Hey Eagle,

I think you might want to go and read the contract which states that the plane is ONLY GOING TO BE ASSEMBLED in the United State their will be no actual constructon done in the United States.

Not quite true as swerve mentioned. The 767 on the other hand contains lots of foreign input aswell. This isnt the point really.

As for it being larger then the 135 Yep and this is going to also going to be something that Boeing and many State Air Guard Units are going to use to fight the Airbus dission. To give you guys who don’t live in the States some idea, over the past decade many former USAF base that became Joint Use Base have had the runway narrowed and shorten when the R model 135 came out. I know for a fact that the Govn of Maine has already stated that if the Airbus got the Contract then he was going to file an appel on behalf of the MeAng which flies 135 and their base Bangor Internation had its runway narrowed two years ago. Pease Air Base home of the New Hampshire Ang also had its runway narrowed.

I also know of six other 135 Guard units that have had some sort of mods done to the runways. Last week at the Governers Annual National Meeting the discussion of the Tanker contract came up and all the Govs who have 135 units said that if Boeing didn’t get the contract that they plan on fighting it.

Now why the hell would they narrow and/or shorten the runway. Esp. on an international airport. No one knows what the next plane will be like. To me, that seems like a perfect way to get BRACed.

The main reason is that most of these older ex USAF base can’t handle the weight of the Airslut and would need to spend allot of money to bring them up to standers.

And then theres that General saying the Airbus offers more everything. Surely they must have had the cost in mind too.

Like I said this is far from over, I wouldn’t be surprise to see some of the Govs pull there State Citz. out of combat and bring them home, and before any of you say I’m full of it. Well folks back in the 80s both Govn of Vermont and Maine did just that and on top of that they wouldn’t let the USAF come and collect the 135 or F-16 claiming that they were State property.

And all that just because the USAF is getting a so called French plane? Maybe you can call it FreedomBus. :diablo:

There may be a downside though….even with internal improvements to the engine I can’t imagine producing that much more thrust without an attendant fuel flow increase….thus an aircraft that has been accused of being short legged might get more so.

I, too, (as SLL requested above in post 2) would be interested in seeing any updates on the program if anyone has a link.

I would imagine that an uprated engine would not need more gas to produce the same amount of thrust. Maybe even a little bit less because technology has improved.

… wanna check out?

… only if you’re not in your bed. 😀

Very nice pics and camo. Though I dont see the usefulness of that camo apart from the cool looks of course. 🙂
And that ceremony would have been as cool as the digital camo if they had used white/blue/red smoke, instead of black only. :diablo:

What? No additional lumps and bumps? I’m disappointed 😀

The enlarged tail fin is the same as used on the Block 60 I would say, except that they combined it with the rearwards extended version.

I have asked pretty much the same thing many months ago. Glad to see some answers. 🙂

Here’s the link to that thread, with some nice Tornado pics.
click

that still leaves the 500lb LGB question I guess. 😉

Anything is possible if you are willing to lower your expectations. As shown with the SWAT event that gave the B version, 2 each 1000 pounds of payload instead of 2 each 2000 pounds.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the original specs for the STOVL version have only included those 2 1000lb bombs. Later, it was changed to 2 2000lb bombs for commonality reasons so all the versions could share the same bomb bay design.
So the return to 1000lb isn’t really a loss in capability.

The Gripen is a excellent choice. Yet, it would be interesting to know what are the requirements desired and the expected delivery dates????:confused:

I dont know if the requirements are even known. Probably not. Maybe there arent any except to get as many planes as possible.
Delivery dates afaik are too early for the Gripen NG and F-35.