sekantWhat Swiss nationals fail to stress in their posts is that the only thing that has taken place so far is a request by the Swiss MoD. They are plenty in parliament and then in the population (don’t forget that a referendum can be lodged against the purchase of such military equipment) who wonder why an air force fleet of cold war level should be maintained.
Switzerland certainly needs to police its skies but it is under no threat of foreign military invasion at this stage and for the foreseeable future. So the need to have a fleet dedicated to ground attack and recon mission hardly makes sense (and I will certainly be one asking those questions and casting my vote accordingly).
So, to make this simple, even though the military establishment is keen to see its F-5 replaced, you can not take this for granted. At least not for as many planes that the air force would like.
sekantI am reading conflicting information on this and was hoping for a confirmation either way? If it didn’t pull out; how many is it getting and when?
Are you asking whether Portugal never got on board the project (i.e. never ordered a single plane)?? Because you would be right, but your question is about five years late !!
sekantIf there is a pilot (or a aeronautical technician) out there, I have a naive question. What is the level of automation on a landing on such modern planes and modern airports? What do pilots control and what is controlled by the various guiding systems?? In other words, can a pilot land way short with the current systems or not (and I am not implying anything in the current case, just curious)?
sekantAs discussed though, it sounds as though the flight deck crew did a tremendous job of getting the large aircraft on the ground and stopped safely.
I suggest we also wait before lauding the crew. I seem to recall that a few years ago, an Airtransat crew was lauded for having successfully “glide-landed” their fuelless and powerless A330 until it was realised that they had inadvertently emptied their plane of its fuel.
sekantnot strictly aviation, but includes aviation examples
Lately it seems that France is unable to pull off the same level of sales they achieved in the past, with some of their past military equipments.
Eurocopter (well its partly French) has been a little bit more successful with Spain, Australia, and the Saudis buying the Tiger.
so whats the story behind France’s lack luster arms exports these days?
Sure, there is the high-profile case of Rafale and also the relative failure of the Leclerc, but does this warrant such a broad generalisation???!
Exports statistics show that France is the fourth largest arms exporter and, over the past six years, is way ahead of the UK !
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_Exporters)
sekantMinimun 24 aircrafts for air policing duties ?? Could any break this down so as to make more sense of that figure??
I take it that what Austria has in mind is to have one or two teams of two planes (one in the eastern the other in the western part of the country) that can take the sky in the matters of minutes. This would imply that you need four airplanes in operational mode at any time.
So how come 15 or 18 planes would not be sufficient. 15 – 4, that means that you have still 11 machines for upkeeping and training !!
So where am I mistaken ??
sekantVery bad taste.
Before you decry the “nationalism and the chauvinism of US airlines” look towards youself and your petty comments.
Seems pretty obvious to me that the implosion of its 747 departing from NY had a serious impact on the well-being of TWA. Seems also pretty obvious that the inquiry showed that the 747 tank/wirings has serious deffects.
Meaning that, contrary to what the author of this thread tried to show, Boeing can also drag a US company down. Now, if you want to challenges these facts, you are welcome to try !!!
sekantI am just saying that one line of Airbus (take Toulouse if you like it more :rolleyes: ) produces more aircraft than all “competitors” except Boeing. Same can be said if say Boing Renton or Boeing Everett. The message: The “big two” are so far ahead of the nearest competitor in terms of
– technology
– customer base
– numbers already delivered and current output
– backlog (A380 has more than Sukhois little jet)
– supplier base
that any competitor would need long breath to come even close. And I think if Boeing and Airbus can agree on one thing, then that they don’t really need a third man in the arena of the 100+ seaters. Embrear knows that and is always busy saying they don’t want to enter the market. Bombadier scrapped its CSeries despite reasonable market outlook. China hasn’t produced anything yet and Sukhoi will lose Boeing support if the extend the “SuperJet” (what a bl00dy name) beyond 95 seats.If somebody enters the market, or even dares to enter the market for larger ACs, he seriously gets his butt kicked by A&B, using all techniques they have (prices, customer base, government).
