to the fact that such monkey model actually existed and was openly put on offer to ‘less reliable allies’.
In case of the F-16/79 and F-20 it was not really the “less reliable allies” but the “less wealthy allie” or the “politically more problematic allie”. Selling newest weapons to countries that are not exactly popular with their neighbors might cause political damage, probably a consideration the Russians also made (sometimes).
If the Soviets were somehow in touch in reality they knew that an AA-3 equipped MiG-23MS (which basically is a MiG-23 airframe with MiG-21MF(?) avionics) in the hands of a Syrian pilot and under control of the Syrian air defense system will probably not really make the Israelis shiver.
SchorschI think that the country that can support a sustained ground campaign would be the “winner”.
Probably of the key publ. aviation forum crowd, but that’s it. If any of the troops decides to hold a certain area of terrain, preferably mountain and/or urban region, is reasonably well equipped and supported and has officers and soldiers with courage and some reasonable amount of boldness, the air campaign wouldn’t change the outcome.
I actually agree that helicopters are of key importance. And gathering intelligence is even more important. That can however be accomplished with aircraft that even lack a jet engine.
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