Does any PBer know whether these are new-build Eurofighters, or some of the 48 fairly hopeless Tranche 1 planes the RAF has? As 24 of those tranche 1's may be upgraded to allow a later out-of-service date, I wonder if the 24 being sold are the tranche 1's? If so, then it's an even better deal, because AIUI it'll cost a fortune to modernise those planes.
(The Eurofifghters were made in several tranches. The first tranche are fairly poor wrt functionality - e.g. you cannot fit Meteor or Brimstone to them - and the RAF has been wondering what the heck they can do with them as they are fairly different to the later tranches. It is up to the reader to question the sense of building such vastly expensive planes that cannot be upgraded.)
Tranches have nothing to do with capability; a tranche was a commercial instrument not a specification. The reason the RAF tranche 1s have reduced capability is the usual reason anything happens at the MoD: short sighted incompetence. The software block is what defines capability. The UK tranche 1s are on block 5 (hence no Meteor BVRAAM) but the RAF took the decision to do a custom fork of block 5 (change request 193) to get PIII and other A2G capability ahead of the other partner nations. Remember, this was in mid noughties before we worked out we were losing in Afghanistan and A2G was very much plat du jour among the light blue crew. So the RAF ended up with sui generis software environment which, to no great surprise, they could no not afford to maintain outside the EF consortium so all of the RAF tranche 1s are frozen with an austere weapons fit. Of course the EF with the custom version of block 5 never made it to Afghanistan so we refurbed 12x GR4 on top of all that. Then destroyed two of those in fires, but that's another story...
Depending on the 1 seat/2 seat mix Qatari EFs will be RAF tranche 3s that they can't now afford but are still contracted to buy. See also Kuwait. Their order only added 2x 2 seater to the EF production run because they got a/c which would have otherwise been Italian tranche 3s.
Well that could be the black vote and the female vote gone on Tuesday for Moore, he cannot win with white males alone
He's still 4-5 points ahead in the polls. I think his supporters arre just shrugging off everything, as they did with Trump. The trick seems to bne to say relatively mild stuff that annoys liberals and pleases reactiomnaies, get a reaction, get the base to say "so what?" and then persuade them to ignore the more serious stuff.
EDIT: No PB contributions for 37mins - has snow stopped play?
I've been working. I have however now clocked off and am ready to bang on about laptops, Star Trek: Discovery vs the Orville, whether the first MCU Captain America film is underrrated, that Brexit thing you guys keep going on about, pineapple on pizza (yummy!) or (my usual speciality) useless pedantry
If you aren’t going to talk about the Second Punic Wars, then why bother?
Does any PBer know whether these are new-build Eurofighters, or some of the 48 fairly hopeless Tranche 1 planes the RAF has? As 24 of those tranche 1's may be upgraded to allow a later out-of-service date, I wonder if the 24 being sold are the tranche 1's? If so, then it's an even better deal, because AIUI it'll cost a fortune to modernise those planes.
(The Eurofifghters were made in several tranches. The first tranche are fairly poor wrt functionality - e.g. you cannot fit Meteor or Brimstone to them - and the RAF has been wondering what the heck they can do with them as they are fairly different to the later tranches. It is up to the reader to question the sense of building such vastly expensive planes that cannot be upgraded.)
Tranches have nothing to do with capability; a tranche was a commercial instrument not a specification. The reason the RAF tranche 1s have reduced capability is the usual reason anything happens at the MoD: short sighted incompetence. The software block is what defines capability. The UK tranche 1s are on block 5 (hence no Meteor BVRAAM) but the RAF took the decision to do a custom fork of block 5 (change request 193) to get PIII and other A2G capability ahead of the other partner nations. Remember, this was in mid noughties before we worked out we were losing in Afghanistan and A2G was very much plat du jour among the light blue crew. So the RAF ended up with sui generis software environment which, to no great surprise, they could no not afford to maintain outside the EF consortium so all of the RAF tranche 1s are frozen with an austere weapons fit. Of course the EF with the custom version of block 5 never made it to Afghanistan so we refurbed 12x GR4 on top of all that. Then destroyed two of those in fires, but that's another story...
