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I think most people on this thread, possibly with the exception of Garry, have basically forgotten that the FA-22 was downselected for its ability to operate in almost all air-air environments – not just ones which comprise saturation air-defence by Russian-made Mig-31’s, Su-35’s and S-300’s. How many wars has the USAF fought directly against the Russian Air Force anyway? None. So perhaps, taking the fight all the way to Moscow wasn’t really behind the idea of the project – but as it seems obvious, just the nicest bit of kit going for MOST hostile scenarios that might necessitate FA-22 inclusion.

Anyway, the ’22 isn’t without its drawbacks, the same as any aircraft, and these are expense, and the lack of real A2G capability (for the short term at least).

As for stealth, its not all its cracked up to be, the same as pretty much every other technology, since every action results in a reaction by opposing and competiting industries. An aircraft might be able to return only around 0.0001% of its own “silhouette-RCS” back to the target as true RCS, but this does not eliminate the ability of sensitive radars to detect radiation being deflected off surrounding air molecules or water-vapour (slipstream, air-turbulence, water-vapour displacement etc. may be exploited in the future).
Since the electromagnetic spectrum is very wide, and that doesn’t even include infrasound, one wonders just how much background and actively deployable radiation is out there that will simply negate “modern” stealth capabilities, forcing the creation of ever wider-band low observability. Sorry, but no Klnigon Bird’s of Prey just yet.

The Turkish military has illegally occupied the northern half of the Republic of Cyprus for 31 YEARS! and that hasn’t stopped most of Europe selling one form of armament or another to Turkey. Cyprus has no oil, hence its citizens and sovereignty were always going to fall well beneath Turkey on the list of international priorities, 3 UN resolutions and all. They’re even exporting tourism to northern Cyprus now. I think that adequately illuminates global standards on arms sales, don’t you think?

ps. Cyprus is reported to have procured at least one new-build maritime operations and surveillance fixed wing aircraft. Does anyone have any newer information, as I have had no success finding out the type or payload. The info was reported in the Guardian newspaper last year, and the Government tender expired last September.

I would really appreciate any help anyone has on this. I know there has been some interest in UAV’s, and the BN-2B Defender is already operated (x2) one with FLIR.

What you are talking about is:

CLOS (Command Line of Sight) or
SACLOS (System and Command Line of Sight)

These methods of man-in-the-loop operation are used in almost all anti-tank guided weapons, either with a wire, laser or beam-radiation in most cases to provide telemtry back and forth from weapon to operator. You can also find such methods in air-launch missiles, such as the AGM-64 Maverick, where the weapon is being fired at a static or rather slow-moving target (hence such systems can cope well with a 2D target environment, and possibly slow or hovering aircraft.

SAM’s are used in a 3D target environment, against high-speed and manouvering targets where electronic warfare can be used to disrupt man-in-the-loop telemtry. Weather such as cloud make optical guidance of a SAM just as impossible as for a human, who would never be able to steer the weapon on to target at high closing speeds .etc.

It makes more sense to let the ground base station (battery fire-controller) and missile do as much of the work as possible, so the operator only has to designate a traget and push a button. It is also an advantage to make the missile autonomous or fire-and-forget.

There is a whole global industry for defeating speed traps (laser / em bands / optical flash), with some amazingly sophisicated models available on the open market for just $200-300. I’ve seen wide-band laser-diffusers, directional RWR, LWR, audio-visual heads-up warning, GPS positioning with wireless website update, backflash optical-trigger flashing (in the x million candela range) and ambient 360-degree band scanners!

Some of this stuff is so cheap you wonder how outfitting attack helicopters could be so expensive?

Tis pretty good biking / 4×4 in Cyprus, Weather is great April – October, Paphos straight through to Nicosia is one giant freeway. A lot of funky offroading and the annual Cyprus Rally is quite funny. Once got an L200 jammed between two olive trees near Curium, had to tow it out with a tractor….

Those antique Ventian (?) fortifications should really be a National Heritage site by now, certainly not an AA position. I do not know if Kyrenia castle was damaged in 1974.

Thank you both for your help.

Fantasma, I agree, the picture looks somewhat odd, though I have no way to prove or disprove it in context. The source was a BBC archive page, which would be a somewhat bizzare setting for a mislabelled (or otherwise) image. As far as I can tell, AP denotes Associated Press, but I could be wrong.

From what I have been able to gather at acig, the Phaethon packed either or both 40mm / 20mm, though no photos seem to exist on the internet, nor on any publication I known of to confirm that. I cannot verify the exact circumstances of the downed F-100 (s), but I will certainly work on it.

Thanks.