do you genuinely think that France will get a better product (on time) by working with India or Brazil?

Yup. One ringmaster, not two.

Or is it just nice to think of the UK (Britain) on the wane?

The whole of Europe is on the wane. I’m just done with the multilateralism bull****. The Spanish and Italians have no money, the Germans don’t care for defence and the Brits are Americans. The future for France lies outside Europe, continuing to build upon the long tradition of independence. The reintegration into NATO was a colossal mistake.

As for the UK’s future … just get it over with and join the US of A. After the Scots leave, obviously.

I think the best would be to find about 20-30 C/D hornets and upgrade them all to a common fleet. Say ask Kuwait if they don’t want to sell theirs 😎

10-15 would be enough I think given that you’d want to start replacing them by 2025 anyway. But yeah, if suitable airframes could be found — which I doubt — a limited expansion of the existing Hornet fleet could be a reasonable and affordable compromise vs. the “why do we need to buy anything?” crowd.

Course the other question is what platform is going to be around in ~2025 to replace Hornet. There’s the SAAB study, maybe evolved Rafale, KF-X… it’s all a bit uncertain though.

Still a Gripen fan here. Go SAAB!

Russia has chosen not to sacrifice kinematic performance for edge VLO shaping, I suspect they will choose ease of maintenance over edge RAM coatings too. Russia needs operational aircraft at affordable prices, not ruinously expensive hanger queens.

Range or payload (it’s the size of a F-20 what the hell are you expecting?)?

That’s what makes me laugh about the whole ‘OMG it’s less capable than Hornet’ thing. Like, yeah, in the same way that the F-16 is less capable than the F-4. Congratulations on needing a super sekret official report to learn that an aircraft powered by dual F404s has its advantages over an aircraft powered by one.

By that it’s no different than any other modern combat aircraft then. I can’t think of any recent jets that have actually been delivered with all the features that were advetised and on time. The Typhoon is a cracking example of this, a jet that years after its entered service is still not finished. Gripen is another as is the Rafale. The fact its late and costs more than estimated is nothing exceptional in this day and age, infact its the norm.

The delays with Rafale and Typhoon (and F-22, Su-34, etc.) were more to do with post-Cold War budgeting than anything else. No excuses for F-35 there which has been developed in a rather more generous budgetary environment than that in which it was (mis)conceived.

Super Hornet was delivered on time and on budget.

What issues did Gripen have?

even an upgraded MiG-21 could police their airspace.

:rolleyes:

I believe Gripen is the right choice for Switzerland, but this is not the kind of attitude that has maintained the security of the Helvetic Confederation for the last couple hundred years.

I’d be astonished if the final number was >8.

Personally I’d be opposed to the nuclear option even if it weren’t unnecessary from an operational perspective and impractical from both financial and political perspectives: too much reliance on USA.

Ok..the Video is back..
http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/marin.du.ciel/5607/

Can someone download it and upload it to youtube or something before it disappears again?

http://www.2shared.com/video/kRlgM7y5/Agapanthe_2010-2011_French_Nav.html