you have a radar trying to target you, SPECTRA calculates its coordinates and from there on, you can shoot your AASM at it without bothering whether it will keep emitting or not…

target coordinates can be also sent by another rafale, flying high to attract radar operators attention, while the shooter would go in low undetected

basically, for almost any “precise” work in air-to-ground, rafale will use the AASM

That’s a really nice way for AASM to operate, but it’s good thing that Gaddaffi lacks mobile SAM systems (even worse with passive tracking ability), because then it could present some difficulty to aim at properly.

I’m not aware about the details of the Libyan AD, other than that its individual elements were dated.

Interesting information here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23841

They did have SAMs that can fly high enough as to prohibit the usual “i fly above your ceiling” tactic, but they are also mostly 60s vintage and in a country with little hiding positions. An aircraft of the 21st centure should be able to survive that. Of course it shows that the french were confident enough of the Spectra to go in without the “american” approach of jamming everything with dedicated packages.

…I assumed they they are salvaging it primarily to diagnose why it went down,
and if anything can be salvaged, it would more be a matter of pulling usable parts off it for other craft.

Since they retrieved it, i am sure they will diagnose it. But, IMHO, the reason that the MoD gave the money to retrieve it, is because anything with “fuel” inside it, is making the islanders upset. And at 1 nm from the coast of Samos, i am sure the locals didn’t want something that may leak fuel in the middle of the tourist season, not to mention the fishermen…

Maybe i am too pessimistic, but i doubt that our new MoD, would otherwise care about what made an old Mirage crash. I mean, we operate the type for some time now, i doubt they will find something “unexpected” this time…

The non upgraded Mirage aren’t the in the first line of DONGFIRES these days anyway.

8:18-8:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Zsi3yFolw&feature=player_embedded

Yes, our new MoD (at the time vice minister of defence) explains at tv what the “dongfires” that our aircrafts do are. :rolleyes:

Considering that we have a theoretical procurement program written in the budget, that got/is getting looted to the last cent because they missed the predicted tax income targets, i doubt he ‘d spend anything to retreive that Mirage if it wasn’t for the political cost in case of a fuel leak near Samos.

P.S.: Yes, i used google to learn what “dong” is. I hope our minister did the same.

Photos from the Mirage2000 at Samos:

http://www.haf.gr/el/news.asp?id=5280&archive=0&page=1

It’s not about the dogfight manouvers at all. It’s all about avionics: radars, jammers, IRSTs, data links, … etc. that really matters.

The secret of the Su-27s…

This is what many people believe. What the Indians did is entirely new, at least to me. 1. They turn OFF their radar (no emissions), 2. they flew low to let ground clutter hide their positions, 3. they use only their IRSTs to track the F-15s. Once they flew (undetected) past the F-15s, they pulled up and got right onto the F-15’s tail. Bingo.

If you read my previous post, you will see that i mention “fly low to avoid radar detection and go in WVR”?

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=1755395&postcount=106

Because it’s nothing new, it’s a tactic that we ‘ve been using in the Aegean for decades, especially when you send inferior aircrafts that wouldn’t stand a chance in BVR. The problem with this tactic, is that in the limited area of an exercize, this is a tactic you do once and surprise the enemy, but not twice or more. Also the F4s have no IRST. Now, i don’t want to underestimate the turkish pilots that must be very good with F4s, but 1) i read they won in BVR, 2) even if they managed to get in WVR they managed to win all dogfights twice with a 8-0? I guess it is possible if the chinese don’t know how to fly the Su-27s, but i would want something more than a forum rumour for that to believe.

Anyway, i googled and found the supposed scenario, where the Chinese lost 8-0 in BVR. How this happened without Amraam, i don’t know. My own opinion is that it is a hoax. 8-0 with 4 Su-27 means the Turks pulled twice the “fly low” stunt with the chinese never learning where to look? Hmmm…

More about politics, less about military.

I don’t think that sending 4 Su-27s in Turkey is doing anything important politically. I would on the contrary think that it would be more useful for the Chinese to have the opportunity to test themselves against a NATO country.

I’d love to visite Crete ang Greece. It’s one part of the world I’ve never been but would love to. But I’m not too fond of snails. Snails are good only because the sauce is so tasty. But I suspect it all started as a joke: find something super tasty and see if you managed to make someone eat snails.

Nic

Bring the Rafales with you!

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=1758688&postcount=695

😀

P.S.: I don’t like snails either, but in Crete there are various dishes with snails, just in case one of your pilots likes them.

Sounds like a consolidation of the MoD and Tourism Promotion could be a good move for Greek budget consolidation… 😎

Ahaha! Something like: “Are you a fighter pilot? Do you want to bomb Gadaffi? Your wife shouts at you that she wants you to take her to vacation? Now you can do both! Crete! Where your bombs unite with relax and pleasure”!. 😀

Don’t worry, our incompetent goverment plans to kill the tourism too. As soon as they saw that this year there is expected a 10% increase in tourism, they thought of killing that too (as they ‘ve done with internal commerce, real estate and constructions), by raising the VAT on restaurants from September from 13% to 23%. So next year it will be -20%. I am not sure whether they are really THAT stupid or whether it’s their last desperate plan to enrage the greek population so much, as to seek “liberation through return to the drachma”, so that they won’t need to do reforms and fire people in their beloved pubblic sector.

And India`s upgrade price was brought down thru massive indigenous production at Indian cost-base, along with the standard lower prices thru larger orders, etc, so asking about the same price as India gets now doesn`t suggest some malevolent scheme to me. Like India, I`m sure Greece COULD have gotten a better deal for an upgrade, possibly thru negotiating an upgrade on the BGMs, etc, at the same time as 2000-5 purchase, and it wasn`t Dassault`s fault that Greece didn`t take that approach. It`s just bizarre to expect a company to not behave in a rational commercial manner, and Dassault in fact does need to sell it`s current product it`s thrown all it`s eggs into… Contracting for M2K upgrade when that was the current product offering seems certain to have been a better buying strategy than waiting forever. Yes, it can suck for buyers, but Dassault isn`t realistically an EQUAL to Lockheed, who benefits from a US budget which can pursue both `last gen` upgrades (at least Block 50/52 if not 60) AND next-gen development (not to mention a high-lo mix), and thus isn`t going to match Lockheed 1:1 in everything they do.

Ok, i understand your point of view. Up to a point i too can understand why french have higher costs. However a 3:1 price compared to the F16 upgrade seems too much to me. And frankly, with the Rafale, the french don’t seem to be charging too much compared to the competition.

P.S: We did order the upgrade of the Mirage2000 together with the purchase of new -5. Simply at 28 mln euros for each upgrade, we upgraded only 10 plus we got 15 new -5 (at about 55 mln euros each i think).