Steve TouchdownOriginally posted by Arthur
Thumbs up Aditya. And i’m not that good a spotter, really – Steve undoubtedly has a far bigger log than me (as in list of aircraft seen 😀 ), it’s just that i’m just one of a far bigger group of planespotters which are… well, a bit more experimental in our quest.
What he means is he’s been to prison too! 😀
Steve TouchdownAmen to all you’ve just said: I couldn’t agree more, Aditya.
Best regards
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownI know exactly who Phil Camp and Simon Watson are: which is precisely why I asked you the question that I did. You must be feeling extremely defensive if you feel my asking that is “flak”.
It matters not who I am: I’m not using my name as “proof” to back-up a wild and completely ill-informed statement.
12 a/c isn’t my estimation: go do some research.
And Fulcrums took part: bad research again on your part.
Steve TouchdownOriginally posted by Transall
Thanks Steve,C.16-20 is different from what AFM’s booklet said. I believe they said that PS001 was going to be C.16-04.
Cheers, Transall.
No probs, Transall 😉
I think everybody expected that, so I too was surprised.
I won’t post the actual image here (it’s BIG!) but this hi-res is a clincher:
http://www.eurofighter.com/medialibrary/media/download.asp?FileName=highres_EFIPA4FF2.jpg
Saludos!
Steve ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownAnother shot at Getafe:
Steve TouchdownThese pics relate to Distiller’s post about IPA4/PS001.
Transall, looks like the serial on this is C.16-20 if you’re keeping track of all the Typhoons coming on-stream.
No matter what you think of Eurofighter, you’ve got to admire the PR dept!
Cheers
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
Steve Touchdown😀 Cheers, Arthur…I owe you one for those lists: once I’ve got through with what I’m working on just now I shall see what I can dig up myself from the land of colossal blondes and ice cold pilsner.
Couldn’t agree more about the missed opportunities…always chasing the one that got away 😉
Cheers again
Steve
Steve TouchdownOriginally posted by Visitor q
Like phil camp said, although they are better trained than NATO, have less flexibility due to equipment limitations.
And Phil Camp’s credentials regarding this are what exactly? If I post that Arthur Hubers said NATO are better trained then so what?! And better trained in what respect? More flight hours? Probably. Quantity doesn’t mean quality. It also pre-supposes that NATO training is standardised, which is complete and utter nonsense. Here’s an essay for you, Belgian AF and Turkish AF pilot training: discuss.
From what I’ve read so far about the A2A scenario only the details of one have been mentioned:
4 USAF F-15s were flying CAP to defend the AFS itself from a mixed attacking force of 12 IAF aircraft. It was reported that an IAF MiG-27 “bombed” the airfield so succeeded in avoiding the CAP.
Apart from that, what else do we actually know? Were the IAF a/c allowed to approach from any direction at any altitude? Were the USAF Eagles operating with fighter controllers/GCIs or relying solely on their own radars?
There are so many variables and unknowns it becomes pointless even considering the reality of the situation. I don’t think you’d need to be any sort of tactician to work out that 4 Eagles would have a pretty tough job defending an airfield from a competent attacking force of 12 a/c: the attackers would always know, within certain parameters, exactly where the CAP was being performed.
What would be really interesting would be to see the full results and break down of every scenario that was staged.
Tally-ho!
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownNot really any clearer, but the news about F3 funding is definitely worth a mention in any case:
France Helps Dassault Aviation with Singapore Military Jet Competition
The French government has flown to the aid of Dassault Aviation, signing a E659 million ($850 million, UKpound 441 million) contract that allows the aircraft-maker to build an advanced version of its Rafale jet, which is competing in Singapore’s tender for new fighter planes.
Singapore’s $2 billion competition for 20 combat aircraft is a test of Dassault’s ability to sell the Rafale into export markets. The French plane is pitched against the Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing’s F-15 Eagle.
The signing with the French procurement office last Tuesday allows Dassault to go to the Singapore Air Show this week with a contract in hand that assures financing for work on a Rafale F3 fighter-bomber model being offered to the Asian city state.
Dassault’s chief executive, Charles Edelstenne, said the company’s share of the development contract would be E457 million. Thales, which builds the radar, will snare E100 million, with the rest shared between electronics company Sagem and missile builder MBDA.
The contract comes as welcome news to Dassault, which faces uncertainty over a planned order for 59 Rafales for the French Air Force, which had been due last year.
