It’s had teething problems, but it’s not been more troublesome than the KC-767 was. Look at how late that was entering service in Italy.

Looking at who’s ordered or selected the A330 MRTT, I see some customers who have very high technical standards, & no prejudice in favour of European aircraft – & looking at the list of customers for other current tankers, I see countries with obvious biases in selection, or a strong interest in keeping down initial purchase price even at the cost of capacity.

It is amusing how easily this could be adapted to be a post about the F-35. (or for that matter many other programs)

Delays and teething problems are all too common in defense programs. As frustrating as they are they don’t mean that the end result won’t be good.

For just one good example look at the C-17.

Useless for Greece, not useless in general… That means not fitting their doctrine, structure and budget… When was it last time Greeks needed to penetrate anyone’s air defenses to strike a high valued target? Was it ever?

Now you are an expert on what Greece needs too?

Your shtick is really getting old.

The Dutch F-16 replacement budget is adjusted for inflation every year.
In 2008, SAAB offered 85 Gripen NG aircraft to the RNethAF for a sum (remember inflation-adjustment) that is now thought to be sufficient for 37 F-35 aircraft, while offering 100% offset orders.

Which Gripen NG was it? The lighter, cheaper, one that could carry more?

A look at actual signed contracts from the last year or two clearly shows that the Gripen NG is nowhere near that cheap.

Define ‘military assets’. Unless your definition excludes some of the best soldiers in the world, Denmark does have military assets permanently on Greenland – the Sirius Patrol.

It is pretty obvious at this point that he is just making it up as he goes.

Nobody but Canada operates over cold sparsely-populated regions therefor only he, a Canadian, could possibly understand what it takes to operate in the north.

Forget about Alaska. Ignore Norwegian, Danish, UK, and US operations over the North Sea, Iceland(Operation Ignition), and the Arctic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Air_Policing

None of that counts. Only Canada flies over the cold. Only Canadians know.

Typical fail by mixing Europe with EU. I have seen several figures for EU alone, ranging from 49 to 52%.

A fail indeed, but not on my part. My original premise was always “Europe.” You are the one that introduced the “EU” into the discussion.

A frequently repeated myth. But Russia is not the typical single commodity economy like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Nigeria.
Let us see few examples of percentage of mineral products on total exports:

We are one again left to wonder where you get your numbers.

Others have already introduced data showing over 70% of Russia’s exports are hydrocarbons and lubricants. That is more diverse than Saudi Arabia, but is still an extreme case of dependency on a single set of commodities. (and Russia lacks Saudi Arabia’s massive holdings of liquid assets that allow it to weather any short-term oil price drops)

That is greatly exaggerated. The dependancy of Russian economy on crude oil and/or EU is moderate, at best. There are dozens of countries whose economy is impacted by the oil prices to much greater extent than Russia, except they are much less interesting to talk about.

BTW, you wouldn’t call Australia a single commodity economy, would you?

This is one of those truly classic internet moments. :D:D:D

We are in the midst of a full-scale collapse of Russia’s economy and currency, triggered primarily by falling oil prices, and yet you choose today to argue that Russia’s dependency on oil is “moderate, at best.” :very_drunk:

Russia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate the most since the nation’s 1998 default, making the announcement in the middle of the night in Moscow as policy makers seek to douse investor panic and stem a ruble rout.

The central bank increased the key rate to 17 percent from 10.5 percent effective today, it said in a statement on its website. Policy makers gathered for an unscheduled meeting after a one-point increase on Dec. 11.

“This decision is aimed at limiting substantially increased ruble depreciation risks and inflation risks,” the bank said in the statement.

Russia’s central bank raised interest rates for the sixth time in 2014 after more than $80 billion spent from its reserves failed to stop a 49 percent selloff of the ruble, the world’s worst-performing currency this year. President Vladimir Putin, whose incursion into Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March prompted the U.S. and its allies to strike back with sanctions, this month called for “harsh” measures to deter currency speculators.

“While such drastic tightening measures will inflict more pain on the economy, we have been arguing for a while that it is not about preventing recession, but a full-scale financial turmoil caused by the precipitous ruble fall,” said Piotr Matys, a currency strategist at Rabobank International in London.
Ruble Drop

The ruble yesterday tumbled past 60 for the first time on record, losing 9.7 percent to 64.4455 a dollar. That extended its plunge this year to 49 percent, which overtook the Ukrainian hryvnia’s drop. Brent, the grade of oil traders look at for pricing Russia’s main export blend, slipped 79 cents, or 1.3 percent, to end the session at $61.06 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.

Russia derives about 50 percent of its budget revenue from oil and natural gas taxes. As much as a quarter of gross domestic product is linked to the energy industry, Moody’s Investors Service estimated in a Dec. 9 report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-15/russia-increases-key-interest-rate-to-17-to-stem-ruble-decline.html

Ok, so here is an idea. Read the article above and try to understand what it is telling you. Carefully consider this new information and ask yourself how your theory of how the world works could be modified to bring it in accordance with how the world is actually working.

:eagerness:

That is understandable. I don’t comment on whether it’s good or bad, just stating the obvious.
BTW, care to elaborate on that “stupid” emoticon in your response?

The idea that Canada’s trade with the US amounts to dependency or reliance on a “single vendor/client.”

The US and Canadian economies share a level of integration that is almost unique in the world, behaving in many respects as a single giant economy.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

The United States and Canada have the largest trade relationship in the world. In 2012, U.S. merchandise trade with Canada consisted of US$324.2 billion in imports and US$292.4 billion in exports. The trade relationship between the two countries crosses all industries and is vital to both nations’ success as each country is the largest trade partner of the other.

The trade across Ambassador Bridge, between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, alone is equal to all trade between the United States and Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_trade_relations

This is nothing whatsoever like many other trade relationships where one country (Russia) provides one primary export (hydrocarbon fuels and lubricants) to one primary customer (Europe).

The idea of a major trade disruption between the US and Canada is inconceivable at this point. For better or worse the economic futures of the US and Canada are closely coupled.

It depends on how you take it. It’s not common to refer to EU as a single economy.. If EU was a single economy, then German exports to France or Italy would logically cease to be exports. That might change one day, true,but we’re not there yet..

Of course it is quite common to refer to the “EU economy” or “European economy.” Google that and see if you get any hits.

The various European states remain independent, as are the US and Canada, but due to their close integration in most respects they behave as a single large economy. (as do the US and Canada) That doesn’t mean individual regions/provinces/states won’t show variation.

They were much cheaper to run than the aircraft they replaced. And targeting pods made them good enough to replace complicated weapon systems built into the older aircraft that forced them to be one-dimensional role players whereas F-16’s are Multirole. And they were built using a common engine cores for the HI-LO mix, which substantially simplified the engine logistics food chains. And they were a jump in maneuverability compared to previous fighters they replaced.

F-35 essentially takes the progression a step further.

How many times have we heard that most of the missions the USAF (and NATO) flies are air policing and third-world pickup truck plinking? An F-16 is more than sufficient to fill out the force structure until the F-35 takes over and they won’t lack for things to do in that time. Personally I would also welcome seeing some Scorpions or a similar armed trainer aircraft added to the fleet to specialize in the COIN and possibly air policing roles, freeing higher-end assets to focus on what they do best.

Re your sig:

This sort of reasoning always advantages the liar.

Nic

indeed…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation