Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Leonidas BL

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

Gone a wee bit quiet on this thread of late. Think we can forget about them 18 Gripens for the time being. Have to make do with a few PC 12s for the moment. Bit sad when you look at what many impoverished African nations can field as an air force.

If you said Portugal, Norway or Czech Republic it might have been a better example.

Larbre34

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

Gone a wee bit quiet on this thread of late. Think we can forget about them 18 Gripens for the time being. Have to make do with a few PC 12s for the moment. Bit sad when you look at what many impoverished African nations can field as an air force.

Yeah, I'm sure the populations of those African countries are delighted to have some cobbled together squadrons of aging Migs to protect the interests of their current dictator while their kids go without decent sanitation, education, nourishment and personal safety.

Please stop posting here if you have nothing constructive to add to the threads, let alone on topic, you come across as an imbecile.

4068ac1elhodqr

India receives plenty of foreign aid, and some of that may well get spent on their $bn space programme, yet up to 30% of it's nations children are malnourished.

Sweden is much closer to the 'cold front' and may have a load of fast jets (mainly due to indigenous industries), but it didn't stop nearly 100 cars getting torched the other night, while riots and crime levels surge. Some politicians there at one stage thought about sending in the army to patrol their own streets, and claim back the 'no-go areas'.

Ireland needs to fix crime, poverty, national debt and the housing crisis before even thinking about burning huge swathes of cash way up at 40,000ft.

jonnybigwallet

How dare you sir! There is such a thing as free speech you know. May I remind you young man that I stood proudly on O'Connell Street in 1966 at the 50th anniversary parade and watched the Vampire jets roaring overhead. A state of the art aircraft of it's day. I am a patriot and I want our guys to have "the right stuff" plain and simple. No wonder there has been a collapse in morale, and give the DF a decent pay rise into the bargain!

sparky42

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

How dare you sir! There is such a thing as free speech you know. May I remind you young man that I stood proudly on O'Connell Street in 1966 at the 50th anniversary parade and watched the Vampire jets roaring overhead. A state of the art aircraft of it's day. I am a patriot and I want our guys to have "the right stuff" plain and simple. No wonder there has been a collapse in morale, and give the DF a decent pay rise into the bargain!

It's Day was in the 40's, by 1966 it was a flying relic, the "state of the Art" was the F4 Phantom, it was no different than what we have right now for all intents, as to what the DF had then, yeah WW2 surplus, great!:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

banie01

sparky42 wrote: »

It's Day was in the 40's, by 1966 it was a flying relic, the "state of the Art" was the F4 Phantom, it was no different than what we have right now for all intents, as to what the DF had then, yeah WW2 surplus, great!:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I was just about to post similar re: the Vampires
Outdated even at their time of design really. It was designed to take advantage of a type of engine that was a developmental dead end.
Centrifugal flow engine led to the pod and boom of the vampire to keep thrust loss to minimum.
It dictated a broad and inherently performance limited airframe that was already behind US/Russian/European fighters at the time of its introduction.
The Saab 21R used the same engine and was basically a swapped engine from prop to jet.
I know Jonny likes his waffle, but Vampires!
Even when we had them they were a plane that straddled the piston age and were out of date in every regard!
They were to all intent a piston era airframe, with a poor jet engine shoehorned in to get the RAF "Jet" capability at a lower cost than the Meteor.

That said....

They did give us a more credible air defence capability than we currently have and the Swiss loved theirs.

jonnybigwallet

Hear hear!

roadmaster

Never mind fighter jets the Air Corps have launched an invasion on the North AC279 is Currently over Tyrone

sparky42

roadmaster wrote: »

Never mind fighter jets the Air Corps have launched an invasion on the North AC279 is Currently over Tyrone

More fire fighting? the 139's have certainly put up the air miles this summer.

4068ac1elhodqr

Some are already planning a replacement for the F35, the 'Tempest'

Other technologies for the Tempest are also in early stages of development: a virtual cockpit could dispense with conventional instruments and switches and an AI-driven autonomous flight system would allow the aircraft to fly without a pilot on board, coordinating instead with other fighter jets.

The tabloids reckon it will be ready for service by 2035, and in production by 2030. The AI pilotless aspect will save some cash anyway.

ohnonotgmail

Winter Melodic Beehive wrote: »

Some are already planning a replacement for the F35, the 'Tempest'



The tabloids reckon it will be ready for service by 2035, and in production by 2030. The AI pilotless aspect will save some cash anyway.

Pretty typical for military equipment to be ready for service 5 years after it goes into production *


* i realise this was a simple mistake.

prinzeugen

Winter Melodic Beehive wrote: »

Some are already planning a replacement for the F35, the 'Tempest'



The tabloids reckon it will be ready for service by 2035, and in production by 2030. The AI pilotless aspect will save some cash anyway.

The Tempest is a Eurofighter replacement for the RAF. It will operate alongside the F-35 not replace it.

Rumours doing the rounds that Sweden, South Korea & Japan are interested in a collaboration with the UK. Japan are very interested apparently.

sparky42

Winter Melodic Beehive wrote: »

Some are already planning a replacement for the F35, the 'Tempest'

The tabloids reckon it will be ready for service by 2035, and in production by 2030. The AI pilotless aspect will save some cash anyway.

The Tempest mock up is an attempt to spike the other announced European next gen fighter, BAE doesn't want to be cut out of that project so is trying to use this as leverage into it. Frankly it's a PR stunt and won't be in service by those dates.

prinzeugen

sparky42 wrote: »

The Tempest mock up is an attempt to spike the other announced European next gen fighter, BAE doesn't want to be cut out of that project so is trying to use this as leverage into it. Frankly it's a PR stunt and won't be in service by those dates.

BAE want nothing to do with the French/German jet. France has said the UK will never be part of the project (France wants all the work for themselves).

As I said, the Tempest looks like it will be a BAE/SAAB/Japanese 6th generation fighter. Japan has already stopped development work on its own domestic stealth jet. This is what is fuelling the rumours.

sparky42

prinzeugen wrote: »

BAE want nothing to do with the French/German jet. France has said the UK will never be part of the project (France wants all the work for themselves).

As I said, the Tempest looks like it will be a BAE/SAAB/Japanese 6th generation fighter. Japan has already stopped development work on its own domestic stealth jet. This is what is fuelling the rumours.

Yeah they do want in, and no the French and German's have already said they are open to it, they don't want another split European build anymore than the UK does, just as the UK still wants other EU projects post Brexit.

Japan has been stop starting their work for years, but given their need for new fighters sooner rather than later I don't see them going down this route (more likely more 35's).

Tempest is an empty project right now, from memory it might just be the old aircraft that was being worked on before the 35 dressed back up. Wouldn't trust any rumours right now.

prinzeugen

sparky42 wrote: »

Yeah they do want in, and no the French and German's have already said they are open to it, they don't want another split European build anymore than the UK does, just as the UK still wants other EU projects post Brexit.

Japan has been stop starting their work for years, but given their need for new fighters sooner rather than later I don't see them going down this route (more likely more 35's).

Tempest is an empty project right now, from memory it might just be the old aircraft that was being worked on before the 35 dressed back up. Wouldn't trust any rumours right now.

Japan wants F-22s they can't have. Lockheed talks about a F22/F35 hybrid but its unlikely the US congress would agree. Thats why Japan started developing one of their own.

There is still a UK/French project ongoing but France, in its usual style, has made it clear that it is in charge of the new fighter and in the unlikely event the UK was to get involved, they would only play a miniscule part in its development and production.

France and Germany are after a multi-role aircraft. The UK, Sweden & Japan are primarily after a twin engined fighter to intercept the latest Russian & Chinese "stealth" designs but is also able to drop the odd bomb.I

The F35a does not meet these requirements.

https://www.ft.com/content/818c6b98-7fca-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475

4068ac1elhodqr

The interesting thing about the Tempest is that it (suggests anyway) a pilot may not be a pre-requesite (onboard) for use.

prinzeugen

Winter Melodic Beehive wrote: »

The interesting thing about the Tempest is that it (suggests anyway) a pilot may not be a pre-requesite (onboard) for use.

Thats way, way off in the future. Drones can't dogfight. Maybe in 2050 but no time soon.

There is every chance that the last F-35s to be produced will have some sort of remote control capabilities.

Leonidas BL

And by the time all this happens, we'll be buying Pilatus PC-21's :P

jonnybigwallet

Wont be breaking the sound barrier then!

Leonidas BL

So the T-X competition has been decided at last.

https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/09/27/reuters-air-force-awards-9b-contract-to-boeing-for-next-training-jet/

sparky42

Not a good week for Fighter Jets, a Belgian technician working on an F-16 accidentally fired off it's loaded canon on the hard stand and hit a fueled F-16 that blew up and damaged another F 16 next to it... That's a hell of a discussion he's going to have.

Meanwhile an unknown number of F-22's may have been damaged during the hurricane this week when the hanger they were in was damaged.

roadmaster

sparky42 wrote: »

Not a good week for Fighter Jets, a Belgian technician working on an F-16 accidentally fired off it's loaded canon on the hard stand and hit a fueled F-16 that blew up and damaged another F 16 next to it... That's a hell of a discussion he's going to have.

Meanwhile an unknown number of F-22's may have been damaged during the hurricane this week when the hanger they were in was damaged.

An all the F35s are being parked up, They will be holding on to the hornets for a while yet

ohnonotgmail

sparky42 wrote: »

Not a good week for Fighter Jets, a Belgian technician working on an F-16 accidentally fired off it's loaded canon on the hard stand and hit a fueled F-16 that blew up and damaged another F 16 next to it... That's a hell of a he's going to have.

Meanwhile an unknown number of F-22's may have been damaged during the hurricane this week when the hanger they were in was damaged.

I cant even imagine the number of mistakes they had to make for that to happen. Interview without coffee for that gentleman.

jonnybigwallet

I read a report in the paper last week that there are large numbers of almost perfectly preserved Soviet era jets mothballed in a cave in Albania and they are up for sale. Surely an opportunity for our cash strapped Air Corps to get in catch up mode.

Markcheese

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

I read a report in the paper last week that there are large numbers of almost perfectly preserved Soviet era jets mothballed in a cave in Albania and they are up for sale. Surely an opportunity for our cash strapped Air Corps to get in catch up mode.

Sounds great. Eh, what era soviet planes?
We could have an Irish soviet military airplane museum...

sparky42

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

I read a report in the paper last week that there are large numbers of almost perfectly preserved Soviet era jets mothballed in a cave in Albania and they are up for sale. Surely an opportunity for our cash strapped Air Corps to get in catch up mode.

Why?

ohnonotgmail

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

I read a report in the paper last week that there are large numbers of almost perfectly preserved Soviet era jets mothballed in a cave in Albania and they are up for sale. Surely an opportunity for our cash strapped Air Corps to get in catch up mode.

Soviet era so probably 30+ years old. No logistical problems there at all.

sparky42

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Soviet era so probably 30+ years old. No logistical problems there at all.

Most likely even older than that, why don't we see if the UK will give us any Spitfires while we are at it...:rolleyes:

ohnonotgmail

sparky42 wrote: »

Most likely even older than that, why don't we see if the UK will give us any Spitfires while we are at it...:rolleyes:

We might still have a seafire tucked away somewhere.