Because of budgetary problems, successive governments postponed Rafale orders, which led to obsolescence of some of the electronic parts designed a decade ago.
The contractors and the government have been locked in a dispute over who should pay for replacing the outdated electronics and testing new parts, estimated to cost E200 million to E300 million.
The government is negotiating over financing the replacements, but that will probably involve a trade-off, which could lead to postponing orders for 11 or 12 jets in the batch of 59 aircraft.
The defence budget runs to 2008 and an amount has already been earmarked for the Rafale programme, so deferrals would be pushed into the next budget.
Dassault insists the production line needs an output rate of one and a half jets a month to be viable, and previous plans had been for two planes a month. Deferrals would hit revenues and increase unit costs.
Edelstenne pours scorn on critics of the Rafale, saying if France had joined the four-country Eurofighter programme, it would have cost 40 percent more to buy the same number of aircraft, because of cost overruns due to Eurofighter’s technical hitches.
By Pierre Tran, Sunday Business, London Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownOriginally posted by Arthur
Steve,
Poland only got 19 MiG-19P’s and 14 PM’s in the late 1950s. At first these were deployed with mixed regiments at Mierzecice (ever been at that base when it was still the Polish AMARC? Great sight!) and Krzesiny. When MiG-21F-13s started arriving in numbers all went to the 28PLM at Slupsk. They flew until 1976 with those, i’ve got a few nice pictures somewhere with these MiG-19s on the same flightline as a regiment of Su-15s during a deployment… aaaaah!
Anyway, identified borts for the Polish MiG-19s are:
MiG-19P:
720, 724, 726, 727, 728, 730, 739, 1008, 1011, 1012, 1021, 1024
MiG-19PM:
904, 905, 908, 910, 915, 916, 917
Besides the three preserved ones in Poland (you’re not the only one to have seen them all, obviously 😉 ). A fourth one should be surviving at Swidwin, probably on the ranges. This info (and more, in Polish unfortunately) at http://www.sanko.wroclaw.pl/mig19/ramki_3.html Very informative, including full unit breakdowns and a nice tab with operational MiG-19s throughout the years.The Czech Avia S.105s were indeed MiG-19S, they built 103 of those (got the full c/n list if you’re interested). In addition, they recieved 13 Soviet-built MiG-19S, 26 MiG-19Ps and 40 MiG-19PMs making a pretty impressive MiG-19 fleet in that country. A lot of these later went to Bulgaria when MiG-21MF’s started arriving. Don’t know if the Soviet-built MiG-19s were called S.105 though.
Cheers, Arthur 🙂
well I figured that you’d probably been up to Kolobrzeg by now, but I know it’s a wee bit out of the way for most “normal” folk! 😀 We investigated the old Soviet Mi-8 base that’s in that area a couple of years ago too: still plenty of buildings and dispersals/shelters but only ultra and microlights there these days, sadly.
I didn’t know that there was still a fourth one possibly surviving: did that come from the link you posted (cool site by the way, ta!) or from other info? Robin Polderman had a look at the Miroslawiec and Nadarzyce ranges last year, but didn’t make mention of any MiG-19, although I do know he wasn’t able to get too close to some of the ‘frames out there.
I missed Mierzecice (and Vodochody too when it was full of MiGs) as I started to venture East too late to catch a lot of that stuff. Up until Sep 2001 I was starting to regret not making forays beyond Germany but these days I’m pretty glad I did as much in the States as I have: not too easy getting access to places like Eglin, China Lake, Pax River and the big US Army Forts (you might have noticed my love of “chocolate mice” 😀 ) like it was!
The S.105 c/n list would be great, thanks: I only have my Czech/Slovak stuff down as being MiG-19S so far when I’m pretty sure that once I’ve been through them all some will no doubt be locally-built. I’ve not found a site yet that shows historical Czech MiG-19 disposition: have you come across one by chance?
There are some fantastic Czech and Polish books, locally published, with tons of good info and pics going back to the 1940s/50s that I’ve seen for sale at open days so I shall have to think about some evening language classes!
Lastly, is there much around on other Avia-built MiGs? The Lims seem to be pretty well known but I’m not sure that’s the case with the Czech-made ones.
Cheers
Steve ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownTa, John
I saw some similar quotes but it’s hard to know if his feeling is based upon anything tangible or just wishful thinking. Mind you, it is at least good to hear they are approaching any forthcoming negotiations optmistically!