It was the arrogance and lack of attention by Boeing, combined with the strong will from airlines, and some mildly innovative aircraft designs, that let Airbus to close up.
Thanks for the clarification (or sorry for the fact that I misread you). Agree with what is above. The only way a third player could emerge would be if it were backed by a government having the political and financial clout to go down this way. In the medium term, I can only see China possibly having such capacities. And certainly not Brazil or Canada !!!
sekantI find your interpretion attempts very interesting. Are you French?
But what I basically wanted to say:
That Airbus Deutschland produces more aircraft (FAR25) than China, Russia and Brasilia togehter. The A318/319/321 line is in Hamburg.
If you need to know, I am a Swiss national.
But what you meant to say still doesnt make much sense to me – if the lines of production have been shared between Toulouse and Hamburg, this certainly does not mean that the Germans can claim to have developped and produced the A-320 line alone (and the same apply for the French for the 330/340/380).
sekantThe more things change the more they stay the same…..memories of Eastern ordering A300’s and then failing and then PanAm ordering A310’s 10-15 years later and then failing. One can trace the failed U.S. carriers by their big Airbus orders. In fact, can anyone name a large U.S. carrier that has ever ordered/operated large numbers of Airbus widebodies and not gone out of business?
No doubt AI gave them a great deal up front, and then will really twist the knife when it comes to parts and support. But in the meantime everyone puts on a happy face, the employees at AI have work, and the USAirways people get new airplanes. Most of them probably don’t have any idea about the history and what it portends.
1) TWA went down without having ever operated any airbus. One of the reason it went down is that it operated self-imploding boeings. So so much for the far superior US airplanes (which does not mean that airbus does not have shortcomings and have never crashed).
2) Where you may be right, however, is that Boeing (and at the time Mcdouglas) had a tight monopoly on the US market. To break this monopoly, Airbus had to come up with sweet deals to attract some US airlines. But that is more a reflection of the nationalism and the chauvinism of US airlines and consumers than of Airbus having inferior products.
sekantIf Airbus seperates into Airbus Germany and France again, Airbus Germany would outsell all manufacturers of the world excluding Boeing with a margin in number and a huge margin in USD.
.
Could you be so kind and expand on your statement, that I find to an extent surprising!!
What are you saying, that only Germany was instrumental in making what Airbus is today, and that the French have been a drag all along??? That all Airbus woes can be linked to the French ??? That Germany would have the capacity to develop such programmes as the 380, 350 and 400m all on its own???
sekantAnother issue is the range of the interceptor missile… it would need to be greater 5,500km, or 3,437.5 miles otherwise it would violate the INF treaty.
With such a range how can there be any protests when the Russians withdraw from the INF treaty and start building missiles with a similar range…
The interceptor missiles being not nuclear tipped (ie they rely on hit to kill interceptions), they are not covered/prohibited by the INF Treaty.
sekantGreece is too far to the west of a likely flight path. The idea of putting them in Poland is to intercept the missiles during their midcourse flightpath. Any closer (like Turkey, for example) and you risk not having enough warning to set up a shot. Any farther away (like in Maine, for example) and you risk an endoatmospheric intercept with the possibility of warhead material still impacting the US countryside..
This I understand. But then, am I correct in assuming that this system could then in no way protect the country it is located in (Poland) and neighbouring countries from a missile attack as they would be way past their mid-course??
sekant[QUOTE=sekant;1065834]I beg to disagree. You should go back and read the accounts of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Israel rolled out its nuclear weapons and publicly threatened that it was about to use them.
Small precision – when I say publicly, I mean that they let the US know their level of nuclear alert in order to secure its involvement.
sekantAt a first glance you are right, but OTOH Israel has the bomb for some decades and they never used or threaten to use it against anyone. Until Ahmadinejad delirium, Israel never brag themselves as a nuclear power abeit it is a known “secret”.
I beg to disagree. You should go back and read the accounts of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Israel rolled out its nuclear weapons and publicly threatened that it was about to use them.
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