Like in Cyprus, you mean?

Useless fact of the day #64

The Gripen and Typhoon (please use the service name Assassin - pay attention) use the same hydraulics on their landing gear flaps.

It takes seconds to tear down an army, but years to build it back up again. Then it would be too late.

The jets are not the only key decision factor: no jets means no pilots. If we don't order more jets and retire the ones we have, we will stop recruiting pilots. Then in the future, if we want jets again, where will all the pilots be? Unborn, that's where they will be.

Is Switzerland expecting another war in the next decade or so?

Forgive me for not having read through the whole post but with the P21 has CH already not got the correct aircraft for CHian Airspace?
Jets are just Swish kabooms that stroke the weapons grade testosterone of the military mind

Nope, the P21 is just an advanced turboprop trainer with cockpits simulating jet fighters so as to save money on training in the "real thing". They have no intended offensive rôle, but you can retrofit anything onto anything if you're useful with a toolkit. Remember the hassle when Chad dropped bombs from a PC7?

Sort of like "Scrapheap Challenge - The Advanced Edition"??

Are you sure you haven't spent the weekend watching your collection of James Bond movies and wishing you could be the next Q?

Typhoon is sooo, well, English. Do you zink ze Germanz refer to zere "Taifuns"? No, I didn't think so, they call them "Eufis".

Eurofighter - 4 syllables - a bit complicated for the Air Forces of Europe. They can manage 2 syllables - at a push. At least the RAF were able to give the metal bird a good name with 2 syllables - the Luftwaffe failed to manage that.

Naming in something is almost important as how effective it is!!

If you go into combat flying the ZT-32 "Flying Fieldmouse" - you're not going to feel so confident up against the F27 "Super Lightning Raptor Killer" now are you?

What you write even more is the case in regard to the other sections of the army here. The basic idea of the whole club just IS the deterrant. While the anti-army folks regard that "deterrant-value" of the whole club as near to zero the Militarists are completely convinced about the superb deterrant-value. Whatever, armed forces without an air force are rubbish.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...last-ace/7291/

an interesting article on the benefits of air superiority.

also dealing with the same situation faced by the US - how to upgrade the aging fleet of F-15s

True, thing is with SAM cover at saturation level your expensive raptor thundertrinket will be a collectirs piece littering the countryside.
Also from what i gather the P21 can use different missile systems

Sorry, you gathered incorrectly. The P21 cannot use any missile system, I'm sure that you can set up the MFD software to simulate or emulate external missile threats for flight training purposes, but there is no way to hang a missile onto this airplane. Unguided rockets possibly, but that's not the idea.

The PC-21 couldn't keep up with an airliner, let alone a cruise missile.

The reason noise levels on takeoff / landing is taken into account is due to yet another useless "preserve the landscape" ballot initiative, this time asking for extremely limited use of jets in "tourist areas". Typical stuff from Green Ayatolah Franz Carl Weber and his acolytes, it never defined what areas where tourist ones or not, and was basically another attempt to shut down some part of the military. It didn't go through but did provoke quite a lot of nimbyism debate in the population. One high placed staff officer even admitted that shutting down Regensdorf had been a mistake compared to keeping Meiringen. The noise levels wouldn't be so bad if they took off with full military power or even 90% power instead of full afterburner, which they used to do and then had a near accident. Since then on safety reasons they have to use afterburner.

The Raptor is specifically designed to operate with ease in saturation SAM environments btw, being stealthy.

Ooh, definitely this one, it's way cool:





Ooh-Ooh! I've changed my mind! I want that one!

So you pay US taxes AND live in Monaco?

Well Im no military expert, however the army needs to keep up to date just for the experience. You learn new skills, tactics etc with new technology, so just for the sake of an evolving military is very important. Because in 50-100 years time you have no idea whats gonna happen. So just stay up to date without going too far is important for future generations.

Cyprus was not in NATO, and Greece had reduced its connections to NATO by closing down NATO bases, while Turkey was and is a full NATO member, having the command of the NATO forces for the Eastern Med in Izmir and NATO airforce bases in Anatolia. Add to this that Turkey intervened on Cyprus based on its role of "guarantee-country" for the Treaty of Zurich.

Sorry, your post is riddled with errors bud.

The P21 could easily keep up with airliners in most flight envelopes, max speed is 370 knots. Check out the data sheet.

You mean keeping Dübendorf open for jets? This has nothing to do with take off method (you select reheat or no reheat based on projected aircraft performance due to wright, air pressure and temperature for a start), but rather that Dübendorf had no wartime infrastructure and its proximity to Zürich Airport is less than ideal. When the Hornets left Dübendorf a few years ago, it was a cost saving exercise. Most of the squadron 11 pilots lived in and around Zürich and they weren't thrilled about having to up their roots and move to the Bernese Oberland. I do grant you that it leaves the Air Force with zero coverage for anything east of Meiringen, but that's not as tactically important as its hyped up to be.

The use of Swiss airfields could fill up a whole other thread, so we'll save that for a rainy day.

And not a single one "earns" money by running trackdays

In a country full of expensive/fast cars

Where earning money is the biggest religion

In case anyone is free this afternoon (14:00 to 17:00), one of EF's members has posted this tour of the Pilatus facility at Buochs airfield:

BSCC Event: Visit to Pilatus Aircraft Ltd, Stans

If you've never visited an airplane factory before, I can heartily recommend a trip.

Buochs airfield is about a twenty minute drive south of Luzern, just off the A2 freeway. Public transport is via train to Stans and then a local bus.