Hey SOC, have you seen any of the new Halo 3 screenshots? Look simply amazing, can’t wait until i can afford a 360!

Such a shame to see the last of a great warbird. I think the USN would have been better off with a Tomcat 2 rather than the F-18E/F, ah well.

No system is perfect, but at least now if you loose your card a thief doesn’t just have to learn your signature on the back.

I would strongly advocate the purchase of the FB-22 for the RAF, as it would satisfy our requirements very well. The down side would be that we would have the same problems with tech transfer and operational sovereignty that we had with the F-35.

Possibly, but as i understand it they home in on a specific GPS location, so unless the ship was stationary you would miss.

Then again, I expect Brimstone and the Paveway IV could be used as anti shipping weapons if need be?

Sferrin

I see your point about the Ferrari. If someone buys an aircraft, then they are not automatically entitled to the design, but the UK is not simply buying the F-35, we are helping to develop it.

The problem is that we entered the deal on the condition that there would be a full tech transfer and we would get soverignty over our own aircraft. This was fine for a long time with the Clinton administration, but then the Bush camp changed the deal because they didn’t like it. Now, a government has the right to withdraw from agreements as it chooses, but i ask you, what would you expect the US government to do if the situation were reversed?

The deal we made ( and the US was fine with) is no longer being honoured, so I think that the UK gripe with the project is perfectly legitimate.

My point was that I think that national governments should make sure that some of their most important industries remain owned by their own country.

The USA just did this last week with the Dubai ports deal, I wondered if people thought this was a good or a bad thing?