OMG!! This is trully endless and pointless theme to discuss “this aircraft is the best”. If someone say “This aircraft is better than this”, yes, it is true, but it is very limited true in the authors limited universe. Better for what? What mission profile? With what weapons? In what conditions? In what costs? Operated by which country? Against which enemy? How the decision affects domestic industry and its ability to produce the domestic products in the future? What about the future upgrades (I still remember the US hestication to share the JSF souce codes with ists biggest development partner and investor)? What about the standardization of the used equipment and spare parts in the specific country? Etc…

Does this “retired Commodore RN” considered at least half of this questions before make any statement and does he put them into the connections not limited with his own wishes? I highly doubt so. I get is as his personal opinion and in this form I accept it. As one of the hundreds different personal opinions of the people on the same or higher military level than he is.

Who ever said that there is the need to wait till 6th generation? The screenshot, that I posted, shows the way of using the future anti aircraft UCAVs wich I agree with (because none is currently in service) and that screenshot was taken from the presentation, that describes the Japanese vision of the future 6th generation manned fighter. Is it clear now?

Well, lets say that you prefer very shor term goals without any vision to the future (with your suggestions).

Remember that EH-101, A400M and Lynx are at least in part the British products. It means that by keeping them in service they also keep a lot of research and development, production and maitenance jobs, together with keeping the domestic abilities and knowledge in the aviation industry. Cancell them, you will save a few bucks in the MoD budget, but as the other causality you will have a lot of new unemloyed educated people and the country can also loose the ability to design and manufacture the state-of-the-art aviation products forever.

A400M, despite delayed and overbudget (caused primarily by previous EADS management) has twice or maybe triple the lifetime ahead compared to C-17 or C-130. Its something like: will you buy the classic and cheap light bulb, or will you invest a lot more money to the latest LED bulb which will live hundred times logner and requires ten times less energy (despite it costs a lot more)?

As was said before, for the SAR and ASW role the EH-101 is perfectly suitable. Especially for the SAR it can be a bit bigger than required, but to have the three engines to keep you alive over the sea in bad weather is really a good feeling.

And the current savings in RAF – well, thats another story. I dont have anything against the idea of retirement of Harrier and Tornado fleet, but it should be done together with the annoucement that there was placed the contract for 300 production derivates of the Taranis UCAV demonstrator. Scrap the RAF fleet to the numbers lower than in the 1st world war is… definitely the crazy and mad!

was there really an internal bay for the MiG-1.44? most pictures show that there’s no panel underneath. only pylons

Yes, 1.44 demonstrator has the internal bay, however it was covered by the pannel. It means no weapons bay doors. They should be mounted later, but this never happened.

Also, I heard we dont equip the Falkland Typhoons with AMRAAM for fear of offedning the Argies. Dont know how true this is though.

During the time of the Tornadoes F.3 they were equipped with the four Skyflash and four AIM-9L missiles, later replaced by the combination of the AIM-120 and AIM-132 plus fully armed BK-27 cannon so I cant see the reasonable argument why not to equip the Typhoons. However:

RAF chiefs have enraged Argentina by sending four of their most sophisticated superjets to the Falklands.

The Ł60million Typhoons are already posted on the South Atlantic isles after slipping out of the UK last week.

They are now the most sophisticated war jets in the southern hemisphere. Argentina, who went to war with us in 1982 over the Falklands, is understood to have made a formal protest.

The Typhoon can be used as a fighter and a bomber. It flies at twice the speed of sound and is far more manoeuvrable than the Tornado it replaces.

Its missile system even knows the target the pilot is looking at using helmet sensors. A senior RAF source said: “The Argentines are unhappy but it’s our duty to provide the best possible defence of the Falklands.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2648901/Argie-fury-at-jets-on-Falklands.html

I must admit that on the all photos that I saw so far they have only three fuel tanks and no AAM missiles attached.

A squadron could get there overnight with air to air refueling.

No. Remember that it is the 14 500 km distance. Only the overflight of the four jets took 18 netto hours of flight, *months* of planning, required 10 support aircrafts with the total crew of 95 men and total costs raised to millions Ł. Only four jets. Its not that simple.

You mean a side-array (in Blue)? I would have thought location (in Red) would have been more suitable, for the X-band.

The problem is, that there is not the same hatch on the opposite side – there is the cannon.

On request – YF-23A added.

Someone speaking about the fully detailed color 5 view reconstruction? Soon! 😉