Diplomatic row with US jeopardizes $1.5 billion deal between Turkey and Pakistan

Well yes, “never fit a US engine to your indigenous airframe” has been known about since Sweden hit the problem in the mid-1930s. And yet 80 years later the Turks are making the same mistake. Who’s the foolish one?

Still deadly 33 years after that attack against HMS Sheffield…

Can’t really give any credit to the Super Etendard for that, though. The Iraqis had a better idea when they strapped a pair of Exocets to a Falcon 50. Longer range, shirt-sleeve cabin, toilet and galley.

The Argentinians might have been more potent had they converted their Neptunes or Electras to carry Exocets. They could have ranged well out into the Atlantic.

Wonder if there is any particular reason why all the airworthy -1 Corsairs are Goodyear built airframes?

Many of the 1945 Goodyear-built airframes didn’t see wartime service. It would be interesting to map the airworthy FG-1Ds to their production dates.

Edit:

2 FG-1D (N700G) 1944
3 FG-1D (N773RD) 1944
4 FG-1D (N11Y) ?
5 FG-1D (N83JC) 1943
6 FG-1D (N46RL) 1945
7 FG-1D (N72NW) 1944
8 FG-1D (C-GVWC) 1945
9 FG-1D (N29VF) 1945
10 FG-1D (G-FGID) 1945
11 FG-1D (ZK-COR) ?
12 FG-1D (N43FG) 1945
13 FG-1D (N209TW) 1945
14 FG-1D (N451FG) 1945
15 FG-1D (N9964Z) 1943

They went with the F-16 because the US pressured them to, the original FS-X was an F-18 looking aircraft with canards

The F-15, F-16, F-18 and Tornado were all proposed alongside the indigenous design either as straight purchase or redesign.

There was huge pressure to choose US, of course, but the F-18 was actually pushed harder than the F-16. But the Japanese felt that the F-16 was the cheapest and lowest-risk as a basis for redesign.

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Needed more thrust and more area-ruling to meet its potential. Should have had a pair of Helwan E300s. Later the RB.199 and Atar 9K50 were both studied for the single-engine Marut Mk 3 but didn’t proceeed.

Also usually flew with two of the 30mm cannon removed due to vibration issues when firing.

I imagine I’m typical of most kids growing up in the UK during the Cold War in wishing that the RAF had F15s instead of Tornado F3s, but with a bit of distance and reflection it wasn’t a terrible decision.

Well the main reason for selecting the ADV was cost; to keep the per-unit Tornado costs in line the UK had to meet its original target of 385 airframes. As early as 1976 the ADV was being described as ‘satisfactory’ for the role envisaged which was faint praise. An F-15B with UK radar and systems would probably have been better in every way except cost.

Also around the same time AST.403 requirement emerged for a tactical high-agility successor to Jaguar and Harrier, for which the F-16 was pencilled-in. So the lack of dogfighting capability in the ADV wasn’t seen as critical as it wouldn’t be mixing with MiGs.

Fomr the Flight archive, 1976 airframe prices listed by the UK MoD in response to Parliament queries: F-14 £10 million, F-15 £7 million, ADV £6.5 million projected. Plus additional costs for the US options in fitting UK equipment and increase in unit costs for the 220 IDS on order.

The Japanese FS-X ADV would have had the outer wing points activated for IR AAMs, plus antishipping missiles inboard. I can’t remember if it was to retain the fuselage MRAAM recesses; II think it did as I recall a model with 10 or 12 AAMs which in the pre-Flanker days seemed incredible.

The late-80s were bleak for Panavia; Italy had stopped at 100 ( declined a batch of 30 more ), the Jordanian and Turkish orders fell through and the USAFE decided against the ECR Wild Weasel.