Aspis, How is that `admission` inconsistent with the possibility that perhaps Mirage 2000-9 upgrades aren`t economically rational because the associated costs are too high, whether because the infrastructure has been killed from lack of continuous work and would need to be resurrected, to inflation on all the systems, some of which are out of production and would need design work to integrate modern equivalents, to the producers simply having high costs even if they are doing stuff half a generation behind Rafale…? That isn`t high costs `just to force you to buy Rafale`, but high costs to customer because of high costs to produce, and Dassault is simply telling it like it is. I know, I know, less drama… 😎

The problem is, that when we upgraded our Mirage, the Dassault factory was still producing Mirage2000-5 (ours) and they still asked for about the same money as they do for India. Inflation today doesn’t come into the equation, as being out of production, the systems are the ones in french stock. The french do have high production costs, but consider that LM is doing its own upgrade for F16s at less than 10 mln per plane. Don’t they have inflation in USA too? Don’t they have high wages in USA too?

There is a difference between the manufacturer making tall claims to promote its products (everyone does that) and airforces publicly talking about exercise results, especially in a X vs Y manner. Of course things like this happen from time to time.

With the Indian competition being the only juicy competition on the horizon, gloves have been taken off and one should expect any means of promoting the product, including one’s airforce. En Garde! The French are playing to win the MMRCA! Defend yourselves!

Don’t get too excited, the Royal Navy aren’t placing an order for a bunch of Rafales. BTW! Oooops, France/Dassault what are you thinking? You could have SOLD some Rafales you numbties. Ha! We’re pretty much, inadvertently, getting some free fighters. Now thats a special relationship! Deal of the century? Oh yes! 😀

Did anyone say “free fighters”? Get your hands off Charlie De Gaulle, he’s ours! 😀

Nothing comes for free in this world

Come to Souda Bay in Crete! De Gaulle can stay anchor there for as long as we don’t have money to buy new fighters. It may take a while… but… better than giving free Rafales to the British! They will keep making funny jokes about Trafalgar and frogs and all you will get from them will be fish and chips and poor attempts to speak french with London accent. Our deal is much better:

1) Charles De Gaulle can stay at Souda port, so you don’t pay anything.
2) Your crew will actually find some real food and wine for free, instead of useless, boring roast beef recipies that a good frenchman would never eat anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFdyszvpemk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuzzGKyuC7Q

3) Nobody cares about Trafalgar in Crete.
4) You get the extra pleasure of dogfighting some Turks.
5) Your pilots can have a sunbath while being at work.
6) Your pilots can get a rest while ours fly the Rafales.
7) Greek accent in french is better than the british and won’t remind you of Trafalgar or Waterloo ever!
8) We can bring the Mirages to fly along once in a while so that your pilots can feel more at home!
9) You can still bomb Gadaffi between a glass of wine and a dish of fish.

It’s a win win situation!

P.S.: Why am i not the greek MoD? Where do we get all the morons? Ahahahahaha! 😀

This implies either several PAF pilots were involved, which means the PAF were present as PAF not as one exchange pilot, or this guy was a favored son of some sort and was given all three sorties against Typhoons – unlikely when there are a large number of pilots raring for that opportunity and the Turks were such wonderful hosts that they ceded all Typhoon sorties to their valued guest at the expense of their own pilots.

You are missing something. He doesn’t claim that in all Anatolian Eagle there were 3 battles between F16 and Typhoons. He claims that he or his countrymen were in 3 fights. Assuming he isn’t the only exchange pilot, this makes sense.

If you look at this article, in another Anatolian Eagle, the RAF flew 61 sorties. So (assuming similar thing for the time RAF went with Typhoons) the Turks had ample margin for their own pilots to try and fly against the Typhoon.

The Exercise concluded with 14 Squadron having flown 61 of a possible 64 sorties as a result of the outstanding efforts of the Squadron’s engineering and support personnel.

http://www.defencetalk.com/raf-lossiemouth-tornado-squadron-train-in-turkey-12430/

This is not weird, as the Anatolian eagle is the biggest exercize in Turkey, so they stay there for days.

