It flies……. Boeing Sells …..237 787 at the moment

Yes, but a few F-16’s is not something the US really needs – they have plenty of fighter-bombers. I think I mentioned before that a lot of the aircraft deployed by NATO partners during Kosovo were near useless – they lacked precision strike and all weather capabilties. Not to mention political limitations that New Zealand would impose on the use of their fighters (another problem in Kosovo).

In reality the lack of coaltion partners suited US war planners as it meant that the US had virtually no political opposition to the conduct of the war within their own allied ranks.

And what are you gonna do when evil aliens try to take over New Zealand? Wait for Will Smith save your ass?

Even Portuguese F16 or Italian F104s give little contribution but I think the problem is moral more than military.
The Question is “Which side are you on ?” or “Where were you hiding when the storm broke”

Probably a little bit exagerated but I think the New Zealand attitude has been a little bit egoistic in these years. The fact that you don’t face a threat does not matter you don’t need to supoort the allied and the values you share with them. For instance Portugal doesn’t face any credible threat but they support with some airplanes Operation Allied Force.

Bye

In these days in Italy there are some articles telling the story of a nuke missile left in the gulf of naples by a russian sub in the 60s-70s.
Probably the news came out of russian where there are a lot of information out of control but who knows…….

Actually It looks like Italy lost a couple of airplanes in Recce mission in Albania in the late 40s – early 50s. They were F5L The Recce version of the Lightning

It is strange hom many AEW airplane Mexico bought when they got still old F5s and T33s in service, many countries have gone the other way

bye

A few years ago I read a very interesting article on the subject. All the pilots were americans but not WASP, all 1st generation immigrants, so that their name does not look American and they could speak their native language (e.g.: italian, spanish) instead of english.

Funny things happened during the cold war

bye