Seriously though,

About why other countries are getting different versions of F-35--keep in mind that all of these other countries have their own contractors working on avionics for them. When we sold the Japanese F-15's, they put in their own Mitsubishi engines. In Israel's version, they had their own avionics components they wanted to put in it.

Sorry about that Murcielago ;/

The mig 31 is not even ment too fight other fighters, it was designed too intercept and shoot down American bombers over the arctic.

The is as agile as pig with 3 legs. A F-22 would smoke it, only chance the Foxhound would have is too outrun the F-22.

[edit on 11-10-2004 by Disposible Hero]

Originally posted by Kenshin
Sorry about that Murcielago ;/

On an Airbus thread I posted pictures that were much larger than I thought they would be. I resized them in Paint Shop Pro and uploaded them to www.microsqft.com, note spelling, its not a mistake, and then re-linked them to the post. I hope this is helpful.

To Kenshin: I find it hilarous that you are critisizing the US's fighters, especcially since we allow you to buy some of our primer fighters for a pretty good rate. You currently operate the F-15, and the only other countries that are allowed to have them exported to are Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea. I believe there is a good chance that the F-22 may be allowed to be exported only to your country.

As for the JSF i believe that Great Britain will get the full stealth version of because they are a full-participant in providing funding and expertice for the program.

Originally posted by drfunk
considering the JSF program is actually being paid by a number of different nations and they are partners who share I believe share in profits from the sales proportional to their level in the program?

drfunk

If I recall, there are differnet Tier levels for support. the UK is the only Tier 1 member, and I think Aus is a tier 2. The tier buy in will determine production offsets, contracted work, and the spot in the production line. There is alot of risk involved with this. If the US pulls the plug, all those companies will have to eat thier development costs.

I also agree with you drfunk, I don't think the JSF will be degraded for export. Why would say the UK shell out the money for the top tier status only to buy a inferior product? As I recall the UAE or Qatar (I can't remember) is buying the Block 60 F-16 which is better than current USAF versions

i thought that Australia pulled the plug on its participation in the JSF program. Aparrently it was just horrible for their primary use, anti-shipping. The JSF doesnt carry anything right now except JDAm and AMRAAm with SDB in the future, doesnt carry that many weapons, and does not have the long range to patrol far out in the ocean from mainland Australia.

The Super hornet would be perfect for Australia, because iit does all of these missions and is more compatible with the current hornet's parts there and is not that big of a diference between the current hornet. Plus it still has allot of air-air functionality while JSF only usses it for defensive purposes.

Originally posted by roniii259
To Kenshin: I find it hilarous that you are critisizing the US's fighters, especcially since we allow you to buy some of our primer fighters for a pretty good rate. You currently operate the F-15, and the only other countries that are allowed to have them exported to are Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea. I believe there is a good chance that the F-22 may be allowed to be exported only to your country.

As for the JSF i believe that Great Britain will get the full stealth version of because they are a full-participant in providing funding and expertice for the program.

I dont think any other country has the chance (or money) to buy the F/A-22 Raptor. I think it should stay that way. But I would agree with you on the Great Britian getting the same stealth capabilities with the F-35, and maybe Austrialia, BUT NOT FRANCE.

No, RAAF is still committed by Government to F-35, even if we only end up being able to only afford a squadron to circle Sydney when the President visits.

73 Hornets and 36 F-111s and they are already talking of being able to afford less than 50 for the lot, and we lose our AD and long range strike capabilty in the process......I would not like to run into next gen Flankers in a F-35 and I'd rather have a well managed F-15 up against a badly managed Flanker. Or have to fly a tanker mission for strike F-35s in the face of Flankers....they are the bench mark in our region because we know we won't have to fly against F-22 or F-35 and I am not convinced F-15 is a dead horse v Flanker.

We also have R&D funds in SDI although I dont think Australia is interested in space lasers and 747 "gunships"........Some of those Interceptor ABM batteries along the North Coast would be nice though......you know for When stalinist dictators flip out? Our opposition (still the opposition for three more years) didnt want to know but its like.......

Some one has a big sword waving in your direction and your not even gonna talk about making a shield to ward if off.

I think the US has sold it on a furphy....that it makes them bullet proof, but to stop two out of three missiles fired by a rouge.....I still buy that on the chance I lived in one of the two cities it missed.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone comes out with something US intelligence missed that puts a fright in them. After all, they've spent enough time seeing stuff that isn't there. And the information high way just means there more woods to stop you seeing the trees. Who has the 21st Century A6M Zero?

craigandrew - What country do you live in?

Also, You can say what you want about are missile defence shield, But everyone knows that something is better then nothing. I know that the whole system is untested, but thats because recently counties keep saying that they have nukes, So the US wants to hurry up the development to get them operational just in case NK or Iran decide to launch a ICBM our way. Over time we plan on makings more of our defence done by lasers, instead of expensive missiles.

[edit on 11-10-2004 by Murcielago]

I'm from Australia. and I apologise in advance for not being good at condensing this into two or three lines, and being way off topic. If you like point me to and SDI thread, and I'll see you there.

