At this point of time we don’t.

Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to say this: the operating “culture” has been pretty bad in Hungary. Firstly, there are very few good mechanics. Wages are very low, and if they get a job in the private sector (they don’t even have to go far - Mercedes-Benz has a factory not far from Hungary’s only fighter base,…

The seat used on the Gripen is a Martin-Baker Mk 10L, a variation of the extremely successful ejector seat introduced in the 1970s. Don’t forget, whether the seat operates as it should also depends on the level of maintenance its subjected to. If a seat is not maintained correctly, than the sequence will not complete…

Well, it’s made by Saab...

This is really off topic, but I couldn’t find another to contact you (I don’t have a Twitter)...I started doing some reading about the Thunderbirds and came across the Four Horsemen, C-130A Demonstration Team. I googled the demonstration team and found this gem of a video:

For suppression of enemy air defenses yes, but for hard kills (DEAD) the WCMD has been very popular. Since SAM, or even just the radar site component of it, are fairly soft targets, a cluster bomb lobbed at it will put it out of commission and probably kill anyone working at the location unless they are in a highly…

If anyone needs a regime change, it’s Saudi Arabia, John McCain’s ally.

See, their tailfins would have been hitting each other if the planes were really that close.

Oh bullshit. Yes they do. I went through survival training with KC-135 boomers and we all got parachute training. There are very few unpressurized aircraft in military service today. All military aircraft have parachutes for the crew. These aren’t airlines.

US military goes far far far away to play on someone’s front porch on the order of politicians. Foreign country does something. American people are supposed to be offended. Politicians get the war they want. Decades later americans find out it never happened the way they were told.

Let us try not being offended this…

Came here to post that...

Even if they did (and I don’t think they do), they’d be pretty useless in mid-air collision situation. Remember that these are elaborate and modernized 707s.

Exactly, call me when a US airplane is intercepted off the coast of California. The fact that the US plane didn’t even have to take evasive action off the coast of Russia means things aren’t as hostile as the news makes you think. Just yesterday Putin was asking the US to lift sanctions once again saying it hurts…

Sure, it’s dangerous, it’s a taunt and whatnot.

the diagram gets the Bigger Point across well, by being thoroughly impossible to understand, but honestly it would not require Edward Tufte to clean it up a bit, maybe add some color, lose the JPEG compression, and actually make something useful of it.

Of course. Good Guy/Bad Guy is a matter of perspective. I’m from the U.S. of A, but I’m not a jingo (or, I try not to be. Patriotism/Nationalism does have its draws, I must admit). That said, Of the 3 you listed, I’d say the order of importance, or, rather, what I meant, would be 3, 2, then 1.

It’s easy to imagine the pilot distracted by engaging targets on the ground, wandering too close to the Israeli ADIZ and ignoring warnings or entirely not hearing them. The Golan Heights are most likely bristling with sensors that picked this thing up far, far away. Not sure how the typical MANPADS/shoulder launched…

Translation of the video with the rebel fighters: “We have shot down this MIG and have killed everyone in the aircraft, and they have burned inside it”.

Hey Tyler, I’m just wondering: