From what I understand, India admits he got four, so even if thats the case its an impressive achievment. He was already a very expierienced pilot when the war started.

Its news from the program that I feel is interesting. Maybe you should leave the forum if you feel so defenssive/threatened over the occasional post I make. Really, its just sad that you feel you need to “police” me like this. Here’s a little advice that I know you will not heed. If you dont like it..DONT RESPOND. You may not understand or accept but there are opinions out there that are contrary to yours, and as much as you dont like it, there is not one thing you can do to make it go away.
Now….the reason I posted it, was because there are so mony F-35 threads right now, I wasnt sure wich would be the most appropriateso I covered two of the bases. The article has the newest set of numbers that I had seen and it touched on what I thought was an interesting point of trying to increase the “bring back” weight of the “B” model. If that doesnt interest you, then please dont comment.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-defense-perspective/2013-07-05/uk-will-try-boost-f-35b-landing-weight Update on the British program.

The Navy and AF requirements – strike-led, no supercruise, 2x2k internal – would have been met by identical or closely related designs, as the French did (that is, the CV/CTOL bit) with no trouble at all. Moreover, an excellent powerplant in the correct size range (2xF414s) was available off the shelf with untapped growth potential.

A sensible national strategy would then have evaluated the cost and value of meeting Marine requirements, which would first have meant defining them. Organic CAS was the core and anything more than rudimentary air-to-air was a 1980s add-on with AV-8B Plus. Adding stealth and making the Marine version the basis of the Navy and AF versions would have been seen as illogical.

It might have been possible to develop a Marine/UK(RN+RAF) ASTOVL with some common avionics and other core techs to the AF/Navy aircraft, most likely with an advanced F110-type engine and LPLC, but as we have seen adding stealth to the mix results in an unaffordable solution (eg Marines still operating AV-8B when the basic design is 70 years old).

The other problem is that making the jet supersonic means making it bigger, and this diminishes flexibility, both in terms of a ship’s ability to support more than a handful of aircraft, and in austere base ops.

The better answer for the Marines would have been Harrier III with a new engine and flight controls, while the RN – if what it wanted was a strike carrier – would have been pushed down the road to a CATOBAR solution because the ship gets big enough to do that anyway.

Unfortunately, what prevented this from taking place was that (1) the contractors promised the moon at a discount, in terms of a cheap jet that would do everything and monopolize the global market, (2) the civilian leadership, elected and executive, bought the idea as a way to seem to address TacAir needs while punting the big bills to a post-2000 administration and (3) the military had been de-skilled in procurement and was unable to argue that the plan was infeasible.

VERY well put! I find I completely agree with you.

Hope it doesnt happen…….that is a nice collection out there. I try to visit a couple times each year. The Mossie flying out there is just fantastic!

“The Execution of Pvt Slovak” with Martin Sheen was pretty good.

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