I guess he’ll have to do a Clancy and “adapt” realities to fit the plot.

I don’t get the commotion here. It’s basically an updated Type 23 on a larger hull, isn’t it? (+ the dock and mini-UAV hangar.)

Has the RN caught the “Little Crappy Ship” bug from the USN?

By putting ASW frigate equipment, Harpoons and point defense missiles on a destroyer hull? :confused:

Plane purchase costs might be more expensive, but when it comes down to the overall picture (personnel, fuel costs, maintenance, ship costs, etc), Gripen/SeaGripen would be cheaper. Plus, good luck getting the French to integrate any weapons that aren’t theirs.

Actually I think I recall that Raytheon and Dassault wanted to integrate AMRAAM on the Rafale for some competition a few years back (Singapore?) but the US Gov said no. (Which is their right to do, you don’t expect a salesman to to help his competitor.)

Been googling for some source but can’t find anything other than Raytheon statements saying JSOW “can be integrated on the Rafale” for MMRCA actually. That might mean the Indians will have to pay for integration, but that’s par for the course.
http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/avi-wire-news-display/1540384923.html

Cool video!

There were three types of STOs (automatic, manual, and combo)

The take-off @1:53, horizontal stabs deflecting up and down, could be manual?

Does the Rafale have the same strengthened forward fuselage and landing gear as the Rafale-M?

The landing gear is visibly different. H_K posted some great pictures in this thread: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1723715&postcount=13

What is any of this based on? If Russia felt the Su-33K would be much better than the MiG-29K, they would simply have modernized the Su-33 along the lines of the multiple domestic Flanker modernization plans. Also, India could have requested a modernized Su-33 if it was “much better” as you claim. Nah, the logic doesn’t add up, sorry.

Both the RuAF and Indians feel fine, they made the right decision. 😎

I googled Su-27 and MiG-29 take off runs, I only found unofficial sites and forum posts but the claims tend to be (with an AA load) around 320-450m for vanilla Su-27 and around 250m for vanilla MiG-29. For land air operations that is. (One site has claims for naval ops: on the Kuznetsov, 105m for a MiG-29K with 17’800kg take-off weight. 195m with 22’400kg TOW.)
Do you have verified data on this?

Anyway that would be a reason for the choice, if the -29 normally has a shorter take-off run with a comparable payload (although I know an Su-27 AA load is normally heavier), you’d think it’s more naturally suitable for a skijump carrier.

Because Obama is a closet Sinophile, which was evident from his gestures just after he came to power, the other thing is he is ideologically opposed to India on many matters like the NPT and all.

The republicans is likely to continue from where George W. Bush left off with respect to India ;). Although she is no longer a candidate, Sarah Palin visited India recently and talked about taking India U.S relation to the next level, I guess GOP winning the Presidential election will be very good news for India-U.S ties.

You want to rely on the GOP for a US-India, counter-Sino relationship?
On one hand there’s the old guard GOP that wanted to sell Black Hawks, counter-artillery radars and torpedoes to China, as well as letting Grumman upgrade their F-8s – a deal that was stopped by Tiananmen ’89.
So that’s a group which 1.) could halt deliveries and stop spares supply at any time and 2.) is fairly pragmatic about whether to befriend India or China. (Which is a good thing in general – but for you it means you can’t expect a “semi-special” relationship.)
http://books.google.no/books?id=gVRqnv6_p7EC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=grumman+china+tiananmen&source=bl&ots=ahAhOuB8eD&sig=6qz_doZKW3PkB3UZTvUf2kfJmhQ&hl=no&ei=Rd99Tq2PBMaQswb8jp0V&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=grumman%20china%20tiananmen&f=false

On the other hand you have the “new” GOP. You want to rely on people like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry for a meaningful US-India relationship?