YellowSunChuromaiz
I owe you an answer about the UAE and its planning strategy. For what it’s worth, this is what I think. The UAEAF is clearly one of the most far-sighted air forces out there and is expanding in direct proportion to the Emirate’s growing regional and economic status. The UAE has a very clear idea about where it is going as a nation over the next 10, 20, 30 years – and the UAEAF is standing up to safeguard that future. You can see that in projects like the Block 60, Mirage 2000-9 and weapons systems like the Black Shaheen and PGM programmes – the UAEAF is a very technologically minded force. The speech that UAEAF C-in-C General Khalid gave before the Dubai show last December was full of talk of missile defence and net-centric warfare and all the correct buzzwords of the day.
However, the UAE could be accused of falling for a strategy of style-over-substance. It has paid a lot of money for some very capable and expansive weapons systems, and yet there isn’t the infrastructure there to support them. First and foremost there is not a large enough national training system to support the rapid growth of the UAEAF pilot corps that should have started some years ago already. With the first Block 60s due to arrive in 05 and the -9s already there (most or all of them by now?) it’s very difficult to see where all the new pilots are going to come from. By way of comparison look at the attention Sweden paid to building up and training its Gripen pilots by developing a dedicated training base and huge training facility at Satenas. That’s the level of effort you need to support an air force the size of the future UAEAF.
You might remember that part of the original Block 60 plan was to engage pilots from outside the UAE to ‘assist’ with initial operations. At least some of those pilots were going to come from Pakistan, until the US said ‘absolutely no way’. Whatever about the politics, the real issue here is – is that any way to run your air force? To hire in pilots to defend you? I don’t think so.
But fighters are glamorous, they’re sexy, they look cool, they shoot stuff and blow it up. The UAEAF is soon going to be capable of blowing A LOT of stuff up, should it choose to do so– but it’s going to look pretty silly if it has hangars stuffed full of the most advanced combat aircraft on earth and no-one to fly them.
The search for new training aircraft is obviously a big priority for the UAEAF now and a trainer buy will come, but I do think they should have gotten around to sorting this out a lot earlier. There is clearly going to be a gap before the UAEAF has the personnel resources to fully exploit its combat capability – and that’s a failure.
YellowSunJust popping in to say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.
The issue of the ‘new’ UH-1s seems to be fairly well understood – is there any concensus on the acquisition of any additional AH-1s.
The US must be in an even worse dilemma over continued military aid to Pakstan now.
YS
YellowSunCoach, Kodak et al
You got there before me but between you, you have the story bang on.
The ‘Aurora’ pic was mocked up to illustrate the famed North Sea sighting. It never claimed to be anything other than a ‘what might have been’ representation of the event, but since then it has taken on a life of its own.
The original formation pic with the F-111s was (I am sure) taken at a Mildenhall air show some years ago – one of the local 135s always opens the show with a flypast and I think this was an EC-135C partnering the two F-111Fs.
The North Sea report noted that two (?) F-111s were in trail with a KC-135 and the Black Dairylea – giving the oberver some insight into the scale of the cheese, I mean secret aircraft.
The original of this ‘photo’ may even have appeared in JDW and the original report was certainly one of the more credible of the many, many sightings around that time…which have mysteriously dried up. 😎
Mind you, a while back I came across an insane (insanely great?) American website full of black triangle UFO one-world government alien conspiracy madness, which had a very convincing story (NOT) about a town in Texas that had ‘disappeared’ (the gist was that it had been erased by the aforementioned UN Illuminati Martian time-travellers).
Every detail of this mad, mad story sounded utterly convincing to someone reading it from the other side of the world – until you came to the bit about the ‘secret unmarked government aircraft’ that had been seen flying over the town shortly before it disappeared.
