agree it’s very strange. those are typhoons.

>> Rimmer, please don’t put words into my mouth. the dastardly adjective was used wrt the allegations by yudisthir. what I said was that you were repeating them,
viz.

which is simply repeating a false allegation.
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if you put it that way, nothing is certain, there are however acceptable levels of possibility and then there are possible but improbable events.

it is possible the earth may be destroyed tomorrow by an asteroid hit but it is unlikely that will happen. similarly, when a senior IAF officer says something it is unlikely that anything else will happen, since he can be expected to accurately convey the position of his service.
get my point ? the LCA Mk2 is at wait and see at the moment precisely because that DOES NOT add any years to the program. your words would have made sense if the Mk2 was a year away from production run and the IAF wasn’t placing orders. the IAF finds no need to order something that is not in the air yet 4 years before the production can start.
we will take this up again by 2013 end, okay ? I’ll admit you were correct and I was wrong if the IAF doesn’t place an order by 2013 end.

not only the su-30, IAF uses this tactic in every major acquisition starting from the jaguars.

if you arbitarily throw away past behaviour of an institution in trying to predict future behaviour, on what exactly are you basing your views upon ? your feelings ? that’s not admissible.
the seriousness of IAF can be gauged from the fact that the DCAS chairs a review committee on the LCA that meets once every month and the CAS every quarter. this is over and above the IAF teams at NFTC and elsewhere that are closely associated with the program.
time is a precious qty for senior IAF officers, they don’t spend it on meaningless projects. clearly LCA has some value for them.

no, I didn’t say IAF was the only operator.

let me quote my own post again :

realistically speaking, in what way did a measly 13 gnats flying in far away finland affect the IAF’s operation of the type ?
hwo does it affect the IAF that oman flies a handful of jaguars ? especially when IAF jaguars have evolved to be significantly different from the omani ones.

please, please give me some logic on why IAF should care whether nigeria flies the jaguar or the tornado. “trust me on this” sadly, is not a logic.

by your reasoning the french should stop operating the rafale since they are the sole operator of the type so far ! :rolleyes:

pray tell me how and why does it make the air force happy that some other air force half a world away is flying the same type when the aircraft itself can be produced and maintained a couple of kilometers away ?
USAF is OK with it precisely because they can make and maintain everything in country, not for some other untold reason.
exactly same reasoning applies for any other AF if its domestic industry can manufacture and maintain the type.

the AF won’t give two hoots whether some other unrelated AF uses it.

Right, this is getting silly and we are in fact playing on words and downright twisting them.

I tell you what, we can all dress up our opinions as facts. So to make this very very simple for you, I will state some facts.

1) IAF has only 40 LCAs on order.
2) Despite what you or Senior IAF officers may want, no more orders have been placed despite this project having exsisted for 15 years plus.
3) It does not matter who operates the other types, in what capacity or in what number. Please dont play on words. Its obvious to you, me and anyone reading you were implying they were the sole operator. Just because you used the term “about the sole operater” that makes you suddenly be able to say you did not imply that?

IAF HAS NOT BEEN THE SOLE OPERATOR OF Gnats and Jaguars when inititially operated and you inplied this.

You wrote

“IAF itself was about the sole military-operator of the gnat and did it quite successfully too.
similar reasoning applies to the jaguars.”

What would the average reader imply from this?

My point is air forces very rarely tend to be sole operators of a type.

Air Forces do actually give “two hoots” if other air forces choose types they are considering operating. Actually, its why IAF personnel are in Sweden, US, France etc evaluating the operations of MRCA contenders.
To claim the AF “dont give two hoots” shows (and I am desperatley trying to be civilised here) a certain lack of knowledge with regards Air Force aqquisition programmes.

Now your opinion is the IAF will induct this in large numbers, but lets seperate this from fact.

Looks like all the flight trials PAF is conducting are going well.

FC-1 Xiaolong fighter passes design appraisal:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009: The FC-1 Xiaolong fighter recently passed design appraisals and reviews, indicating the Xiaolong fighter has made significant progress in the process of commercialization, setting a broader stage for its future expansion at home and abroad.

