B52 misses Farnborough

[the_leander]

In related news, the RAF is to decomission its remaining Jaguar multi role stovl attack aircraft two years before its planned retirement, also the base that they operate from is to be closed.

Beautiful aircraft with an insanely short take off and landing distance, with the ability to reliably land on grass strips.

Expect to see airframes (minus radar and engines) of these aircraft go for a song (as with the Buccaneer) in the very near future.

[the_leander]

@ Fluffy

Eurofighter (Now called "Typhoon") was supposed to be here by the end of the year, to my knolledge it isn't even in production as of yet and is currently shedualed to arive for active service some time in the next two years with a price tag of £40 million per aircraft, some £15 million over cost. It will be replacing the Tornado F3 and GR1's, along with just about everything else in this class, including Jaguar.

The navy on the other hand is set to replace its Harrier GR7's (See Harrier - currently the only air defence aircraft available to the british navy was retired this year, leaving the ground attack GR7's to fill in the void) is to be replaced by American designed Joint Strike Fighters, because of their vertical take off and landing capability and because they can also go supersonic, price tag for them is around $50 million per unit.

However, Niether of these aircraft are as well suited to the role that Jaguar played - able to take off from unprepaired runways and specialised in ground attack.

The Navy is set to loose some 12 major warships, reducing the home fleets surface strength to a mere 25 (less then half of what we had available to us during the falklands crisis) major war ships and 7 or 8 nuclear attack submarines.

The Army is to loose 4 batalions and get working radios in return...

[the_leander]

the Mig29 is a nice aircraft and whilst it is a formiddable fighter in its own right, getting parts and more importantly getting parts that actually meet UK aviation standards would make it very costly to maintain. F16 again although cheeper to purchase initially, is costly to maintain.

Eurofighter however is more then capable of out performing the pair of them. Can carry heavier weapons loads then both and go further then the F16.

You are correct in saying that overwhelming numbers would eventually wipe out a technologically more advanced foe. However, as was shown in the falklands, where a 10 - 1 advantage against us was present, technology does count for some things. Argentines lost fighters in double figures, whilst we lost none in air to air combat (We lost two harriers due to AA fire).

A bit of inovation, well trained and well motivated pilots will even against statistically impossible odds.

[the_leander]

I do like Griffin, I like it a lot. Personally, I'd love to see a carrier born version of it to be on the forthcomming large aircraft carriers that the Navy is planning, as its reletively small, light and highly dangerous to anyone going up against it.