You do realize that Sweden is less than 2.5 Switzerlands smaller than metropolitan France? Which makes it 11 times the area of Switzerland – yep, that’s how freaking tiny the latter is. Airbase numbers? Post Cold War, both are down to 3 active fighter bases, i.e. the Swiss have an order of magnitude more bases per square kilometer.

Want to reconsider

nothing to reconsider… I didn’t just take a glance at a map, I flew there… and it was less than 10 years ago, not in the 1980’s 😉

it’s the difference between paper range and real range… on paper the gripen C/D is given 800km (on wiki), which should be a lot more than necessary for the swiss needs (largest straight distance is west-east ~350km), and yet, they were bingo fuel before completing an interception mission…

let’s wait for tests and to see what’s included in different offers before starting to say that this or that aircraft is the best choice for them

the “only” problem today is that once sold, the US don’t have the keys to decide when and on whom Egypt can use it 😉

if you reer to wiki, it is a missile that can accelerate up to Mach 4.5 and hit targets up to 10km (over 30000ft) above the shooter.

Even if you give it zero velocity by shooting from the ground, it can reach easily say, about 8-10000ft and about Mach 2, which is certainly more than enough to hit an overconfident pilot flying in any aircraft at, say 5000ft or so.

When you look at the video of the Eagle, it never made any maneuver to avoid it, probably not seeing it. It drops lazily a couple of flares, probably only because it is the procedure after dropping bombs, but he obviously did not expect to be threatened in any way

Canada will never buy a fighter not produced in the US. So it will be either the F-35A, F-35B, or the F-35C. Personally I think they will go for the F-35A

that’s pretty much certain. The Rafale would stand a good chance if, under god knows what circumstances, LM managed to pi$$ up the Canadians as Boeing did… and even then… who knows? 😉

it depends on what they want to integrate… Weapons have a time limit (beyond certain date they have to be either used or recycled), so, if they are to be used, All Canada needs is to use those they won’t have on the Rafale.

Unless they plan on carrying nukes (American) which the USA may not accept to integrate on the Rafale, for the rest, it should be fine as, even if the US refuse the integration of this or that weapon, the french can provide an equivalent for almost any job they may need to do.. For example, today as short range IR missiles, they have sidewinders (remains to see how many years before thy need to be renewed – see above) and if they want to keep using them, they’d need to be integrated. On the other hand, Rafale uses MICA in IR version on wingtips which is integrated as an IR sensor for the system (sensor fusion and so on), which gives it also more range than the sidewinder (knowing also that the IR and EM MICA is the same missile with only the different sensor tip put on it (sensor which can be changed by simply removing it as is. The connector is exactly the same and there’s nothing to reprogram, the missile recognizes automatically what sensor is fixed on it.

Some were claiming that it would not be able to be integrated into NORAD system, but, if F-16’s and F-18s can be integrated, it’s obviously not something you can’t install in any fighter built in the last 30 years. The modalities of that installation could be negotiated with no problem (it could be perfectly made internally by a Canadian company in Canada for example)

er, its eastern neighbors:

Czech Air Force:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]258201[/ATTACH]

Hungarian Air Force

[ATTACH=CONFIG]258202[/ATTACH]

compared to stripped down Typhoons F1 they have, chances are that, in case of war between these countries, there would be no Austrian Air Force left in no time

Ok, let’s say “long ago” 😉

strange idea nonetheless 😉