Depending on the 1 seat/2 seat mix Qatari EFs will be RAF tranche 3s that they can't now afford but are still contracted to buy. See also Kuwait. Their order only added 2x 2 seater to the EF production run because they got a/c which would have otherwise been Italian tranche 3s.
Any idea what backhanders were used to smooth this deal....?
Well that could be the black vote and the female vote gone on Tuesday for Moore, he cannot win with white males alone
He's still 4-5 points ahead in the polls. I think his supporters arre just shrugging off everything, as they did with Trump. The trick seems to bne to say relatively mild stuff that annoys liberals and pleases reactiomnaies, get a reaction, get the base to say "so what?" and then persuade them to ignore the more serious stuff.
Not every poll, a Survey Monkey poll last week had Jones ahead. Plus Moore leads on average by around 5%, Trump beat Hillary by 28% in Alabama last year
EDIT: No PB contributions for 37mins - has snow stopped play?
I've been working. I have however now clocked off and am ready to bang on about laptops, Star Trek: Discovery vs the Orville, whether the first MCU Captain America film is underrrated, that Brexit thing you guys keep going on about, pineapple on pizza (yummy!) or (my usual speciality) useless pedantry
As an aside, I'm beginning to think the Judge might fall just short. A fired up black vote, a lack of enthusiasm among traditional (sane) Republicans, and low turnout among the kind of women that would normally vote Republican add up to a very close race.
I shall be putting a very small amount on his opponent.
EDIT: No PB contributions for 37mins - has snow stopped play?
I've been working. I have however now clocked off and am ready to bang on about laptops, Star Trek: Discovery vs the Orville, whether the first MCU Captain America film is underrrated, that Brexit thing you guys keep going on about, pineapple on pizza (yummy!) or (my usual speciality) useless pedantry
Does any PBer know whether these are new-build Eurofighters, or some of the 48 fairly hopeless Tranche 1 planes the RAF has? As 24 of those tranche 1's may be upgraded to allow a later out-of-service date, I wonder if the 24 being sold are the tranche 1's? If so, then it's an even better deal, because AIUI it'll cost a fortune to modernise those planes.
(The Eurofifghters were made in several tranches. The first tranche are fairly poor wrt functionality - e.g. you cannot fit Meteor or Brimstone to them - and the RAF has been wondering what the heck they can do with them as they are fairly different to the later tranches. It is up to the reader to question the sense of building such vastly expensive planes that cannot be upgraded.)
Tranches have nothing to do with capability; a tranche was a commercial instrument not a specification. The reason the RAF tranche 1s have reduced capability is the usual reason anything happens at the MoD: short sighted incompetence. The software block is what defines capability. The UK tranche 1s are on block 5 (hence no Meteor BVRAAM) but the RAF took the decision to do a custom fork of block 5 (change request 193) to get PIII and other A2G capability ahead of the other partner nations. Remember, this was in mid noughties before we worked out we were losing in Afghanistan and A2G was very much plat du jour among the light blue crew. So the RAF ended up with sui generis software environment which, to no great surprise, they could no not afford to maintain outside the EF consortium so all of the RAF tranche 1s are frozen with an austere weapons fit. Of course the EF with the custom version of block 5 never made it to Afghanistan so we refurbed 12x GR4 on top of all that. Then destroyed two of those in fires, but that's another story...
Depending on the 1 seat/2 seat mix Qatari EFs will be RAF tranche 3s that they can't now afford but are still contracted to buy. See also Kuwait. Their order only added 2x 2 seater to the EF production run because they got a/c which would have otherwise been Italian tranche 3s.
EDIT: No PB contributions for 37mins - has snow stopped play?
I've been working. I have however now clocked off and am ready to bang on about laptops, Star Trek: Discovery vs the Orville, whether the first MCU Captain America film is underrrated, that Brexit thing you guys keep going on about, pineapple on pizza (yummy!) or (my usual speciality) useless pedantry
Comments
Depending on the 1 seat/2 seat mix Qatari EFs will be RAF tranche 3s that they can't now afford but are still contracted to buy. See also Kuwait. Their order only added 2x 2 seater to the EF production run because they got a/c which would have otherwise been Italian tranche 3s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Alabama,_2017
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Alabama,_2016
I shall be putting a very small amount on his opponent.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42304594
Dissent will not be tolerated.