The Xiaolong fighter, developed by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), is a multi-purpose light fighter aircraft jointly invested by China and Pakistan. The Xiaolong fighter had its first successful flight in 2003.

AVIC officially started the research, development and trial flights for a small batch of eight aircraft according to Pakistan’s demand as early as 2004 and delivered the aircraft from 2007 through 2008 as scheduled. The aircraft has had sound performance during its trial flights in Pakistan.

Fantastic,in dept and well researched article on PAF Mirages during 1971 war. By Usman Shabbir.

http://www.pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/1971war/mirages_in_1971_air_war.html

I love the word “darstardly”! Make me sound like a Sherlock Holmes baddy! :diablo:

Please point out the allegations I made against you. I was asking people to stop bickering.

Nice to know we can cary this on in a civilised way though.

1) So basically you are agreeing with me? Only 40 LCAs have been ordered? Thats all we can be certain about. “IAF officers have indicated” is not really a certainty of anything. All I am saying and this was in regards to your previous posts where you were “certain” thsi would be inducted in large numbers,is that the whole LCA project is very much at a “wat and see” stage.Nothing is certain.It may end up being a 200+ order or the IAF may actually terminate it at 40 planes.

Going by past SU-30 procurement as a guide to the future procurement of a indegenious plane is now real guide at all.Just becuase IAF ordered batches in 40 in the past that does not really tell as anything solid about the LCA project.

2) OK, lets make this a bit clear. You previously said IAF was an only operator of Gnats and Jaguars. This has been proved wrong.I dont care what the air forces of other nations used the planes for or in what numbers.That was not the point. All I was saying, was at the time he IAF choosed the Gnat and Jag, both aircraft had other users, you claimed this was not the case. I proved it was.

If IAF does go ahead with the LCA, it will be the only users. Trust me when I say most air forces (bar USAF) dont find this the most comfortable of things.

I am sorry.Its an open forum.I was under the impression we can reply to any posts we read right? :confused:

If it was private why not just use PM?

I think like many air forces these days the RAF will have to simply recognise it will have to lose some capability.

It can actually get away with this and still manage on a force of say

2 JSF Sqds
5 GR4 Sqds
5 Typhoon Sqds

Thats still 12 frontline fighter Sqds assuming they lose Harrier.

Painful but realistic options include

1) Put armed AIM-9L equppied Hawks on Southern Q. Northern Q needs Typhoon to meet Russian snoopers at range,but for the occasional stray GA plane in Southern, Hawk is fine. This will spare an entire Typhoon sqd.

2) Lose foreign AWACs deployments and leave this to NATO/US. Plenty of platforms out there. Lose 3 and sell to France or keep in reserve and just have 4 covering UK ADR.

3) Privatise entire UK SAR. This is already happening.

4) Falklands air defence. Argies are not getting anything sophisticated anytime soon. Why not have infrastructure set up but keep the valuable Typhoons here in the UK.

5) Lose the entire C-130K fleet now and make up the lose via leasing until A400 comes online. Buy another 1 C-17 in addition to one just ordered bringing fleet up to 8. After Iraq withdrawl this should beenough for the Afghan air bridge.

6) Centre all GR4sat either Lossie or Marham

If we did all of the above, at least that would mean the RAF could still have enough resources for expiditionary warfare as part of a coalition!

Guys

This bickering is derailing a potentially good thread.

I did notice the BR link removed, can someone please post again?

From what I read LCA will enter only 2 IAF squadrons. That will probably consign it to either an training/DACT role or probably just stationed together in some far outpost of the IAF, away from the potential theatre of operations. If this plan is not inducted in signficant numbers I dont see IAF training upengineers and and pilots and investing in infrastructure for a 2 sqaudron fleet. Assuming it does overcome the engine, technical and weight hurdles, surley IAF would be moving to its MRCA and potential PAK-FA fleets and likewise PAF would be moving on to J-XXX or whatever.