Was the toilet bomb in the model kit????

Yes, it was. In 1/48th it was in an Hasegawa reissue of the old Monogram kit, in 1/72 in a rebox of their own mold.

Also this was not the first Skyraider “special bomb”. In the Korean war they dropped a… kitchen sink. Everything AND the kitchen sink was dropped by the SPADs!

If AWACS watches closely they can potentially detect it when it opens it weapons bay and warn their aircraft to get the hell out of there.

Will not help at all in any scenario but a maximum range AIM-120 shot. If firmily within kill range, when they open their bay doors, the Raptor is the least of your problems, its the AIM-120 that you’ll have to beat, and that is not easy at all.

If the French can swallow their pride, they could use half a dozen as tankers (poor Rafale with just two drops for the mission is not a good solution).
Japan wants the P-8, but ROK, Taywan and Thailand might be willing. Perhaps Australia.
Personally, I am betting on India and the Saudis. We’ll see…

VF-213 will transition to the F/A-18F upon return from the current deployment in March. However VF-31 will keep their Tomcats until early 2007, although land based. It is possible that VF-31 will go to the boat for some traps / cats for currency in the meantime.

Anybody have any idea which of the Euro Canards has the lowest RCS? I was always under the impression the Rafale was number 1 in that department.

Any idea as to what the truth is?

Depends. A clean Rafale probably has the lowest RCS. Loaded for air-to-air, I’d bet on the Typhoon to have the lowest RCS. Both the F-16 and F/A-18E/F have very low RCS when clean. Problem is that clean they aren’t good for anything but airshow demos.

It all comes down to what they have hanging on the wings / fuselage…

For heaven’s sake, don’t let Lockheed choose the name!

As for bird names, all the cool ones are already taken, so don’t push it.

It leaves us with predator names that will be acceptable by all services – wet and dry.

My personal preference, as I’ve stated before, is for Wolf. It is a stealthy creature that hunts in packs, known basically all over the world, and can even be made “wet” by calling it Seawolf.

The cats are all taken by current birds, with the possible exception of Leopard.

Snakes are basically taken. Perhaps Mamba, but that’s pushing it too far.

Shark would be nice, but the dry services would throw a fit.

So, I’m hoping for Wolf, and in fear of another idiocy like “Fighting Falcon”…

… but they couldn’t exchange the aircraft, because its serial number had been submitted to the central military committee;

😮