Still doesn’t get away from the fact that our new-ish ones were never intended to operate Rafale and are way too small decked to do so.

No they aren’t. The current Invincible class is not a proper carrier, they weren’t designed as such either (nor are the new-ish they fought in the Falklands), the CVFs will be though. They are over a 1/3 larger than the French carriers that do operate Rafale and are designed to have CATOBAR systems installed later.

To think a 4 year old could type about the things I have, shows how stupid you are, U LOST !!!!!!!!!!!!!:D:D

I think you’re proving my point quite nicely.

Back to topic, What are the French and Italians planning on using SAMP-T for specifically? As far as i’m aware there is no British equivalent right (for whatever role the are using it for).

Are they planning on deploying it as a BMD system when they have the ABM missiles in service, or will they be for the Naval systems?

Nice pics Bootneck.

May I ask what you’re down at MPC for? If I were to take a guess based on your name i’d say you were there to take a stroll on the beaches.

@Stevo: It was 4 I thought.

The fact that the aircraft is doing full engine tests and taxi tests means there isn’t much else that could really happen to delay a first flight at this point, short of the nations deciding that EADS trying desperately to ignore their contract and increase the price is unnacceptable (it won;t happen, I know).

Why do I smell troll?

Grim, can you smell troll anywhere or is it just me?

I did get a whiff yes, but I thought it might just have been me.

What would be the point? We have no carriers to operate them from and the ones we are supposed to be getting will not be big enough to operate the Rafale.

Urgh what? You mean the 60,000 ton CVF’s will be too small to operate aircraft that currently fly off the 40,000 ton CDG?

New Engines and folding rotors that I know about, may have been more then that. I’m assuming that switching the engines would require at least some re-writing of the engine management part of the software code. However remember that Apache is hardly the newest helicopter on the block these days.

Yeh the engines were the part I was thinking of, they were built with folding rotors weren’t they? (the British ones I mean). And would that require a source code change? I assumed that folding the rotors was just a manual process done after landing, but thinking about it, it’s more likely to be automated.

So what has changed between now and then? Why not just pull out of the program now and buy a few Rafales for Lizzie and POW. We could also buy a few more Typhoon.

Does anyone know if we have the codes for the C-17, C-130, Apache and whatever other spam kit we field?

I was guessing someone would bring that up, I don’t think having source coeds for the C17 and C130 are as big of a deal for either party (UK or USA).

These are transports after all, not frontline combat jets that have lots of things that can be upgraded or altered that the nations may wish to differ on significantly. As long as a transport gets a certain load to a certain place, it doesn’t need much modification. Similarly, the yanks aren’t going to lose a major advantage if the Chinese get their hands on it. “Oh no the Chinese can move troops about by plane” does not compare to “Oh no the Chinese can now build a similar/hack into our main frontline fighter.” or something along those lines.

No idea about Apache, it’s a good question. Britain seems to have upgraded them on it’s own before now though hasn’t it?