They are important to Afghanistan.They need to build a modern state with modern security forces.Face it,they are dirt poor & need all the help they can get.They are not exactly rich enough to start buying new aircraft.

Modern Force if its in the hands of the central government, now most of the country is ruled by warlords. it would be irresponsible to give them more power while they havnt got basic manpower. Indeed pakistan needs to help afghanistan, but as long as the danger stands that these are used against pakistan itself as lately, its not wise to give them the planes.

You sure, i thought they were going to be fased out in couple of years

First visit to NATO by Pakistan PM

BRUSSELS: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday became the first Pakistani leader to visit NATO’s headquarters, holding talks that focused on Afghanistan where the western alliance is expanding its peacekeeping mission.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer explained plans which should see the 8,000-strong peacekeeping mission spread out from the north of Afghanistan this year to a western region bordering Iran. Aziz briefed NATO officials on the broader south Asian security situation and discussed alliance efforts to develop military and political cooperation with nations in the Middle East. ap

About the F-16’s vipertrail, we will have to see, there has been to many false news reports about that issue.

Its the China factor, but the MOD cant mention China explicitly.
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….but the Defence Ministry argues that its traditional edge over Pakistan is being eroded and it wants to regain that

doesnt seem so. Ofcourse china also does play a big role, but their “major -enemy” still remains pakistan (even in these peacefull times).

Another question that LCA cockpit layout is that how it will be when the LCA begins rolling out ?

Defense industry grows by 20%

http://www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-25 08:36:38
BEIJING, Jan. 25 (Xinhuanet) — China’s defense industry experienced rapid growth last year, with its annual turnover, industrial value added and product revenue have increased 21.7 percent, 26.8 percent and 26.4 percent respectively over 2003, according to the administration department.

Jin Zhuanglong, the spokesman for China’s Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense, said at an annual meeting on Monday that the value of the industry’s products for civil use was 165.6 billion yuan (about 20 billion US dollars) in 2004, an increase of 26.8 percent year on year.

Last year, seven companies the industry went public, bringing the total number in the industry to 49, Jin said.

This year the national defense industry will adhere to the policies of serving for both military and civil use purposes and entering into international market via improving its technologies,the spokesman said. Enditem

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/25/content_2503662.htm

A lot of Russian launches are bought by foreign countrys, even by europa (Arianaspace <–> Starsem)

The Flight Control Computer of the JSF controlls alot in the mode. Certain manouvres like rolling are damped close to the gorund. They programmed certain restrictions for pilots in short landing and takeoff manouvre. This is a major advantage over the Harrier, where the pilot is extremly bussy with this and also in a lot of stress/risk. Also when landing on a carrier the plane is auto allined w.r.t. speed to the ship etc. The whole landing and takeof isnt directly controlled by the pilot but the FCC (nothing is actually).

When in landing mode, the Stick becomes left right foreward backward and the thrust “coloum” regulates up and down. Atleast thats how i remember it. :confused:

“Sharply” banking right, how do you come up with that. Didnt they remove the wingfences later on ?