true . . . but Tornado or Typhoon V.s Bear will only have 1 outcome.
But before any1 says it, I know it will never come to that, going back to the whole cold war debate. Which is just each side are just using scare tactics, unless we want thermo-nuclear war to start!
Bring Back Greenham Common!
true.... but its starting to get costly! todays events are estimated to have cost us about £160k to scramble the 4 tornados as well as a tanker, and AWACS style support craft.Originally Posted by merdat
Nothing wrong with this -keeps 'everyone' on their toes.
Combine that with the 3 other 'tests' means that its soon gonna hit the £million mark.
Yes but it's nothing new and the cost's are nothing new. It's games and it does not matter what it 'costs' each side has to play. I'm quite happy to pay knowing that each side has no 'nukes' as I have seen the opposite in this situation.
Just out of interest what do we have as strategix bombers these days?
Having a quick look around it doesnt appear like we have any 'heavy' bombers as such, all the results I seem to keep getting say that atm its a Tornado varient, and is being phased out to be replaced with the Typhoon.
Although seeing what payload they can carry it doesnt sound like a bad idea having small agile fighter planes doing the bombing.
Arnt all of are cruise missles/ICBM contained on subs nowadays anyway?
We only have 'subs' or at a push ' nimrod' . Nothin wrong with 'nimrod' it can do the 'bis'.
I.se,can see yee's nato ' igloos'' gettin re-filled fast'.
Now that's a point. I posted earlier that 'bears' had 'overflown' Aberdeen last month. Forgetting that MOD hade 'stut down the main listening post . ' BUCHAN' . Well ye get what ye pay fer.
I'm not sure we got good value when we paid for your English lessons merdat.
It's not obsolete technology. These aircraft have many variants, I expect that the ones we are seeing at the moment have alot of sophisticated equipment in them for snooping purposes. The bear is a very capable platform. Russian bombers have always been used in the "stand off role" so they don't actually have to get that close to launch missiles. America still uses B52 variants and that was designed in the 50's. We are still using Nimrod albeit an upgraded version.
Not anymore. Our last stategic bomber was the Vulcan. The Vulcan saw action for the first time in the Falklands War when it attacked Port Stanley's runway. Lovely aircraft and well ahead of it's time, it had superb flight characteristics at it's operational level and had a crazy rate of climb too. There is a project to get Vulcan XH558 back into the air for airshows etc. More info here on the restoration project.
Our main strike aircraft is the Panavia Tornado GR4.
We don't need strategic bombers as our nuclear deterent is submarine based, however, there is a case to be made with regard to CAS in places like Afghanistan where a bomber such as the B52 or B2 can operate for longer periods of time and carry larger payloads that the smaller ground attack aircraft being used. Unfortunately our government won't pay for the armed forces we have let alone look at a separate bomber force in a conventional role. That's why we rely on the yanks.
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
Thats what I was thinking, I used to be heavily into Air Rec back in the day but the last thing I could think of was the Vulcan..
As for the Typhoon I've never been a massive fan of Multi Role aircraft, I'd much rather have something that does a job and does it properly than something thats "acceptable" at the job, look at the Bucaneer for instance or the US A10...
They could probably modify a StormShadow to carry a strategic load if they needed to. Then Eurofighter could carry it
Well, it was only last year we got rid of the Canberra, and that started flying just after WWII! Even the Typhoon was designed on 70-80s technology (still uses 90 min cassettes!).
We don't really need a strategic bomber. We let the Americans do that.At a push, you could use AAR with GR4s for longer missions.
The Typhoon should turn out to be a very capable attack bomber in comparison to the GR4. It can carry far more weapons and has much better survivability with its integrated defensive aids (GR4s have to use 2 pods on the wings). The only slight disadavatage it has is the amount of fuel it can carry. However, as it's more efficient and this more or less gives it a similar range. I can honestly see the RAF just having F35s and Typhoons as the only fixed wing attack aircraft in 20 years time.
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