hawk is not under powered as a trainer (mk100) but it is as a fighter-bomber (mk200). I’ve reports from Malaysian pilot that the hawk agility is significantly reduced when loaded with external stores such as unguided bombs and rockets.

Can you name me one fighter that retains all its dogfighting capablility while carrying a full warload?

Mike Oldfield?

Just a thought?

He’s had over 30 years to come up with a follow up to Tubular Bells, and hasnt managed so much as a note worthy riff. So I guess he deserves to be religated as under-rated. I think we could include Peter Frampton as a one album man also.

Err, ever heard of T-bone Walker?

T-Bone Walker was definately ahead of his time. But the fact is noone was able to build on what he had done, so he is not credited for starting a style. Eric Claptons style was built on mainly the style of BB King (which is not to say he directly copied King, he was influenced by alot of Bluemen). And BB King in turn was very directly influenced by the style of Django Reinhardt (he openly admits that).

What about Eddie Van Halen, or Stevie Vai, or Ted Nugent?

I dont think you noticed the word UNDER-rated.

I just want to say that I think its sad that people here cut down Clapton as being boring and sounding like everyone. The reason he sounds like everyone is he was the originator of the white blues/rock guitare sound that everyone uses now. Before Clapton was just clangy, clunky and twangy sounding guitare riffs.

I think your rights are being violated. Identity theft has become very common nowadays, and Ive heard of methods quite a bit more sufisticated being used than what this lady has done to where it is very difficult to prove that the transactions were not legitimate. In your case this lady has simply used information about you that is not hard to come by these days. And for banks and creditors to simply clean you out to cover themselves is really robbery on their part because they are accountable to handle ID theft on their own. Find a good lawyer who fully understands this kind of situation and press charges against the banks and creditors.

Arthur- There is no way you can beat the costs of operating this jet. It costs about $2 million brand new. It uses the Williams turbofans which have extremely low operating costs because the spool/fan blades are all one piece as well as high fuel/power effieciency. These engines have already revolutionized the bizjet market. Ive always thought that the whole advanced jet trainer thing is a bunch of hype, no AF is going to go out and buy $20 million jets that do nothing but advanced training and LIFT. I think this jet and the polish Bielik will steal the show for AFs that want to provide a jet trainer that handles like a supersonic fighter toward the end of training. I will agree with you though that this jet is too light to be a primary trainer or LIFT, and so remains to be seen how jets like the Mig-AT, M-346, Hawk, L-159, K-8 will sell for that role.