Threadkiller Mk XIII

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PsychoFish said:
I miss the sounds of the Atlas Cheetah...

The SAAB Gripen is not a bad replacement, but would have preferred us going with the Dassault Mirage 5 instead
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Actually, I think the Cheetah is flying right now. I couldn't glimpse it yet, but rumour around the office is that it's flying with a CSIR product (that we helped build) attached.
 
Avatar said:
Oh, you should hear my colleague rant about the Gripen - and he worked on the support side at Saab. The fact that we got the Gripen itself is fine, it's a very good and capable plane, but we had a support structure for Dassault in place since we had all those Mirages. So getting the Gripen meant we had to get a whole new support platform as well, and that escalated costs dramatically.

Normally Aerosud flies their Mirage III at AAD, so you might get to see that if you're in the area..
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Yup, that is the biggest gripe the airforce maintenance boys have with the Gripen; We could have quite easily taken the newer Mirages and Denel could have very quickly done the same/similar retrofitting we did with the Cheetah C,D and E; Hell we could have even pumped in the Atar Plus engine.

Theoretically the MiGs would have been a better buy than the SAAB. It would be cheaper than the SAAB, we would be supporting a fellow BRICS partner, operating costs of a MiG (23/29/31) is lower than the Gripen; The MiGs are faster, have better range, more hardpoints, a higher service ceiling, a much better rate of climb. Besides that, the MiGs are hardy aircraft that have proven to be reliable in worse conditions than what we have in South Africa. So that's my little Gripen rant.
 
PsychoFish said:
Yup, that is the biggest gripe the airforce maintenance boys have with the Gripen; We could have quite easily taken the newer Mirages and Denel could have very quickly done the same/similar retrofitting we did with the Cheetah C,D and E; Hell we could have even pumped in the Atar Plus engine.

Theoretically the MiGs would have been a better buy than the SAAB. It would be cheaper than the SAAB, we would be supporting a fellow BRICS partner, operating costs of a MiG (23/29/31) is lower than the Gripen; The MiGs are faster, have better range, more hardpoints, a higher service ceiling, a much better rate of climb. Besides that, the MiGs are hardy aircraft that have proven to be reliable in worse conditions than what we have in South Africa. So that's my little Gripen rant.
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But.. the MiGs are red. I think it would've been too tough a sell, politically speaking, when the deal went through, so a more neutral partner like Saab made sense in that regard. Agreed on everything else, though.

That said, the Gripen is now practicing here, and hells, that thing is exciting to watch.
 
What is Installing the latest version of Origin supposed to be informing me of. All I see's a fucking bar!
 
Avatar said:
But.. the MiGs are red. I think it would've been too tough a sell, politically speaking, when the deal went through, so a more neutral partner like Saab made sense in that regard. Agreed on everything else, though.

That said, the Gripen is now practicing here, and hells, that thing is exciting to watch.
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Oh yes, that it is; Reminds me of something. So I was involved with Government and Aerospace logistics and got to go to plenty of exhibitions and shows. It was around 2010 and I was in Germany at the Stuttgart airshow. So obviously all the big boys and the likes were there. The USAF was there with their fighters and guarded by multiple airmen with rifles and stuff. There in a corner was the Russian Air Force with a couple of MiG-29s and SU-27s; Guarded by a lone Russian soldier and his AK propped up against an oil drum. Had a quick chat with him; The MiGs were dirty and one of them had a noticeable bullet hole. His response : "American planes made for cowboys, Russian planes made for war"
 
[MENTION=1402]Avatar[/MENTION] Fun fact; SA and Brazil are the only two Brics nations to not use MiGs. Russia, India and China all have one or more MiG squadrons. SA and Brazil both have JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighters.

Although the Chinese do to MiGs what we did to the Mirages, modify then and rename them.
 
PsychoFish said:
[MENTION=1402]Avatar[/MENTION] Fun fact; SA and Brazil are the only two Brics nations to not use MiGs. Russia, India and China all have one or more MiG squadrons. SA and Brazil both have JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighters.

Although the Chinese do to MiGs what we did to the Mirages, modify then and rename them.
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I am sure that if we had been a fully fledged member of Brics when we were looking for new aircraft, we would've gotten those MiGs.
 
czc said:
The Czech Republic also bought Gripens to replace MiGs when they joined NATO.
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True, but that was mainly because all NATO member countries need to operate with the NATO standards. Apparently only the F-16, F/A-18, Mirage 2000, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen meet those requirements.
 
PsychoFish said:
True, but that was mainly because all NATO member countries need to operate with the NATO standards. Apparently only the F-16, F/A-18, Mirage 2000, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen meet those requirements.
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Yip they looked at all those.

Plus they really needed to modernise after 2000.
 
czc said:
Yip they looked at all those.

Plus they really needed to modernise after 2000.
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True, I'm a huge fan of the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Mirage so I really cannot understand the obsession with the Gripen though.

However they likely have their reasons. I purely look at numbers :

Maximum speed : 2,495 km/h (Typhoon) 2,336 km/h (Mirage) 2,204 km/h (Gripen) 2,120 km/h (F-16)
Combat Radius : 1,550 km (Mirage) 1,389 km (Typhoon) 800 km (Gripen) 550 km (F-16)
Service Ceiling : 19,812 m (Typhoon) 17,060 m (Mirage) 15,240 m (F16) 15,240 m (Gripen)
Hardpoints : 13 (Typhoon) 11 (F16) 9 (Mirage) 8 (Gripen)

And the kicker (approximate costs) : USD 20mil (F16) USD 23 million (Mirage) USD 60 mil (Gripen) USD 101 (Typhoon)

So yes, I'll take a couple of Mirages any day.
 
Wyvern said:
It started out cold and now hopefully it will rain soon
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We so badly want it to rain here. [MENTION=14824]Donisia[/MENTION] mentioned needing rain in Discord as well AFAIK.

Some place did get 7 drops. But that counts as nothing.
 
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