Antonov says turboprop improves payload and climb rate, so if you can make it pay, why not? Janes says there are still thousands of these flying, and that makes sense. A big, rugged, cargo-carrying taildragger is the airborne truck in some places.

Yeah, right. And who is the big aerial threat to the pipeline that the Albanian AF needs Mig-21s to defend against? At best you have to worry about terrorists. Okay. Helicopters are useful in that role. Slow observation prop planes like we’ve secured for the Iraqis, too. Migs? No.

Seems hard to believe all this about the Albanian Air Force when the Chief of the Albanian General Staff said in 2/03, “In the air force the Migs and [Chinese built copies] will go in he near future. We do not plan to have a fixed-wing first-line component; it is unrealistic, at least until 2010. We are focusing our thinking on multirole helicopters.” He said in the same interview that the AF would be about 1,400 people. That isn’t much.

Also, the U.S. isn’t going to be overly generous in the future. We’ve got our own budget issues in the future.

Yeah, the ”US-101″ is pure marketing. It won’t be called a ‘Merlin’ either. My guess is that the US version will be “Freedom Copter”.

SOC:

True, AF Magazine is not ‘official’, but it’s pretty close. If the Air Force was feeding Tirpak bad info, there’s nothing we can do about that. I don’t think the guy is printing rumors he picked up outside the gate.

Plus I think it’s fair to evaluate the F-22 based on internal fuel alone. The stealth capability is pretty much the big reason for its existence and cost, and if we don’t need its stealth on a mission it’s not worth the price. Now if you come up with stealthy drop or conformal tanks …. okay.

With a combat radius of 400 miles, can we really say the F-22 will go deep into enemy territory? Isn’t that about F-18 level and about a third of that of the F-15C it’s supposed to replace?

If the buy ends up being only 100-180 aircraft, maybe the F-22 ends up being used like the F-117s in a very specialized role at the beginning of conflicts until air supremacy is established. Not what the air force wants, but it seems like even the reduced number will have a role and that might prevent cancellation.

F-18

i geez are you that slow or do you have crap for brains which results in your slow reading comprehension..

This is an invitation to flame, but I’ll decline it.