Another interesting thing about Pattle is the rapid timeline at which he scored his victories. He was flying in a theatre where his side was comprehensively outnumbered though, and was probably a contribution to his demise. (exhaustion/illness)

On some of the figures, the Chris Shores and Clive Williams definitive study Aces High, which really digs into the matter, credits Pattle with 50 and 3 shared destroyed, and 7 and 1 shared probable. So perhaps the higher totals are not completely beyond the realms of possibility either.

Another interesting link below:

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/commonwealth_pattle.htm

If J-10 weighs 8860kg than it is pretty much out dated.
it is not multirole figher with heavy loads or have electronic scanning radar in nose or IRST.
just adding IRST and electronic scanning radar will add 500kg.
J-10 should not weigh more than 7500kg in air defence version.
Rafale is better in TWR even with underpowered engines.

There is no way the J-10 will weigh less than 8 000kg empty.

It is clearly a larger plane than the Mirage 2000, and later model F-16’s, and indeed the Gripen NG.

It has a large afteburning engine who’s weight is starting to approach that of 2 M88’s as used in Rafale. Seeing as the Rafale weighs in empty at around 9500kg plus, I’d assume a figure of around 8900 to around 9500 to be a perfectly reasonable expectation for a jet such as the J10, dependant on what equipment is inside.

I always thought Mirage 2000 was comparatively very cheap to operate.

Anyway Gripen NG already has two orders now, and the older variant has five,
and those will naturally also be partly or fully be upgraded to NG standard,
so that’s 7 customers/users already, -this will definitely weigh in favor of NG

It may be that the Mirages are now due a major overhaul or something along those lines.

The Apache or the Mangusta would have done me for AIR-87. At least they would have been operational by now…

The Tiger can’t say the same and based on South Africa’s issues with the Rooivalk it’s unlikely to have been ready by now either.

South Africa’s issues with the Rooivalk were of a funding nature due to the fact that it wasn’t exported. If it had won export orders, this would have freed capital. Nothing whatsoever to do with the platform.

A result of not winning export orders, and the trickle of funds that resulted, meant also that the original South African T-DATS sighting system was replaced by a cheaper, less capable French system. This then in turn led to having to integrate the heavy long range Mokopa anti-tank missile with this replacement sighting system, resulting in delays.

An export order would have prevented all this.

As it is, the Rooivalk is now fully qualified and operational, including with the Mokopa, and has been for a while now.

So nothing to do with the platform, and everything to do with funding issues as a result of those lost export opportunities.

Personally I think the Rooivalk would have been a good choice for the Australian Defence Force (ADF)! The the fact that we purchased the Eurocopter Tiger, immediately negated any notion or sensibility of inter-operational capability with our two major allies – UK & USA!
I personally saw the Rooivalk put through it paces at an Avalon air show many moons ago – and was thoroughly impressed!
Talking to the flight crew and sales team, what probably sold me the most with the Rooivalk design was it’s true ability to operate in some of the harshest environments on the planet (the harshness of South Africa not being to different to the Australian outback!), for long periods of time, with minimal logistical support! Something the likes of the Tiger and Apache can not do! As a note, failing the selection of the Rooivalk by the Australian Army, I would have preferred the proposed Aussie tailored version of the A129 Mangusta over that of the Eurocopter Tiger!!

Secondly, I am somewhat surprised that the PLA/PLAAF did not cooperate with the South African’s in using the Rooivalk as the basis of their own combat helicopter!

Regards
Pioneer

China at one stage wanted to buy a very small amount of Rooivalks. Denel was suspicious that a reverse engineering project would be the end result.

The Rooivalk was a very good, tough helicopter that has been hamstrung by industrial and political moves. It was rated highly by the RAF, but the US refused to integrate Hellfire onto the platform. This resulted in a tit-for-tat exclusion of US weapons in SA’s arms purchase a while later.

Eurocopter put out pressure in the Australian and Turkish programmes about not supporting the engines on the Rooivalk, which are French.

A helicopter that scored highly, and should have done better, but for the political angle.

Today I learnt that some Mirage III variants were fitted with fixed canards.

Where have you been for the last 30 years?

An interesting topic, as the Al-31 from the Su-27 seems to have garnered much of the attention and funding to produce more powerful variants.

Certainly though, more powerful and modernised RD-33 variants could be very useful addition to Russia’s stable.