The french navy has three E-2C Hawkeye, which will be upgraded to the last standard.

2 are onboard the CdG carrier at the same time.

pics :

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/674069/L

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/653754/L

your datas are wrong Jetlag, here are the current numbers : (note that Portugal and Italy gave up the program)

Germany : 60
France : 50
Spain : 27
United Kingdom : 25
Turkey : 10
Belgium : 7
Luxembourg : 1

edit : I’ve seen you posted both the old and the current numbers , anyway that would be better if you could check what you post, because it’s obvious that doesn’t match.

I read something about a Herk with only two engines, was there such a thing that actually flew and if so, would this be a better competitor for the C-160?

there’s the G222 and its new successor, the C-27 Spartan.
It is a smal Hercules in fact, and it has two Herk engines and even its avionics now I guess.

So, what’s the current status of the C-141 fleet?

How many C-141 C will stay?

The best aces were germans and the highest number of aces belongs to WW2 Germany.

This doesn’t mean the allies pilots were bad, but germans were superior for sure.

These aces were better because they saw more action, and were very very experienced. In fact allies pilots, british for examples, had to fight for a certain number of tours which means that at the end of a limitated time, this was over for them. At the contrary there was no respite for the germans which were outnumbered etc. So they fought all the length of the war.
Plus some of them were experienced even before the war since they fought with the Condor legion in Spain, where they even invented the tactics used through the whole war on each side (finger four formation etc.)

Also most of the aces with the highest scores were on the eastern front were they had to face many russian pilots among who there were many rookies. So these great aces who fought since the early war fought against less less experienced pilots and could score easily. (Although it is true that afterwards russian trained pilots were better and better.)
The more they fought the more tired they were but also more and more experienced. And experience is all, what was more important wasn’t to know how to do incredible air combat maneuvers or to know how to aim like a god (even if it helps) but to guess how the enemy will act, how to be careful in order not to be shot down etc.

Also at the end of the war there were a few german pilots left. It was far easier for a german to score a kill against dozens of adversaries, it was less easy for an allies to score as it was more difficult for him to find adversaries.

And that’s why many german aces scored 100+ victories, 200+ victories etc. and there is even the incredible case of Hartmann, the russians even wanted to judge him for destruction of the russian economy.

All pilots agreed that german pilots were the best and feared them. They were the best because they fought more and had more adversaries.

Anyway we musn’t forget that most of WW2 german pilots were killed, they fought until the end, and at the end, apart from these aces, the rest were rookies.

And Germany still wants 72 A400M and has already ordered 40 (which are enough imo and they should get 32 C-27 J instead of the other 32 A400M).

Now Germany wants 60 A400M.

Your statement there is the root of all problem, the history is written by the people of the country you live in. So no matter how you want to be objective your view of France is distorted.
For example, in Japan the school children are taught that Japan did nothing wrong in WW2, or they did not really commit atrocity in China or they were the champion of Asian people over Western dominance. So when you say you know European history, you actually know only the French view of it. Unless you’ve studied history abroad, your view of what took place is not really accurate. And this also goes to anyone else who is spouting about “History of my country”

that’s why I invited Incognito to read books written by english and american historians (check my previous posts)