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1. Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:14:56 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

   • marlin

   Procurement is not about the function, overall. Weapons acquisition is about the politics. Guys always miss that. It’s a bit like the diff. between paying cash and paying in gift cards.

   Ukes got a gift card from uncle sam, and it’s only honored in a few places. There isn’t much stock available for fighters to begin with, lead time is about 10 years from start to finish. You sign a LOI, hash out the details, and 4 or 5 years later get the first shipped aircraft…of 20. You’ll get maybe 2 or 4 in the span of a year.

   So the real question is what’s available, and who’ll accept your credit? Unless there’s an operator out there with a fighting-ready fleet of F-5s ready to go, it’s not happening - particularly given how small and unsexy they are. Ukraine isn’t paying, why do the ‘smart’ and ‘affordable’ thing by downsizing into a less capable A/c w/ lower payload? Go for broke, get as much fighter as you can get and lock yourself into it for as long as possible. The F18 probably won’t see the level of investment and life improvements the F16 will, since its userbase is far smaller and transitioning to the F35.
   
   RT: https://poa.st/objects/3fe2bcfc-2e8c-486c-85dd-2ca75393a261

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:16:32 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • marlin

     @marlin I like talking about this stuff because we get it a lot in the civilian side. Guys come to us with fresh millions and act all blown away that planes aren’t like buying a ferrari - you can’t walk into a dealership and come out with a brand new toy. We operate on a much faster timeline than this, but the lesson applies - if you want something special, you’re gonna have to get in line.

     I suspect the ukes are hoping to get britain to slip them the ex-netherlands F-16s to start, and when those are done for they’ll have USA hook them up to be next in line for the F-16. IDK if it’ll pan out, though. We seem very cagey about promising anything, probably because we know they’ll strike the hell out of russia whenever they can and Falcons over Belgorod isn’t a good look

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:23:47 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • marlin

     @marlin This is the successor to the T-38, I think. Lockheed could offer these, I guess. I know they just delivered some to someone over in europe. Only made 200 so far so not super popular. Just eyeballing it you’re probably looking at half the payload of the F-16. If you’re paying out of pocket? Probably a better plane overall, you probalby won’t fight WWIII with it anyway.

     But if american taxgoyim are paying? Get as much plane as you can

     https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/t-50.html

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:34:47 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • marlin

     @marlin Migs would be good for them because they know them well, but as far as fighters go….they kinda suck. Granted, I can’t keep them totally apart, but they’re very soviet. They’re designed to be vectored, they’re VERY reliant on the pilot to juggle a lot of tasks that are automated in the US stuff, and they tend to skimp on payload. Different design philosophies.

     Seems like every debate I’ve ever heard has pointed to whatever yankee plane being compared, usually -16 or -15, coming out on top in every measurable metric except for one cool, kooky gimmick that the russian plane has. “yeah so it lacks payload, only has 1/3 the hardpoints, and lacks dogfighting capability but it can do the magic kubyachovak’s hammerhead with its engines/super off boresight missile so it’s actually better!”.

     In reality, the mig stuff is better because that’s what their doctrine is built around, that’s what their pilots have the muscle memory in, and that’s the one that has a damn manual in ukrainian already. I have NO idea how they plan on translating a full F16 POH overnight without serious errors

   • marlin (marlin@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:34:48 JST marlin

     in reply to
     @WashedOutGundamPilot The same applies to US military aid, it's only good at US companies. I guess they have to bite the training bullet for both pilots and mechanics, as General Dynamics doesn't have Mig/Su options.
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 11:55:43 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • marlin

     @marlin Huh…so that’s one batch of F-16s that now can’t necessarily head to the ukes, either. Norway sold 32 o’ theirs to romania. Says they’ll replace them w/ 52 f35s. Romania is tossing old Mig-21 (blech) for these with 17 F16s(?) from the portuguese, too. hmmmm

   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:40:04 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • sargoysmuck
     • marlin

     @sargoysmuck @marlin Sounds somewhat familiar, wouldn’t be surprised because that’s often the case even with some french stuff. The big complaints are that it’s just easy to ‘get behind the aircraft’ when you get task saturated and start falling behind

   • sargoysmuck (sargoysmuck@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:40:05 JST sargoysmuck

     in reply to

     • marlin
     @WashedOutGundamPilot @marlin Aren’t a lot of instruments and control surfaces like 180 from that of western shit? I remember reading about perfectly trained/capable eastern pilots getting into to trouble because in panic mode you default to what you’re used to.
   • sargoysmuck (sargoysmuck@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:53:58 JST sargoysmuck

     in reply to

     • marlin
     @WashedOutGundamPilot @marlin I know the recent ones had something to do with AoA display and something else. He was a legit pilot as well a bunch of years in military and flying their homegrown civ stuff.
     Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:55:01 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • sargoysmuck
     • marlin

     @sargoysmuck @marlin I know a couple old guys who’ve gotten a good chunk of mig and SU time, until I heard from them I always figured it was the usual yankee arrogance, but the same issues come up every time. Kinda makes sense, the russians just had their own bunch of priorities that they never quite cared about changing.

   • Radians (demonsixone@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:55:30 JST Radians

     in reply to

     • marlin
     @WashedOutGundamPilot @marlin A lot of these states like Romania, Bulgaria, etc are picking up the scraps of other euro air forces that are upgrading as their warsaw era migs are hitting airframe limits and its a limited budget driven move.
     Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks likes this.
   • Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks (washedoutgundampilot@poa.st)'s status on Sunday, 11-Jun-2023 12:56:00 JST Woggy's Zeonic Frolicks

     in reply to

     • Radians
     • marlin

     @DemonSixOne @marlin I don’t count out the yanks offering them some free upgrades though. Lots of seats in this game of musical chairs