It was a fuzzy photo of a Viggen – with the caption ‘No man-made aircraft like this has even been identified’
There is no point to this story other than to say – the truth is out there, but it’s generally a load of cr@p
😉
YellowSunOriginally posted by Mark2
The other looks like an AA-2, but something not quite right about it (can’t figure out what, but the front end seems a bit odd)
Because I suspect that it’s the radar-guided R-3R variant, which you don’t often see. Pairing that with the R-60 is quite a clever move for your MiG-21…
YellowSunThe KJ-1 grazing happily in September 2003.
Xiao Tang Shan has changed a lot since I was first there in 1996. Then it was difficult to get to and WAY out in the countryside – now the Beijing sprawl goes almost up to the gate. Still, they have tidied up the museum a lot and the Tu-4s are all on hardstands and not sinking into the mud anymore.
YellowSunGorilla
You’re wrong, I’m afraid. It only appeared towards the end of the show and it was easy to miss, but LM displayed a very nice T-50 model in full UAE colours at the 2003 Dubai show. I was there every day and a pic is attached. Remember, I said model – it wasn’t a full size mock-up like the Hawk and it was a hasty addition to the LM line-up, but the fact that it was there at all was significant.
As for your other two quotes, they really just underline what I said earlier.
“A BAE official says the UAE is looking at more Hawk aircraft” – well of course he did, that’s his job. But he said LOOKING, not buying. I could give you a list of 12 countries that BAE sees as sales prospects for the Hawk, they are all looking too. The UAE is nowhere near the top of that list and is not seen as a significant short- or near-term prospective customer. And come on, The Gulf News?? Not renowned for its in-depth knowledge of the international aerospace scene. This was just a passing comment from a BAE guy at an air show who had a notebook pushed under his nose – and he gave the correct answer. There is no UAE Hawk order.
Even the GAMCO maintenance venture has not been agreed yet – “discussions at an advanced stage” means nothing. “Looking” at aircraft means, effectively, nothing. India looked at the Hawk for 20 years…in this business, until the jets are on the ramp you don’t have an order.
I’m not saying it won’t happen – but it ain’t happening yet.
YellowSunOriginally posted by Churomaiz
Thank you YellowSun for your reply. Your statesments help back up this tread that UAE is definetly LOOKING for a trainer,that not being the MAKO noe the HAWK, in the near future and I have my money on the T-50.
Yes the UAE is looking for trainers – it *needs* them to support its expansion and to main self-sufficiency. However, you’d think that a robust training framework would be well in place before the big planes started to arrive…I think they need to get on with it. This might be a clue to the future fortunes of the T-50 in the UAE.
If the UAE does signs contracts with Lockheed what would it mean for the other potential trainers on paper like the MAKO? Let me ask you this YellowSun how many trainers will the UAe need?
For the MAKO, loosing the UAE will mean the end for this project. There are too many alternative candidates with real flying (or almost flying!) aircraft for EADS to break into the market, not with an unfunded programme.
The UAEAF’s trainer requirement will be dictated by how it decides to structure its training syllabus – and here it has the advantage of starting with an almost clean sheet of paper. If we assume that they go with a mix of the existing Hawks and a simulation component then maybe 15-20 T-50s might be needed.
It has to be repeated however that very, very, very few air forces see a realistic need for such expensive, high-performance (supersonic) training aircraft and the UAE may have to take a long hard look at what it’s being offered and ask ‘why do we need this’? Korea is buying the T-50 because it makes it and needs to support a local industry – but beyond Korea the international requirements are tiny.
At one stage it was suggested that the USAF might replace its T-38s with the T-50 – particularly once it became a ‘Lockheed Martin product’ – but the T-38 SLEP seems to have finished that plan off for the next few decades. Beyond the US, who else uses supersonic trainers…
Many hopes ride on the UAE.
YellowSunSteve
Thanks. I believe that 17 of those Cobras are still extant, but perhaps someone a bit closer to them can confirm that.
As for the ANG Cobras, they might have been a struggle for the Guard – but the regular Army Aviation units that flew Cobras, rather than Apaches, had far higher servicability rates right up to the end of their days.
If you want an aircraft that is actually going to work in the morning the AH-1 beats the AH-64 hands-down. Perhaps not all of it will be working, but chances are you can still go out and shoot things.
