inkCondolances to the friends and families of the pilots.
inkTrue story;
A USAF pilot is relaxing on the taxi way at Sarajevo IAP (after the war in Bosnia) and notices a Russian AF Il-76 on parked on the runway. As he’s wandering over to chat to the Ruskies he spots a fuel leak under the port wing and a maintainence crew enjoying a smoke under the starboard wing. He rushes over to the crew yelling, “Guys guys there’s a fuel leak under the left wing!”
The Russians look at him as though he is deranged and one of them, in the tones of someone trying to calm down a mad man says, “Thats right comrade, that is why we are under the right wing.”
inkKen,
Perhaps you can hold up a ruler when you stand next to the radome and try to use that as a scale to later measre it in photoshop or something… Although perspective distortion might also make that method less than scientific…
inkIt is not the US starving, raping, and killing thier way through Darfar – true.
It is not the US that is occupying sovreign Lebanese territory – but, as mentioned, they are occupying a hell of a lot of other sovereign nations – often with scant legal authority to do so.
It is not the US that straps C4 upon woman and children, and detonate themselves on buses and shopping precincts – but bombing with high-tech weapons is a lot better right.
It is not the US who violate christain minorities in Nigeria and Indonesia. – but they support a whole bunch of regimes who violate other minorities.It is not the US that has a electoral system imposed by wealthy rulers – you have to be kidding.
It is not the US that flys civilian Airliners into buildings – but hang on, didn’t the US support Osama before? Do they or do they not still support the Saudis (most of the 9.11 bombers were from S.A. if I am not mistaken)?It is not the US that persicutes the right of their female citizens
It is not the US that stone people to death – yet they have one of the largest prision populations (per capita) in the world and these inprisioned people are overwhelmingly from ethnic minorities.It is not the US Kidnapping people and making prime time tv out of their executions – no but they are on the Amnesty International list of nations who breach human rights regularly through wrongful imprisionment and inhumane treatment (the latter used to be known as torture).It is not the US that teaches nothing but hatred towards non muslims in schools the Nazis would be proud of. – but it preaches hatred against whoever is on the current ‘to-bomb’ list. I remember watching CNN during ’99 and listening to radio talk shows on the subject of Allied Force – reminded me a lot of Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate.
The US may not be the world’s most evil empire (there’s an idea for a poll – world’s most evil empire) but it certainly isn’t a beacon of goodness and justice in the world either. If you want it summed up then how about – just a very rich powerful nation which looks out for the interests of itself as a state and the interests of its citizens where possible.
inkThere are a few points to be made:
TJ,
True there is no confirmation of any Iranian purchases of modern, long range Russian SAMs but this may be the only fact that links the situation to that of Yugoslavia in (and prior to) ’99. Yugoslavia was under UN sanctions and a UN arms embargo and they couldn’t exactly put together enough cash to convince the Russians to breach either of these and actually sell them something like this. Iran on the other hand has plenty of cash and there are no ‘moral’ or legal stops to make the Russians think twice. Besides, do we know for sure that there are no GRUMBLEs in Iran? Their military can be pretty secretive – especially about something this sensetive.
Erez,
In my opinion the chances of an internal revolution springing up from the urban youth of Iran are over dramatised (I will of course eat a hat or two if events prove me wrong). Firstly, it is only the urban youth who harbour anti-regime sentiments, the rural population appears to be as supportive of the regime as ever. Secondly, the urban intelligensia (if you will) seem to be quite split over their support of the regime or otherwise. Any attack on the country is of course likely to legitimise the regime as leaders of the defense of the nation – certainly in the short term if not the long.
And finally the Iranians have a way of striking back without necessarily doing so overtly. They can support (in a varriety of ways) the Shia insurgents in Iraq and cause the occupation thereof to be much more complicated for the US and its allies.
inkGarry,
You could also, perhaps, stick on some podded proccessors or computers. I am consistently perplexed as to why aircraft manufacturers seem to limit stores on aircraft to little more than drop tanks and weapons. An SAS officer once bemoaned the capability of the RAF to accurately drop bombs on the Iraqis (during DS) but to fail to resupply troops behind enemy lines with simple things like water and ammunition – he suggested a laser guided, special ops resupply kit (which could be aimed at a position close to the SF team and would have a parachute to slow the fall. I’ll take this a bit further and say that a GPS guided kit of this sort would be even more useful – a few hundred lbs of kit might mean the difference between success and failure for a spec ops unit behind enemy lines.
