considering that there’s often whining about this or that european air force not buying european, it would be quite strange to go for an airframe coming from somewhere else…

– A good candidate may be the hawk (yet, one may ask, “why buy the aircraft to the brits while they don’t buy from us?” (naval rafale for example) :p )

– another good candidate would be the M346,.. twin engined, good performer, and most certainly giving the ability to install systems that would allow operational training and, eventually, light warfare if needed

– PC-21 would be just a trainer, but would lack performance if France had the idea to use a “cheaper option” for “overseas operations” like in Africa, for example

For example, one could imagine a Rafale going downtown leading a patrol of lighter aircraft to have a combined strike (cheaper than the 100% Rafale package) with all the capabilities of a Rafale, and with more eyes and bombs (guided by the leader) over the combat zone. A turboprop may have difficulties following in such a scenario

It doesn’t make sense that 2 tanks of fuel, would only get you another 56nm. One of those figures has to be off.

initially, it’s from Lockheed presentation to Norway if my memory serves well… looks like quite a small gain, but that may illustrate the drag increase (and therefore, the increase in fuel consumption) with external stores. The extra tanks may be interesting not to increase the overall range, but to maintain range when stuff is hanging outside…

should ask for a referendum:

the politician taking such decision should be legally responsible if pilots crash and it appears they were under trained because of lack of flight time in high performance jets… all of a sudden they’d find cash to keep them trained as they should be…

FYI, howitzers as any canons, guns or bows use necessarily a ballistic trajectory any time they shoot, as their projectiles aren’t propelled and they aren’t used in space, which means that gravity plays a role (which is the definition of “ballistic”)

in any case, a missile is composed mostly of propellant, and as soon as the propellant is spent, it’s more or less an empty lightweight tube with almost no inertia left (very low mass), resulting in fast deceleration and rapid loss in maneuverability. If your opponent is aware of the shoot and starts maneuvering, the missile will deplete its energy in a matter of seconds

no, just the follow up of advertisements war that’s going on over the brazilian deal since it started… remember how there were articles stating “from official sources” that the typhoon was the winner in india and would soon be announced as it was the best and blah blah blah…?

same thing here, working on the opinion, hoping to put the government under pressure…

Of course, India is behaving silly like a kid. :highly_amused:

when they ask Dassault to take full liability over the deal regardless whether its Dassaults fault or no, then, yes, they behave silly like a kid… sorry if that hurts your feelings, but you should blame India’s officials for that :p

kidding aside, I’m pretty sure they are mostly trying to get the best out of the deal, so asking for “silly” things that nobody would give them no matter what, may allow them to get a few more stuff that’s “potentially available” 😉

india should just cancel and buy all f35. none of mrca aircraft give strong edge over neighbors new aircraft but f35 can.

yeah, right… you just forget that, more than fighters, India wants tech transfer and independence… two things that the F-35 won’t bring at all…