YellowSunRe: US nuclear bombs
Originally posted by Churomaiz
I opened my Jane’s strategic weapons systems(33rd edition)book
Wow – you have money to burn…!
So far, though, your question has not been fully answered:
The Mk 57 (B57) was a Sandia design, with development engineering undertaken at Los Alamos.
The B61 was also a Sandia-Los Alamos collaboration.
Development of the B83 was led by the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, with input from Los Alamos.
YellowSunThe MAKO – which has now been rechristened MAKO HEAT (High Energy Advanced Trainer) – is still a programme in development. That means it’s a ‘paper plane’. The UAE has expressed an interest in the project but so far it hasn’t invested a single Dirham in it. EADS (and previously DASA) has signed several MoUs with the UAE covering various aspects of development – that’s not the same as spending any money. The UAEAF assigned a MAKO project ‘pilot’ to contribute to the cockpit design process. Anyone who was at the Dubai or ILA shows in 2002 would have met him – this time in Dubai he was nowhere to be seen. The MAKO programme has run into a wall due to lack of funding and time is running out for EADS to get it up and running. It’s future, frankly, is looking bleak.
A few years back things were so much better. The MAKO was born in 1989 as a joint effort between DASA and Aermacchi as the AT-2000 (it became the MAKO in 1998). The Italians pulled out in 1994. DASA went looking to Korea (Hyundai) where a similar requirement existed, but the Koreans decided to go with their own T-50 instead. DASA also explored links with South Africa, but nothing came of that either. One possible hook to hang it on was the European Eurotraining requirement but that was (and is) still a long way from being settled – and then the UAE hove into view.
The UAE was interested because of the massive expansion of its air force. The UAEAF has grown from being a small force with a few aircraft and even fewer pilots to a very, very big force (in a very, very small country). The UAE has always had a problem with its pilot numbers and with 100+ combat aircraft on the horizon that problem was going to become acute. In the short term the UAEAF will overcome this by pushing people through the States, but soon the UAE is going to need significant numbers of new pilots and it wants to train them itself.
The MAKO seemed to be a good opportunity for the UAE to get its hands on a very modern high-performance trainer that filled a clear niche in its force structure and gave a big leg-up to local industry – allowing it to involved in various technical aspects of the programme, so the theory went. For EADS the UAE interest was a God-send because there is no money in Germany to get MAKO off the ground – and no-one else is interested.
By 2001 things were looking optimistic and everyone predicted a joint development contract to be signed ‘very soon’. It didn’t happen and has continued not to happen. At the 2001 Dubai show there was a splendid full-size mock-up of the MAKO in UAE colours. In December 2003 there was nothing. EADS has made some recent progress in engine design studies (F414) and things like that, but there has been no infusion of critical cash from the UAE.
The UAE doesn’t seem to be too interested in MAKO any more and I would suggest the reasons for this are a) it’s discovered that doesn’t have the spare cash to spend b) the technology benefits are not going to be what was once thought, because there is NO local industry to support, and most importantly c) there are now attractive off-the-shelf alternatives, namely the T-50.
The T-50 is up and flying while the MAKO is still made of plywood. Lockheed Martin has its feet very firmly under the table in the UAE, and now that its name is splashed all over the T-50 it’s in a great position to sell on to a select group of F-16 customers. Even better if you can blind those customers with science a little and make them forget to question if they really need such a super high-performance trainer in the first place. The UAE would get an excellent deal on the T-50 from LM, and would be a very impressive-looking first export customer too.
A day or two into the 03 Dubai show a T-50 model suddenly showed up on the LM stand in full UAE colours – that meant something was up.
It’s been mentioned here that the UAE is buying Hawks – no, they’re not – there is no firm contract with BAES for anything right now and so there’s everything to play for. Hawk might be a sensible choice in many ways but BAE has zero leverage in the UAE whereas LM couldn’t be better placed.