Ken,
Unfortunately I am on a different computer these days but I definitely have an artists impression of that AEW Su-33UB – I found it on the net somewhere so perhaps it is still around.
inkI’ve always wondered whether the answer to the problem of launching a Hawkeye without a catapult might lie in the idea of rocket assisted take-off. Perhaps it is possible to scrap on a couple of jettisonable rocket packs in order to boost the aircraft to take-off speed. Alternatively, why not go with the wackey idea of sticking a great big AEW radar on an Su-33UB. I’ve seen pics of this projected design somewhere and it certainly caught my imagination. Might even be able to launch one off the deck of the Gorshkov.
inkSays the man who never was in a situation like this… So: NO, it does NOT support that theory. Maybe the engine stopped. Maybe hydraulics failed. Maybe all the power was lost. Maybe the pilot wanted to take some fresh air. Maybe… Maybe… Maybe…
Maybe we should try to find an interview with the actual pilot and hear his version of the facts.
Non-sense. How on earth can you fathom that one out? The SA-3 warhead could have shredded fuel lines or caused an engine fire. Here is a snippet of his interview. The pilot was USAF and not RAF as I have heard on other media over the years.
Hey, ease up – it wasn’t my theory – just something I remember reading about at the time. I didn’t even think it was credible then, let alone now. Jeeze!
PS (I didn’t mention anythign about the pilot being RAF rather than USAF).
PPS
he said he doesn’t remember making the
conscious decision to eject from the aircraft.
– Well you’ve gotta wonder. 😉
inkYes it does rather support the theory, that the pilot ejected prematurely and could have made it to Tuzla had he not lost his nerve, doesn’t it?
inkHypothetical or not its in the wrong forum. What is it with people posting aviation or army threads in the “Missiles and Munitions Forum”?
inkA better comparison, to illustrate the claim of poor visibility from Russian cockpits, is perhaps the F-16 canopy vs. that of the MiG-29. Here one can see that, in terms of visibility, the F-16 has a clear advantage. Even the M2 version of the FULCRUM, with its improved canopy design, doesn’t quite match the F-16 (in terms of visibility).
EDIT: Oops, sorry fft, I clearly didn’t read your post properly.
inkIT WAS IN A CRASH YOU NUTCASE! THINGS BREAK OFF AND GET DAMAGED.
Nobody is getting oversensitive here
lol 🙂
inkTwo points:
1. I haven’t, as far as I am aware, assumed anything. I just pointed out that I am curious. similarly, when that Halo was downed over Chechnya I was curious about what it was upto. No mention of anything hush hush.
2. If you’re not curious about what the Herc was doing (i.e. why it was transporting parts and where to etc) then how can you assume it was just doing its job and not doing something out of the ordinary? Without curiosity to find out the truth then your assumption means as much as that of someone who assumes that the Herc was transporting an alien spacecraft or something.
Oops, just thought of another point:
I’m not really curious anymore – now I’m just annoyed by the overly sensetive British patriots who are inexplicably angry that people are discussing the crash of a British plane with “our boys” on board. My annoyance is expressed by me trying to explain my right to discuss such an event on an aviation board and not be made to feel like I am showing somebody disrespect.
Oh and finally, for those who are still unsure: I never, not for a second, intended any disrespect to any of those killed or to those who might be affected by such a calamotous event. Now can everyone stop actiong as if those people who are willing to discuss the whys and hows are proclaiming that they are glad the Herc crashed.
inkYou know Phil, some of us here on the aviation forum have got so used to aircraft flying that we’ve gone beyond that now and are more interested in where they were flying, what they were carrying and why. Especially when one gets shot down while flying very low over hostile territory – that, in my opinion, is more than just “flying”. That sounds like flying with a purpose. Forgive me for being curious about that ‘purpose’.
inkThe US got more then enough nuclear potential and delivery vehicles. So why buying those rockets ? For testing the NMD ?
As far as I’m aware NMD has nothing to do with low-flying cruise missiles… Or high-flying ones for that matter.
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