IIRC, if there is going to be a deal, Russia wants PRC to buy minimum 12 – 16 planes (with an option for more totaling 50 planes)….

Is that correct?

Because I think there is still an offer on the table……

The problem is the cost of reopening the Su-33 production line for a small production run. Its for this reason that in my opinion a) The Russians have ordered Mig 29K b) The Russians apparrently said no when China asked for <20 Su-33’s.

It was a very rough calculation, and I didn’t know that radar could see through the earth. 😉

Tories have just announced they aim to make 25% savings from MOD without cutting front line forces, I’m not entirely sure how that breaks done or how they expect to achieve it though, just saw the statement on Ceefax.

Don’t the Mod employee’s count all the people working at devonport and portsmouth as well as on RAF and Army bases as well though? Not just admin people in London.

Sea Dart has roughly twice the range of ESSM, as does Aster 30.

Range of CAMM will be slightly less then Aster 15 which has a bit over half the range of ESSM. But considering that targets for CAMM will most likely be either fighters with bombs or sea skimming missiles, the likely range of CAMM should be more then sufficient to reach to the horizon, which is as far as you can engage a sea skimming target without information datalinked from another platform tracking the missiles anyway. Thats even more true to SARH missiles like ESSM though, as a direct line of sight is required for illuminators to light up the target.

Some Maths

Distance to Horizon.
d=sqrt(13h)

Assumptions are missile is 50M above sea level, radar is 10, so h = 60metres.

distance to horizon =27.9km
50 metres = 166.67 feet
Notice the listed max operational range of Aster 15 is 30km?

Target has to be detected and classified as hostile before the missiles fires, so……

MadRat, the Hawk and Goshawk while related, are not the same aircraft. The earlier poster was asking if a standard Hawk T2 could operate off a carrier, the answer is no.

It did in USAF service. B-66 too.

The award is from an Australian engineering organisation about servicing Australian F-111’s. Thats why I said that we never had those aircraft, they should have said it replaced the Canberra, or even that it replaced the F4’s leased by the RAAF until the F-111’s were delivered.

Its fugly, and thats all I have to say on the matter

I’d suggest retiring a squadron of RAF/RN Harriers ASAP, in order to rotate the airframes and keep that type in service for as long as possible, eventually to be replaced in a follow-on F35B order.

Actually, now that the Afghan commitment of the Harriers has come to an end and the GR.9 upgrade is complete or near completion, the RN is actually standing its second harrier squadron back up. RN Harriers to be day and night carrier qualified and the RAF harriers to be day qualified.