Syrian Helicopter apparently shot down, rebels claim

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18919934

Well the Slovakian MiG’s hours are starting to pile up nicely, and overhaul and upgrade is expensive and they will have the same dilemma 10 years down the line if they upgrade now. Gripen is cheap enough to operate and the Swedes would probably offer favourable rates if their aircraft was chosen on a lease deal. Hungary is the same as above and Malaysia has rivals go worry about so they need to stay cutting edge if they can help it.. Another batch of flankers would be ideal, and in 10 years upgrade the whole fleet to the Indian super 30 standard.

MiG-31 I believe wasn’t intended for export, so not sure why you had to bring in the 31. It was designed for a specific role and it did its job. Don’t hate on it.

As for MiG-29.. its big and heavy for a point defence fighter. Look up the success of MiG-21, another point defence fighter and a good one for its time.
you could even argue that by the time of 4th gen aircraft.. the concept of a Point defence fighter is already out-dated and nothing more than an attempt to legitimize the MiG-29. Smaller F-16s that were smaller and lighter than MiG-29s could fly farther and more maintainance friendly than them too, ask the Polish Air Force. If you want a point defence fighter, it would’ve been a single engined aircraft that was simpler. Not everything Russia decided upon means it was the best choice so stop trying to use an appeal to authority as its simply another logical fallacy you brought into this arguement along with your strawman.

Really, a modern day block 50 F16 is easier to maintain than the MiG 29A’s that Poland acquired a few decades ago? Where are you getting this super duper secret information? I was trying to keep out of this, but your posts are quite baseless and quite frankly stupid, you are taking your own assumptions as 100% fact and arguing for the sake of it, or so it would seem. I believe you are suffering from fanboyisism and the Fulcrum is simply not your favourite fighter jet.

Its something along those lines, although I sense more of a European tilt to the efforts of Goldust.

I wonder where we have seen him before?

There seem to be a couple of people knocking around under new identities at the moment.

I’m also getting that dejavu feeling regarding some of the posts of “new” members recently, one particular previously very hyper active member has disappeared also….Hmmm????

Anyway staying on topic, the Iranians may aswell keep their fighters in their HAS’ regardless of Raptors being involved or not. Vietnam era birds, which America knows inside out and a few dozen vanilla Fulcrums with questionable serviceability against the latest Eagles and even S.Hornets equals bad news for Iranian fighter Jocks.

What was the weapon used in the attack? Also did the round fired hit the MiG or just impact above it into the hardened air shelter either way it probably knocked out the jet.

Seriously, Greeks helping the Syrians against NATO backed Turkey? Not a hope in hell, not even against Turkey without NATO support, would the Greeks assist the Syrians. What could they possibly hope to achieve, I could be wrong but I don’t think the Greeks hate Turkey that much to completely ruin any chance of improving their economy and ejecting themselves from Europe and the western world altogether.Perhaps you should change the title of this thread to Turkey v Syria scenario or something along those lines.