Other than western fanboys for that over priced junk I see no solid data?

“Western fanboys”? Go into the User Control Panel and turn the maturity button back on, you seem to have inadvertently deactivated that feature.

Also, where is YOUR factual data to back up your claim that whatever Western piece of equipment has set you off this time is in fact junk?

The western aircrafts having higher reliability is another joke that keeps coming up. The F-16 can give Mig-21’s a good competition on who will crash the most.:D

If there are a whole mess of F-16s flying around, of course more of them will end up as makeshift Lawn Darts. Crashes are also often completely unrelated to aircraft reliability as well, I suggest you do a Google search on the term “pilot error” to increase your knowledge base on this area of discussion.

the C-130s are getting to be unreliable

Unfortunately, the sensible C-130 replacement for the world market, the An-70, appears to be dead in the water. You could always wait a few years to see if something else ever develops, I suppose :diablo:

In reality, what New Zealand could consider is purchasing a small fleet of An-124s. You will need zero outside airlift support after that move, and during peacetime the fleet could be chartered out in the same way Volga-Dnepr operates to add to the worldwide airlift requirement. You’d probably have made the money back that you spent on the jets in no time, V-D and other An-124s get around a lot. Those guys definitely get around, I used to see them in Kansas all the time moving Boeing parts around. Hell, when we moved to the East Coast in February, I was standing outside the hotel and looked up to see an An-124 flying into Philadelhia International Airport even.

We operate with the UN quite regularly and they could certainly benefit from having more transports

The UN does move a lot of stuff around, what with all the humanitarian relief efforts and all, perhaps it needs to examine the possibility of acquiring its own transport fleet? Frees you up from having to scrounge transports because your usual sources of airlift aren’t agreeable to whatever the current effort is. An An-124/Il-76 mix would seem to be a logical solution, although I’m a little inclined to suggest either a small C-17 fleet as well or the inclusion of some of the defensive systems in the CANDIDs for the self-defense capability.

I bet u put those engines on IL-76 and it will lift 80 tons.

You are of course jumping to the conclusion that the Il-76 airframe is rated to lift an 80 ton load.

I see now why you took offence at my earlier criticism of the statements regarding the hull strength of the Kursk. Do you see the similarity between the statement above and those that I was so critical of?

Or are you seriously suggesting that the Kursk could have survived the internal explosion of even a single torpedo?

I never said it would survive a torpedo detonation. The point was that the entire magazine detonating is going to be of sufficient strength to sink ANY submarine, even a double hull design, making the collision theory look foolish. The Kursk was of a type known to have a very robust hull design. Stating that the explosion that sunk it would have sunk any sub in existance only serves to magnify the force of the explosion involved, helping to highlight the amount of damage it took to get the sub on the bottom, further making the concept of a fatal collision look asinine.

That’s taking a VERY narrow view.

It is accurate, though…

GWB is the notional head of the administration, so the buck stops with him. Before and after 2006 the White House has failed to use its influence (or even to attempt to use that influence) to make changes to ITAR that would be favourable to Britain.

Why should the US go out of its way to make political decisions favorable to a nation next in line to leave Iraq?

And it must be recognised that Clinton and the Democrats were and have always been in favour of the USA meeting its obligations on JSF. (A waiver was promised in 2000).

While all of the key bodies and key personalities involved in denying an ITAR waiver happen to have been Republicans.

Apart from GWB and Don Rumsfeld (both of whom have been unco-operative and hostile to an ITAR waiver) you have, for example:

Henry Hyde (Rep, IL), the Chairman of its Committee on International Relations since 2001.

Duncan Hunter (Rep, CA), the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Their concerns are not necessarily invalid from an American point of view. What are the UK’s laws regarding transfer of technology to third parties, for example?

In any case, it’s not important who is responsible for it, what’s important is that there is no more than mealy mouthed platitudes in the way of evidence to support the belief that technology transfer and operational sovereignty have been sorted out satisfactorily.

Was full technology transfer in the original contract?

In reality, the Raptor was too early. It’d be far easier to justify it with an exportable, refined PAK-FA getting ready to appear on the market! The problem you have now is that by the time the PAK-FA appears and is exported, the Raptor’s line may have shut down. Which means even MORE money down the line to develop the NEXT fighter, marketed as the counter to the PAK-FA.

Please man, here i have explained you that fighters like the F-22 and Gripen can use off board sensors to cue their weapons, the Gripen can turn off its own radar and guide an Air to Air Missile with another aircraft`s radar information via data link.

Yes, they CAN use those systems. But you stated that they HAD to use such systems, which is still false, no matter how many times you repeat yourself.

And later you want to say someting i never said, i did mean that satellites do form part of a defence network system, i have shown you AWACS do use satellites, fighters use GPS and satellite navigation, all this network aids a fighter to find its quarry

Look at what you said:

“the cueing and locking on is done by remote sensors such as AWACS, GCI units or satellites.”

How do satellites cue and lock on BVR AAMs? You said it, I am in no way making things up here.

You don’t see an implication here then, that had the collision that didn’t occur, occurred then it would have been the fault of the captain of the NATO submarine that was spying, as opposed to the captain of the Russian submarine that was being spied on?

If an SSN is close enough to an Oscar to collide, then it was most likely trailing the Oscar itself. In that case, yes, had a collision occurred, it would have been the fault of the SSN for trailing so close.

You don’t see, following an admission that the Kursk was destroyed by an internal explosion of one of its own (obsolete, dangerous) torpedoes, an apologetic caveat that that fact did not imply any inferiority of the hull strength?

I wasn’t aware that the torpedo that detonated was obsolete, but they can be dangerous due to the fuel involved. And yes, if you blow up something inside the hull, it applies pressures on the hull that were most likely not thought of by the designers. The hull is designed to contract under pressure, not expand past normal size. Besides, one torpedo going off is one thing, but an ENTIRE MAGAZINE detonating is a whole different ball game.

Clearly I’m not blessed with good comprehension so I’ll stop being so petty now and go off to do that research about free speech. :rolleyes:

Good for you, more knowledge is never a bad thing.

Do not imply things i never said, AWACS are control systems and do use satellites, this gives better awareness to a fighter when it is fighting a BVR fight those are off board sensors not in board as you want to imply.

Satellites form a part of any fighter aircraft

But fighter aircraft can operate without satellite or AWACS support, which is the exact opposite of what you said before:

Any combat aircraft needs outboard information, but this is even more necesary if you are going to use BVR air to air missiles, because the cueing and locking on is done by remote sensors such as AWACS, GCI units or satellites.

Look at the last line: “cueing and locking on is done by remote sensors”. Your off-board sensor can tell the FCS where to look, but the FCS tells the missile where to look. That’s called “cueing”. No off-board sensor integrates directly with a BVR AAM on the rail of an interceptor. It must go through the FCS interface.

Guidance functions are also performed by the FCS. Otherwise, you’d have already answered my satellite and MiG-31 questions from before.

The problem here is that you are speaking in absolutes and are unwilling to admit that your original posting was poorly worded and, simply put, completely erroneous when taken at face value.