I must admitt that I too am curious to know “what the plane was doing ” and how and why it crashed. I’m just curious – sorry if that makes me the enemy too. My enemy curiousity wonders whether the Herc was shot down (an would be even more interested if it knew that a Herc was shot down by an anti-tank missile). My enemy curiosity would also be fascinated if it turned out to be true that the Herc was on a special mission. I may be the enemy for being curious about those things because I’m not supposed to be curious – I’m just supposed to shut up and silently respect the families of those involved.
But ask yourself this: If a Chinese Mi-17 was downed by Tibetans throwing rocks – wouldn’t you be curious? Or maybe you’d just post a short message about how those poor Chinese airmen have families and how our thoughts should be with them.

I’m guessing that the Kh-55s were sold minus the warhead – otherwise that means (assuming the report is true) Iran has nuclear weapons. That could lead to some interesting developments in world politics.

I’m afraid that logic is just plain stupid. During the ’99 air campaign against Yugoslavia this forum, and the world’s media, went mad with all kinds of speculation – nobody even considerred stopping the speculation because Serbs who had families over there might hear and be upset. During Operation Iraqi Freedom – same thing – even though lots of posters had friends or family in the services or were Iraqi etc.
So this is an accident involving an aircraft and we’re discussing it on an aviation forum – how can that be disrespectful? Furthermore, nobody has even suggested that it might be due to pilot error (which is, frankly, the only disrespect you might be able to possibly show in a situation like this).

Finally, I have one question:
Everytime there is any significant air-attrition this forum discusses it immediately (be it an Indian MiG-21 or a Russian chopper in Chechnya) – have you ever felt that perhaps we should avoid talking about those events out of respect as well or is this just because its a British accident and its “our boys” and their families this time?

I know this will be off topic (or at least semi off topic) but does anyone remember, or have reports about, an Iranian air attack on Iraq pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom. I used to have a news report on it but I’ve either allowed it to stagnate on my other computer or its backed up on a CD somewhere and I’m too lazy to look for it. If my memory serves me right the Iranians attacked targets near Baghdad with their Su-24s in 2001 – now I can’t remember the details so I don’t know what the targets were but I definitely remember something like this going down… Looks like we really do need Mr Cooper to comment on this thread.
If I’m wrong about this or it was just a rumour I promise to feel particularly stupid about this post.

I read that IN wanted to fit Bars on its K’s.

If thats true I can’t see any reason why the Russians wouldn’t offer it, especially if they’re offering it on other MiG varriants. My suggestion is that what you read is inaccurate – unless its Jane’s that got it wrong at the end of that article.

Sorry harry, I must have missed your post… I think my brain must have switched off after all the pointless bickering.

Presumably there are no plans to instal the Bars radar on the K’s because the IN won’t pay for them or don’t deem them necessary – I hardly think the Russians would take a decision like that. These days they’ll fit anything onto anything else if it’ll sell.

I took a look at the HAL website earier, specifically to check out what they have on the ALH, and found quite a lot of info about it. The thing that disappointed me though is the lack of info on the army version. Anyone know how far along that is? Any idea if there’s been a prototype? What are the avionics like? What ATGMs is it going to carry?

What does a guy have to do (and what kind of cr@p does he have to wade through) around here to get some answers to pretty basic questions???