100 000ft sounds way too high for a stock starfighter. to reach such altitudes the USAF used starfighters modified with a rocket booster in the tail. the engine couldn’t get sufficient oxygen to function and control surfaces did not have sufficient efficiency to keep it from pitching up (it used small boosters in the nose and wingtips not unlike the space shuttle later on to retain control)

you can see it here: the NF-104A:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4792155014774094135

as well as M2.7 top speed, absolutely not sure it would remain stable at such speeds

the resolution declares a no fly zone and allows to protect civilian population by all means necessary.

if ghaddafi declares a ceasefire, and uses no air assets anymore, it will be difficult, politically, for outsiders to justify any strikes.

considering the potential “no fly zone”, the charles de gaulle and its squadron of rafales probably could do it alone (seeing the shape of libyan air assets), the problem is more on diplomatic level, as said above

considering that “cost estimates”… it’s still funnny to read reactions:

– it’s very low: You see??? it dosn’t cost much!!!
then it appears it costs a lot more: of course it does!!! you shouldn’t believe such wild underestimations!!!

– it’s high/very high: these guys can’t count!!! the aircraft will cost much less, see some other guys (very low) calculations!!!

of course, canadian people who made the calculations are just out of first grade and learn to read and count properly (and obviously haven’t finished learning yet… 😀 )

gotta love some quotes…

“china bases further away than okinawa”.. er, how about taking a quick glance on a map my friend? google maps will do just fine. operating from okinawa might pose just a couple of problems: tankers (that’ll have to fly along chinese coast to get to taiwan) can be seen by any awacs from quite far away, and if they get shot down, any USAF fighters covering taiwan will have to learn to swim to get back home (considering that taiwanese air bases will be first day targets for any eventual attack, so most certainly impossible to use to divert).

So, basically, all the chinese would have to do is fly an awacs or two along their coast, with a few interceptors armed with very long range missiles to put out of action any fighter support from okinawa, without even having to face the majority of the fighters involved

“fighters taking off would be faced by swarms of missiles” is another one… about a decade ago, serbia (a small country of 6 million people or so) had a handful of fighters, having to face a bunch of NATO countries operating around 300 fighters against them (according to medias at the time) at quite close range (comparatively to taiwan theatre). they’d take off from adriatic or italy and be over serbia in a couple of hundreds of km.. yet, serbian fighters, for the most part went through untouched. they have operated missions of ground support, and only those sent to intercept aircraft were really in trouble and got shot down. and that was for an airforce that had probably 5 (more or less) airworthy interceptors, the rest being Mig-21 types used for ground attack and a few trainers.. chinese have about 1000 A2A capable aircraft… don’t you see a slight difference in scale? not to say the chinese have access to parts to keep their aircraft in relatively good shape, which serbs had not, after almost 10 years of embargo

anyway, talking about defending taiwan against a chinese attack, you can forget about the USAF there. they simply have no place to operate from in sufficient numbers and with acceptable distance to target

I’ve read a post ffrom Andy Bush, ex starfighter pilot on SimHQ quite some time ago, where he said the starfighter could pull something like 6G’s (if my memory serves well) and stay there at high subsonic speeds, where other fighters of the time would have to pull significantly less to maintain their speed or accept to loose speed (too much drag)….

So, while you don’t want to get into a low speed dogfight when flying a F-104, you still fight effectively guns only if you keep your speed high.

Sorry I can’t follow this logic. . If this is the case, the US Congress could easily approve the complete TT of the SH which is considered yesterdays technology vis-a-vis F-22 and F-35.. Rafale on the other hand, represents
the creme de la creme of French Aerospace Technology ,so it would be much easier for the Americans to hand over the SH to Brazil because unlike the French,they already have the future technology available, the French not !

the logic is that the US have said already they’d agree on “appropriate ToT” which means nothing specific, and congress has to approve anything like that.
what’s more, the US won’t ever let brasil export anything “made in US” or of “US origin” to a country like venezuela, for example.

the french don’t have such policy problems. and considering the level of technology, as said by another poster, by the time brasil can develop its own evolutions of these product, dassault will have moved on

Edit: besides, F/A-18E/F is anything but obsolete technology. it’s the frontline fighter in use today, and the F-22 is just a small series showpiece as it’s been ordered in far too small numbers and for a far too specific mission to be of any interest for a comparison. the F*35 is still a project.. meaning the F-18 will remain the USN front line fighter for long time to come