His toy box, his toys. He shouldn’t feel the need to justify his decision in any way.

Well indeed, but I think we’re still allowed to ask amongst ourselves “why is he selling a P-40 and Hurricane for another Spit?”

There are only at most three dozen airworthy P-40s in the World; even the Hangar 11 website calls it ‘rare’. I can’t wrap my brain around why you’d want to sell it; must be a treasure for air show bookings.

Perhaps parts are expensive. I suppose it could be something as mundane as that.

Extremely sad news but reflects the increasing costs of maintaining flying 1960s aircraft, I presume. What happened to Misdemeanour – did Jonathon Whaley sell her?

I think it reflects more the complete absence of income for Mid Air Squadron in 2015. Cancelling an entire display season because of paperwork that could have been done over Winter 2014? Not sure how they expected to pay £90,000 in rent to Kemble in that case.

Misdemeanour has not had her title transferred from Mr Whaley’s company and her PtF expired in October. Looking like an export prospect now, unfortunately.

er, having French Guyana, why would they operate feom Senegal?

French Guyana to Falklands: 8,700 km around the hump of Brazil

Senegal to Falklands: 8,500 km across open ocean

Plus to have reached French Guyana in the first place would require a full Atlantic crossing ( how are you going to send Transalls with urgent cargo? Via Senegal?! ), followed by heading halfway back across the ocean just to turn south…

Senegal provides shorter lines-of-communication back to France, proximity to deployable French forces stationed in Africa and less antagonism to South American countries.

Question. How much threat is posed by RPG-7 to Mi-24?

Other than lucky shots, tackling a helo with RPGs usually involves multiple firers and therefore requires advance notice and co-ordination.

If those-opposing-Russia managed that, they have quite an arsenal. Most of the anti-armour ones seen in Syria are 1990s-era tandem-warheads from Russia, Egypt and Iran and would likely knock-down a helo through blast alone but because of their weight they all have fairly short range, around 200 metres.

The anti-personnel projectiles would shred a helo with fragmentation. The Mujahideen used the self-destructing timer fuse to burst those sorts of warhead near Russian helos as a sort of makeshift-proximity fuse, but that required careful preparation and timing.

Anything on the ground or hovering close to it would be vulnerable to the thermobaric and bounding blast-frag projectiles.

Those “upgraded” F5s could be upgraded a bit like the Mig 21 BIZON. A recent radar + ECM & R77/73. Maybe even an IRST & they’re good to go.

That’d probably do the job for the next decade. Give the F-4 fleet a refresh as well. After that time, Iran’s international relationships should have stablised and they can select a long-term fleet based on whom they feel will be the most reliable partner.

How is the indigenous helicopter production proceeding? The 214 is still a capable medium-lift type, the only thing it really concedes to the S-70 is ballistic tolerance. Keep the 214s flying, add some second-hand Chinooks to update the fleet ( they use the same engine as the 214, useful commonality ). Transport fleet does seem to need some attention, I wonder how Airbus would respond to a request for A400s…?

Really I don’t see a point rushing into a general fleet replacement programme, there are no pressing first-tier threats to Iran. Better right now to concentrate on personnel and training using known and indigenously-supported assets upgraded with modern sensors and weapons. Once the systems are up to a modern standard they could even start to participate in international operations to cross-train with other nations.

Gorgeous photo, I used to have a poster of that on my wall! Sadly now long lost during house-moves, but thanks for the memories 😀

Starstreak from Apache:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]241309[/ATTACH]

Well exactly. How the F does an airliner at over 20,000ft get hit by a surface-to-surface cruise missile at 200ft?

It is possible that they’re being overly cautious in case the Russians are [ also using / planning to use ] ALCMs, which generally use a step-down cruise profile.

3 x Hughes Mk 4 pods ( 1 x 20mm twin-barrel Hughes Mk 11 each ) giving 12,600 rpm in four-seconds bursts.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]241061[/ATTACH]

2OMM MK 4 MOD 0 GUN POD
FLIGHT TEST OF THREE PODS INSTALLED ON A4 AIRPLANE
At Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake, California
15 April to 20 July 1963

http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA366870

Oh, not forgetting plus 2 x 20 mm Colt Mk 12 internally.