There was another mention along those lines in today’s Times:
Another priority for 2004 is to reach agreement on the next tranche of Eurofighter Typhoon jets. Although there have been delays, Mr Turner said that he did not expect the governments involved to cut their orders.
By the way, I read a couple of threads on your own site last night and can confirm that a lot of the Typhoon activity at Warton recently has been the two T.1s AA and AB. They’ve been noted a couple of times flying as a pair (using call-signs like “Monkey 1 & 2”) so I imagine it’s 17 Sqn getting stuck into their training syllabus for the most part.
I’ve still not seen any reports, or photos, of any other T.1s being active apart from those two.
Best regards
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownI was doing some Polish logging today, Arthur, and realised I’d seen all three MiG-19s that remain in-country: like you said, they’re pretty scarce birds.
The ones at Slupsk and Krakow are both MiG-19PM and the one in the small museum at Kolobrzeg (up on the Baltic) is a MiG-19P, so I guess one of the units had some of that variant.
Not sure what’s left in Czech/Slovak Republic off the top of my head, but the designation MiG-19S rings a bell: were all of the CZ ones S.105 vesrions then?
Cheers
Steve ~ Touchdown-News
Steve TouchdownSatoshi Tomiie
Derrick May
Blake Baxter
Robert Owens
Laurent Garnier
Ian Dury & the Blockheads
Goldfrapp
Frankie Knuckles
The Damned
Massive Attack
Smashing Pumpkins
Deep Dish
Ofra Haza
Kosheen
Japan
Future Sound of London
Bauhaus
Orbital
999
Brothers Johnson
Bobby Womack
The Vibrators
Jah Wobble
George Clinton
The Stranglers
Parliament
Fluke
William Orbit
Bootsy Collins
Leftfield
Moloko
Jools Holland
Steve TouchdownSatoshi Tomiie
Derrick May
Blake Baxter
Robert Owens
Laurent Garnier
Ian Dury & the Blockheads
Goldfrapp
Frankie Knuckles
The Damned
Massive Attack
Smashing Pumpkins
Deep Dish
Ofra Haza
Kosheen
Japan
Future Sound of London
Bauhaus
Orbital
999
Brothers Johnson
Bobby Womack
The Vibrators
Jah Wobble
George Clinton
The Stranglers
Parliament
Fluke
William Orbit
Bootsy Collins
Leftfield
Moloko
Jools Holland
Steve TouchdownBAE Systems warns of defence contract delays
Of course, none of the following can be guaranteed as the truth: it’s my understanding that the former Iraqi Minister for Information is now working for Boeing, so take everything below with a very large pinch of salt:
Published: February 26 2004 9:45 | Last Updated: February 26 2004 9:45
By Peter Spiegel and Mark Odell (FT.com)
BAE Systems_has warned that contracts for new Royal Navy aircraft carriers and a second batch of Eurofighter jets could be delayed for up to a year because of complexities in negotiations with governments involved in both programmes.
Mike Turner, chief executive, was particularly pessimistic about a deal on the next tranche of 236 Eurofighters, a contract that was supposed to be agreed by the end of last year. BAE said talks with the four countries involved had dragged on over what systems were needed to enhance its ground-attack capabilities, and Mr Turner speculated that agreement might not be reached this year.
Production of the first batch of 146 Eurofighters has already been slowed in an attempt to prevent a gap in production. George Rose, finance director, acknowledged the delays could hit 2004 revenues, since fewer jets would be delivered.
Mr Turner also said a merger with an American competitor was no longer a priority. “It’s wrong to keep talking about merger with the US,” he said.
BAE_on Thursday announced profits for the year to December at the high end of analysts’ expectations, including better-than-expected cash flow that_allowed the company to pay down a third of its debt.
The results, which saw pre-tax profits after charges climb to £233m ($434m) on turnover of £12.6bn, were a significant improvement on 2002, when it lost £616m on £12.1bn sales. In 2002 the group was hit by £800m in write-downs following huge cost overruns on its Astute submarine and Nimrod patrol aircraft programmes.
Mr Turner said he believed the company had weathered the worst of its problems in its UK prime contract business, which makes up less than 20 per cent of sales but has required most attention.
The shares closed up 51/4p at 1891/2p
Steve Rush ~ Touchdown-News
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