YellowSunOriginally posted by SOC
That’s not the TC-2 😎
People seem to have let that comment slip by…
Go on then – tell us more
(please)
YellowSunWould you believe this Pig pic is not a fake…
As I understand it, this photo is one of a sequence taken from a helicopter during last year’s Indy Car racing on the Gold Coast. With a long lens I guess those buildings look closer that then they are.
Unless anyone knows different.
YellowSunOriginally posted by Vympel
I have never heard AIM-9X and ASRAAM described as such (e.g. Raytheon website advertising the AIM-9X says nothing of such a thing).
Vympel
You surprise me. The concept of an IIR seeker as opposed to an IR seeker is very well established and understood. Nobody does ‘IR’ anymore. Basic IR seekers began with the first Sidewinders and, until the 1980s, they were the state of the art. IR seekers track a generalised heat signature – in effect they see a hot blob. That blob could be an aircraft, a flare or the sun. Over time the discrimination ability of seekers obviously grew better and better, but they still track only signatures – as opposed to recognisable objects.
Advances in decoy technology, among other things, brought the development of IIR seekers. Here the ‘I’ for imaging is the key. These seekers are smart enough and sensitive enough to be able to distinguish the shape of an aircraft and differentiate between flares and the target (I know there is a multi-spectoral and velocity tracking aspect to defeating countermeasures but I’m sticking to the basics here).
Modern IIR seekers such as those on AIM-9X and ASRAAM (which use, in fact, more-or-less the same seeker) can see the aircraft as a recognisable 3-D shape, in the IR spectrum. This is how kill algorithms are able to target the cockpit area of an aircraft to target the pilot rather than trying to kill the airframe.
All IIR missiles are IR, but not all IR missiles are IIR
YellowSunAs you drive along the main highway from Changi Airport into the city you’ll notice how all of a sudden you enter a very straight stretch of road that is wider than the bit you’ve just been on – and how the fixed concrete and steel central reservation has been replaced by some very attractive (and very mobile) flowerboxes.
The RSAF’s plans for dispersed wartime operations is well known. It’s not as developed as the Swedish ‘roadbase’ system, and they don’t have the same amount of space to hide in, but they know that their handful of bases are vulnerable so they don’t plan on staying there.
YellowSunI’m not sure where the notion of a tie-up between Gripen and Eurofighter has come from – and I’m not inclined to believe there’s any official weight behind it.
There is certainly no co-operation policy on sales and marketing between Gripen International and Eurofighter International.
While on paper the two jets might make an attractive hi/lo mix, in practice they have been and will remain competitiors. You only have to look at the bitter battle to win the Austrian order to see that – and expect more of the same in Switzerland soon.
There is also the question of operational capability. Right now the Gripen has some and is getting more. However EF has none and will stay that way for a while. So what might you be getting for your money?
Another crucial consideration is there are just no customers today who have the money, or the requirement, to field two such capable aircraft alongside eachother – not any more.
There is a link between the Gripen and Eurofighter in the shape of BAE Systems. BAE is a senior EF partner and own 35 per cent of Saab Aerosopace. However an EF sale for BAE represents quantifiable work and profits, while a Gripen sale is worth much, much less (to BAE that is). BAE has done some international marketing of the Gripen to countries that might want more than a Hawk but less than EF. It has also made much of its historical access to ‘difficult’ markets like Saudi Arabia which would give the Gripen an inside track. In practice BAE has never put much serious effort into the Gripen because from company HQ is still looks too much like a competitor and not part of the ‘real’ product portfolio.
There has been one exception to this, South Africa – but that was a *very* exceptional case with some unique factors governing the decisons taken. However, it does point to the true hi/lo mix that should make sense to a lot of growing air forces today, Hawk and Gripen – not EF and Gripen.
As for EADS, the Gripen is a threat – a threat to the Eurofighter and a threat to the MAKO concept because of the ease with which a ‘Gripen Lite’ *could* do the job of an aircraft like the MAKO (a programme which, it has to be said, is fading fast). There are no friendly hands being offered to the Gripen from EADS.
Oh, and there is no JAS 40
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