I don’t think it is the USAF’s job to explain the F-15X if it is something that would have been taken up by the OSD as an industrial base play. Certainly, the health of the industrial base is a major Pentagon responsibility, whether that is a republican controled WH or a Democratic controlled and it was no coincidence that one of the first things the current administration began to look into was the state of the industrial base something that was also on the mind of people like Frank Kendall and Bob Work in the previous administration. But I agree, they should have done a better job explaining why we need two primes as suppliers of fast jets (or potential suppliers) to the USAF and why we cannot drop down to one. I would love to hear their reasons as well.

Well, in fairness, it is perfectly obvious why having one manufacturer monopolize fast jet production and development is potentially very bad thing. This was shown with Pratt & Whitney, same thing happened with space launch service providers. Of course Boeing does have T/X now, which is grand scheme of things is likely more important than handful of F-15’s.

Checked Yefim Gordon’s MiG-29 book, it says that chaff cartridges could be carried in countermeasures dispenser, but usually were not.

IIRC, the Indian pilot captured in 1999 said on his return that Pakistanis and Indians share more than they this. I may be mistaken and it could have been the PAF officer who interrogated him said something like this. You give Pakistani establishment more credit than they deserve. In today’s day and age, more people have camera phones than those who don’t. I have seen videos of recent incidents made by locals before army got there. I don’t post such stuff simply because I don’t consider it to be ethical. Do you really think Pakistani army has such control over the locals that they cannot leakage of images from downed F-16 (per Indian media) but controlled everything in a place where 300-500 terrorists were killed. Is Pakistani army so efficient that they cleared the whole thing within 24 hours and BBC reporters only saw craters. I have no doubt you would have a counter argument, but you are adding credence to BRF claims that Pak army has djinn powers (pun intended).

Well, it’s a mountaneous region, it is plausible that a plane would crash in remote area which military would reach much quicker than the locals and cordon the area off. Still, I think there is a notable dearth of evidence of more than 1 plane crashing yesterday – other than the helicopter which interestingly Pakistan did NOT claim. Civilians were aware of the air battle and were filming, if there really were more casualties we should have seen more pics and footage of the flaming wrecks, parachutes etc.

Finland chooses ESSM for Squadron2020 corvettes:

[h=1]Surface-to-air missile system for Pohjanmaa-class corvettes[/h]

Paralay suggested this in another thread 2015.

That looks similar to British Aerospace SABA from the eighties:
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:”none”,”data-size”:”full”,”title”:”3.jpg”,”data-attachmentid”:3852451}[/ATTACH]

It was meant as COIN aircraft with special attention given to shooting down helicopters. SABA used unducted fan though. Regular turbofan was also considered.

Some Polish Scorpion proposals were also turboprops.

After Georgia, Crimea, Donbass and military buildup along the borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Finland would be wise to prepare for Continuation War 2.0.

Yes, there is no chance of returning to Cold War era grovel…appeasement policies. Even most Finnish commies are hardly big fans of the Putin era Russia.

(“Continuation war” is such a dumb translation, it would be more properly called ‘Sequel War’ as that’s what it was in very literal sense. “Winter War 2: Payback Time”.)

2025?
This particular competition seems like a foregone conclusion, unless something spetacularly strange happens, its an F-35A win.
With Russia right next to its door, a decently sized budget, no indigenous product and no particular political problem with any of the five contestants, the Fins are (almost certainly) going to acquire the most advanced option, and with their timeline, any teething problems with “Dave” will be long gone.

Don’t get too excited about ‘decent sized budget’ just yet. Ministry of Finance announced recently that next Government needs to conjure up savings of around six billion euros by 2025. And that is assuming that current economic growth continues. By coincidence, that is almost exact same as current projected cost of HX fighter acquisition, and Finland has contemporary naval building program too competing for funds…