Indian AF pilots have flown against both F16’s and Typhoons, and if the IAF preferred the Typhoon, I’d think they know which is the better aircraft

I agree.

Such markings are usually applied by the maintenance crew not by the pilot himself. And there is a difference between geography and messing up a flag of a country.

When i was a boy, in Greece, we learnt the flags of the other countries in the geography lesson of the elementary school… Every country’s chapter was beginning with the country flag on top of it on the book. So i have the 2 things connected. 😀

hat guy says “we” and if he was an exchange pilot you wonder whether a whole TuAF sqn is made up of Pakistani exchange pilots.

Why? “We” can also be 2 or 4 or 6. How many French and RAF pilots were involved in the “ATLC” Rafale vs Typhoon? He doesn’t even say “3 sorties” but 3 “setups”. The way i see it, setup can be go back to initial positions and try again. There is nothing weird in that. In greek magazines with a journalist aboard, i have read several times doing the air combat more times changing for example the attacker side.

That the RAF jocks were “shocked” would just confirm the point that F-16s rarely score kills at all against Typhoons or that they were simply surprised by the skills of the Pakistani(s?). Occasional kills occur, but that doesn’t mean that aircraft A is automatically superior to aircraft B. Thus far everything points to the other direction including Vipen jocks admiring Typhoon’s performance. And better don’t ask the Viper jocks from the BAF, RNLAD and USAFE who recently measured up against GAF Typhoons.

I am the first to say that pilot skill doesn’t mean that one has superior aircraft. In fact, the Typhoon is better than the F16.

You misunderstand. I’m referring to fanboys creating web pages and articles for their own nationalistic purposes. If the Indians had gone down a Rafale purchase option then no doubt you would see on such websites an article of how Pakistani F-16 Pilots gave a lesson to Rafale Pilots? It is easy to do and just look at how it has taken off on all the ‘fanboy’ forums?

Oh, i see. Well, having the Pakistani beating a Rafale hoax would have been a bit more difficult though, since Rafale has never been in Anatolian Eagle. But you must admit, if that article is a hoax, it is a very good one. I find it very convincing. Throwing in the Israelis too in there, excellent idea. If it’s a hoax, the author should become a novelist, he has very good imagination and attention to detail (he nailed the exchange pilot too).

The problem described isn’t simply “CAS”. It’s CAS against guerilla type force, that is, unorthodox warfare. It’s normal that there is problem. The Apache was build primarily as tank killer, not “Taliban hunter”. That’s why it can’t earn its money back.

The same applies for costs for expensive ammunition and loiter time of traditional aircrafts. All those are meant to be used in traditional CAS against enemy organized army. If you have 2 Talibans hiding in a cave here, another 2 hidden behind some rocks, etc, it’s natural that your ordinary methods and weapons, become too costly and inefficient. After all, the Russians showed this before in Afghanistan…

Wonder if any of those F-16’s were piloted by PAF pilots ? :diablo:

Ah, the infamous Italian Eurofighter “F-16 killer”. The problem with your question is that the pilot obviously did his homework in piloting, but not so well in geography when he was at school. The turkish crescent is horizontal. The pakistani crescent is inclinated but upwards, not downwards. So in his artistic attempt, he messed up the flags of both of them…

A full interview from an un-named and unidentified source. Anybody can create such a website and fill it with whatever they like. India shows interest in Typhoon and this story appears. Call me cynical!

TJ

I think you underestimate your airforce as well as your politicians, by thinking that an internet interview will change their minds about a 10 bln $ purchase… I am sure IAF has better ways to learn about how an F16 does against Typhoon than an anonymous internet interview.

http://www.paffalcons.com/specials/paf-viper-pilot.php

To be honest, it is a bit too detailed and goes to various arguments to be just a pakistani “trap” into convincing the “naive” IAF not to get Typhoon (like if IAF had no way to find out how Typhoon really performs).