You seems to forget that the guy said he used ~ 30-40% of the thrust. If in these conditions, he still obliged the chase F 16 to use afterburner, it’s excellent. Anyway, I doubt that the chase plane has more than the center tank; in fact in attached picture (from this article you can see a clean F 16)

Nope, that F-16 is carrying the underwing bags.

He said 30-40% of thrust is enough most of the time. He dint say 30-40% is enough to force the F-16 into burner. Those statements are not related.
Also, he probably was talking about total thrust, i.e. 60% is about max. dry thrust so 30-40% looks like a normal cruise setting.

None of what he said really reveals anything. Except maybe that the F-35 is no sitting duck which is what can be expected from a fighter.

F-15’s FF was 1971. Hence battle experience from Vietnam was only partly included. Shortcomings really became apparent in the operation rolling thunder, but ~5 years is a bit short to develop a new aircraft from the scratch.

FF was in 1972 actually, at about the same time when F-4E with slatted wings appeared.
Technical proposals for the F-15 were released in 1969. So there was some influence (from early F-4 ops) that also lead to the F-4E.

Remember back then it didnt take several decades to design an aircraft. Damn computers. 😀

I’m sure the introduction of twin nosewheels demand completely different tactics and procedures. 😀
It seems to me the indigenous avionics would make a bigger difference.

Besides, the Indian AF hasnt operated the Su-27 before, so the Flanker series is as new to them as the EF is to the Brits, even if they had purchased some Su-27Ps.

Basically, fifteen aircraft is not much, but it should be enough to allow a round the clock QRA, as long as the pilots stay happy! The main problem is going to be maintaining adequate flight hours for the pilots – training on someone else’s aircraft would really help things! Perhaps they could simply buy extra hours on German and Swiss air force aircraft (okay, it would be Swiss Hornets, but its still a modern fighter – hours are hours!).

No its not enough. 24 is enough. 18 would be enough with reduced lifespan. 15 is enough with reduced lifespan and business hour QRA duty only.
And what would be the point of saving money by reducing the fleet only to buy hours somewhere else?

Could someone please confirm this for Typhoon?

Thanks for pointing this out. I do not have a good resolution of the latest Typhoon line drawing. If you or anyone else have one, please post it, I will update the drawing. Thanks.

Check out this site: http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/ef2000.html

As you can see, production EF doesnt have a nose mounted pitot tube.

Funny, how they gave away the newest and most capable F-14D’s and are now scraping the rest!:eek: Something is going on and it has nothing to do with Iran. Regardless, what the public line is………:(

The Tomcats that are being scrapped now are the oldest airframes around which were mostly used as part source for the ones left in the fleet when they reduced from 2 to 1 F-14 squadron per carrier. Now that those are gone too, theres no reason to keep the cannibalized airframes any longer.
Still, many of the Bs and Ds are kept in long term storage.

It wasn’t the RAF, but the MoD. The RAF wanted the guns, & now it has them seems keen to use them, although IIRC the MoD eventually decided to fit the guns, but not fund ammunition or training for them.

Didnt recent experience in Afghanistan convince the MoD to fund ammo and training? I must have read that somewhere…

What version of the Amraam? I’m guessing it would be the B ver as an initial learning tool and since it’d be less politically sensitive?

Regards,
USS.

Distiller wrote its the AIM-120C5 version.
Though with the recent changes it might well be that those were cancelled.