I actually support SDI. I beleive if you have a sword waved at you, you would buy a shield to parry it. You just make sure the shields actually stout and not made of paper.

Iv'e noted that you (the US) have commissioned or are in the process of doing so, a couple of dozen fixed site ABM Batteries in the USA, as well as heading to deployment of ABMs on your larger newer ADW ships. I've also noted that the sort of deployable laser tech your funding seems to be running into problems according to some journals and sites (I'm a layman so excuse me if I have got it wrong). The USAF 747 lazer platorms built by Boeing seem to be snagged by waiting for the lasers systems that are not ready as expected. Has this changed?

2-3 years ago our government signed on to invest a relatively small (by US standards) annual amount in your R&D, to allow us some access to your (US) data on the new SDI technologies, and in the hopes if it produced tech we could use, we might buy down the track to defend Australian airspace from ICBMs.

It was opposed by the Opposition ALP on the grounds that it was a waste of our money and sent the wrong message to our regional neighbours (sigh....it was one of the reasons I didnt vote for them last Saturday)

Our Opposition when in Government declined a lot of proposed defence buys on the grounds of "sensitivities" of our asian region neighbours. Likewise they have declined in this election to consider purchasing sea launched Tac Toms or deploying SDI missile technology ashore or afloat on the same grounds. Fortunately they are now the "significantly reduced Opposition" (They also wanted our troops out of Iraq by this Christmas)

We play occassional host to a lot of US Forces and we have several joint-US facilities here, primarily Pine Gap which supposedly is a sigint and ICBM detection facility. In the 1991 Gulf War it helped give Scud warnings.

Many Australians think that made us a Nuclear target in the cold war, and that it might encourage some rouge general or paranoid stalinist to shoot at us to prove a point rather than risk shooting at a US city.
Some of us are not sure the US would start...finish a nuclear war to protect Australia, and we would like our own deterence against someone taking out Brisbane or Sydney. So several ABM silos across our northern coast and some TABMs on our new Destroyers might not hurt.

The media focused on claims SDI would take on massed wave attacks and take down all comers with no leakers hitting US cities and singleton or cluster rouge attacks would be a breeze to defeat. Australians have a healthy dose of skepticism, and it was screaming "snake oil salesmen"

Guys like me take the view theres only one state with a real capacity to launch cold war nightmare saturation attacks and thats the USA. And like I said, if you live in two out of the three cities that it saves, SDI is still a good buy against a rogue, especially if you beleive it will make someone think twice about wasting his shot in the first place.

So there you go.

craigandrew
I've also noted that the sort of deployable laser tech your funding seems to be running into problems according to some journals and sites (I'm a layman so excuse me if I have got it wrong). The USAF 747 lazer platorms built by Boeing seem to be snagged by waiting for the lasers systems that are not ready as expected. Has this changed?

The ABL has had delay after delay, the current main prob is that there still trying to "shrink" the lasers size so it can fit into the 747, The first inflight laser test was supposed to be 2004, but now its sometime in 2005. This is one capability that I would like us to have when we take out Iran or NK.

[edit on 11-10-2004 by Murcielago]

Devils advocate....if it could find it....I could be wrong about Raptor & JSF...pigs might fly...but I could be.

In the original novelization of ID4 they also had Randy Quaids drunk cropduster character knocked back to fly an F-18 in the strike on the Alien Saucer attacking area 51.

So he somehow aqquires an AIM-120 and straps it to his Stearman 'duster and when mankind looks doomed, flys the contraption into the aliens city killer laser.

and I thought the movie was bad.

A super MIG-31 fits right into a Dale Brown novel with Ole Dawg.

I'm sure this or the next decades A6M Zero is out there and it might (have to) be a MiG but sorry....no uber Foxhound.

Someone told me that the USAF had been told to buy the 747 despite the fact there was the laser problem.

As someone said the flying test bed the had was nowhere near fit for dependable field service but the supporters were afraid it might be cancelled if they didn't make some kind of committment. I hope the USAF can at use the airframes to do flight profile training in the meantime.

It is one cool pic, the saddest thing is that there are more Berkut's in that picture than the Russian AF will ever have

Originally posted by Kenshin
How do you know that a MiG-31 FOXHOUND, couldn't shoot down A F-22. I bet A super modified version of the MiG-31 FOXHOUND would be able to take down a F-22


its simple, if a Mig-31 was one the tail of a F-22 all the raptor would need to do is to make a turn and instantly lose the Mig-31, because all it is is a plane with big engines suck in and designed to be a point -blank interceptor.
This is all assuming that it is about a mile near the Raptor & can barely see it. most likely the Mig would be destroyed in a bombing run by a group of stealth planes, never even getting up to fight. Even in the air, the plane must be relly close to the Raptor to see it, but the raptor can launch way farther out and destroy the Mig before its even seen.

Originally posted by Stealth Spy

HAHA! Might as well have replaced the S-37s with MiG 21s!
F-22 is a beaut, so was the F-16....
Got to give the americans some credit!