+1

Pool maintenance with Hungary & the Czech Republic, as well.

There could also be another scenario. Greece and Turkey pool turkish F35s. In the spirit of “fair play” , Turkey could give a squadron of her F35s to HAF, so that the interceptions over the Aegean can be more interesting in the future. Because, as things go, the procurement program of Greece is a virtual one, meaning that while in theory it’s down to about 1 bln per year, the minister of finance is uncapable of catching tax evasion, so he grabs the 1 bln to the last cent. This trend will continue for a decade.

So, in the spirit of fairness, Turkey could give 20 F35s to Greece. 😀

Of course another option would be for Germany to give a loan to Greece to buy 20 Eurofighters. But i think the 1st option has more chances to happen. Ahahaha! 😀

To be more serious, a 3rd scenario, would be to have Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Greece, lease together some Gripens and deploy them in Greece for free trainning in A-A over the Aegean. :p

This reminds me of the Mirage 2000 that crashed at sea and was recovered almost intact. I think it was in the HAF thread. Considering several Super Etendards came home after a SA7 hit, I think Dassault really makes sturdy planes!

Nic

Yes, in our case it flew again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlq8P6ht0tU&feature=related

Did he mean that the Mirage was better screwed together, i.e. better build quality, or was he just saying the Mirage was just sturdier and stronger than the F-16?

I had posted the exact words somewhere in here, i think he used “construction quality” in the sense of better build quality. But it’s also sturdier, it’s something that has been written repeatedly in magazines. The airframe has shown much better endurance to strain that the F16s.

BTW, why have you got a picture of Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime minister, as your avatar?

Because, i wish he was greek. He thinks about how he will bring Ireland out of the crisis (see the denial to raise the corporate tax), while ours is just doing everything they tell him (including more and more taxes, plunging the economy into recession).

Do you want to trade PMs? 😀

In the past i had posted the words of an ex HAF Mirage mechanic writing in a forum. He was saying that the construction quality of the Mirage was beating easily that of the F16. I guess he wasn’t joking. Even AFTER the C4 explosion, it’s in a good condition. 😮

exactly, which is why countries who threaten Greece’s sovereignty and interests will find this to be a very opportune time! especially as Bulgaria and Turkey’s economy is healthy and growing.

You couldn’t be more wrong. If you follow EU officials’ statements, you will realise that they don’t even want to think about greek default YET. As long as this is true, Greece is bulletproof against anyone except basket cases, which comes to the next point.

Greece however has been fortunate that Erdogan is not interested in picking fights with Greece, but is instead, looking at the US and Israel.

Erdogan is not basket case, he knows how to wait. Already he gains things. Our minister of foreign affairs for example said that we won’t declare exclusive economic zone. The more dangerous are the “basket cases”, aka hardcore Kemalists, that a bit before the turkish elections came close to cause a hot episode, saying 2 greek islands (one of which the infamous Agathonisi that by coincidence THK started overflying last year) are turkish and saying they will “land” on them today, date which the turkish army had 2 major amfibious (invasion) drills in the Aegean. Turkey cancelled both these exercizes in their final phase (never occured before), because apparently Erdogan wants to go to elections under normal conditions and not under war.

You can google translate this:
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20272&Itemid=99999999

and the outcome:
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20297&Itemid=141

Bottom line: War against Greece as long as Greece is in the EU-IMF program equals war against the EU countries… As soon as Greece defaults (or “restructures”), probably in 2013, unless some revolution come earlier, then we can talk again.

I don’t think it’s unprecedented, the president has occasionally accepted and congratulated many unifοrmed personnel in his office honoris causa, including athletes, police officers WIA, even simple conscripts who excelled in their duties. (for example)

Regardless of that, this is definately the highest honour and recognition one can receive in this god-forsaken country.

Yes, i mean it was the first time for pilots as far as i remember. Considering how many have died in the past 35 years… it was about time.

In an unprecedented occasion,(IMHO probably having to do with morale boosting of the pilots that suffered wages cuts), the President of the Republic accepted 3 HAF pilots to congratulate them for their performance. 2 were the pilots of 340 Sqn that partecipated in TLP Spain March course (as mentioned above) and the 3rd was another pilot who was voted for 3 TLP courses “best air combat instructor” by the partecipating pilots.

http://www.haf.gr/el/news.asp?id=5156&archive=0&page=1

Well, given the fact that their wages are only going to go down, it’s a change having a politician remembering them even for a handshake…

(I know it’s interesting news only for Greeks, but i use this thread also as my personal repository for news and photos, so i add it for my own “archiving” purposes).

Those two statements don’t contradict each other, though. You could perform a smaller number of precision strikes to great effect, yet perform most of your missions with unguided munitions.

Exactly what India did.

“The biggest lesson of Kargil was that proper utilisation of technology, and not technology alone, can win a war,” said Ahluwalia…

Multiple bomb dropping was needed to flush out the enemy from the area. As laser guided bombs were considered not to be cost effective for the purpose, the search for an alternative was on.

And the IAF personnel came up with the right solution within a very short time, he said. “Slight modifications were made in the iron bombs of World War II vintage and the old bombs did the trick.”

Group Captain S P S Virk, the Chief Engineering Officer at the Mirage base, said that within a week of launching the air operations, it was realised that laser-guided bombs were not being cost effective.

Immediately, heads were put together and it was decided to put to use the old iron bombs. “Trials were conducted at Pokhran to find out the efficacy of the thousand pounders (iron bombs),” Virk said.

“High technology is not always required. What we need is utilisation of our weapons system, utilisation of the resources we have,” Ahluwalia said.

http://www.indianexpress.com/Storyold/125383/

Also interesting tactic here:

A typical bombing mission would involve 4 Mirages from 7 Squadron loaded with dumb bombs leaving a base in Punjab together with a two seat Mirage loaded with a LGB and Laser Designating pod. This 5 ship would rendezvous with 3 aircraft of 1 Squadron carrying Beyond Visual Range Weapons (Super 530D), operating out of another base. This rendezvous point would change on a mission to mission basis and once joined up, one escort aircraft would return. Once over Jammu and Kashmir they would be joined by Mig29’s giving top cover. These only had 20-minute duration in the area and would usually be supplemented by another pair. Over the target the Mirages with the dumb bombs would visually acquire the target and drop their bombs. The two seater, which would be filming the whole affair from behind, would only use the LGB if required to do so. Only 9 LGB’s were dropped during the whole war, 8 by the Mirage fleet and one by a Jaguar. Normal procedure employed during the dumb bomb attacks was for the aircraft to commence a dive at about 30,000 feet and designate the target at 15 kms distance. At 8 kms distance anything from 6 to 12 bombs would be despatched towards the target. Procedure for a LGB attack would differ in that the target would be acquired at 20 kms distance, designation would occur at 15 kms with release of the weapon at 8.5 kms. The LGB would travel towards the target and the Mirage would turn away still illuminating the target and at point of impact it would be 6 kms away.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/Kargil/1056-PCamp.html

Seems iron bombs were quite accurate and from a reasonably safe distance.