L39 Fighet Jets for sale - £200,000. Bargain!

[the_leander]

Nice!

I'd prefer a DeHavaland Mosquito (the night fighter variant) as it has a similar top speed and longer range. but yeah, at a pinch I'd take one of those, sod it, who am I kidding, I want 2 of em ;-)

I would point out that this is a NOT a fighter jet, its a high speed trainer in the same mould as the BAE Hawk, and has a similar performance.

It *can be fitted with various ordinance*, such as freefall bombs, sidewinder (or its russian equivilant - probably Aphid). But it is still primarily a training aircraft.

Still, not bad at all, and given the cuts that the UK airforce are going to have to make in order to get its eurofighters, may well be worth passing on to the MOD.

[the_leander]

whabang wrote:

Still, not bad at all, and given the cuts that the UK airforce are going to have to make in order to get its eurofighters, may well be worth passing on to the MOD.

Hehe. You'd be better off buying the Griffin. It's faaar cheaper, and has similiar performance, IIRC.

Yeah I watched with interest what Saab were producing in Griffin, and its a very versatile aircraft, though not as survivable (in as much as it would take less to knock out a Griffin as it would a eurofighter) as Eurofighter, you can get 2 for the same price so it does ballance out. hell, Griffin as it stands is cheeper then the aging Tornado F3s/Gr1s and far more versatile not to mention manuvourable.

[the_leander]

whabang wrote:

the_leander wrote:

whabang wrote:

Still, not bad at all, and given the cuts that the UK airforce are going to have to make in order to get its eurofighters, may well be worth passing on to the MOD.

Hehe. You'd be better off buying the Griffin. It's faaar cheaper, and has similiar performance, IIRC.

Yeah I watched with interest what Saab were producing in Griffin, and its a very versatile aircraft, though not as survivable (in as much as it would take less to knock out a Griffin as it would a eurofighter) as Eurofighter, you can get 2 for the same price so it does ballance out. hell, Griffin as it stands is cheeper then the aging Tornado F3s/Gr1s and far more versatile not to mention manuvourable.

Yeah.
Both planes will blow up if directly hit by a AAM, though. :-)

The thing with Eurofighter is that its designed in such a way as to make getting that shot off much more difficult (if you can outmanuvoure your oponant to the degree that eurofighter can do to just about everything out there currently) then you have a better chance of surviving in a dogfight. Not to mention the potential to avoid the missile in the first place.

But by the gods don't you pay through the nose for that sort of agility.

[the_leander]

Yes but you have to get into possision to fire the thing first. a range of 50 miles or so is sod all when doing excess of 500knotts - thats where all that manuverability comes in very handy.

AMRAAM and as you say most modern AAM's are capable of very very tight turns for the speed they go at, but remember most of these missiles do mach 2 or better, so getting to 15G's isn't so difficult. Given that Eurofighters countermeasure systems are fully automatic (guaging when the best time to fire off chaff and flairs etc) and give pilots recomendations on where to point the aircraft to best avoid a strike, luck has less and less to do with it, eurofighter and Griffin are of the same stable in terms of design, they give the pilot a much greater chance of avoiding being hit by anti aircraft missiles (from ground or air) by being explosivly manuvourable and aided by computer controled countermeasures systems, inter-aircraft data link systems and so on.

Its all about survivability, the US for instance rely almost purely on stealth, which does to a degree work (though their current encarnations - f117 and B2 are both easily detectable and trackable by the British Rapier SAM system much to some peoples chargrin, did I mention that international orders for Rapier went off the scale when that got out after an airshow over here?) and stand off tactics - the latest generation of stealth fighter is designed not for close combat, but for longer range strikes - thus reducing the possibility of being destroyed...

Its all about survivability and different countries have different ideas on just what makes an aircraft better able to survive in the modern battlefield then others, but its interesting where its all going none the less.