I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but the sentiment is appreciated. Didn’t know we didn’t give you any votes, then again I haven’t followed the Eurovision contest in recent years.

U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52D Stratofortress bombers from the 43rd Bombardement Wing, based at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam (USA), dropping mines during exercise “Team Spirit ‘82” on 1 March 1982.

Just to add a few things to what you’ve said, my country - Romania - has been the target of... let’s call them very thinly veiled threats ever since this whole Ukraine business started.

I think the concept of “art” is kinda like the concept of “gift”. The act of giving something to someone turns that thing into a gift, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or meaningful. You can give someone a used paper tissue; it’s technically a gift - a thing given willingly, without payment - just not one I’d be…

I’m not a fan of this sort of photography. I’m definitely not against digital post-processing/image manipulation, but like with most things in art once you go past a certain point you start going into the realm of tastelessness.

The MiG-27 is based on the MiG-23BN, optimized for ground attack. The -27 has simplified intakes and exhaust and a different, sloped nose for improved visibility for ground attack. Production variants don’t have a radar, instead the nose houses optics for laser or TV guided bombs and missiles. I think an Indian…

Behold the mighty F-21 Payback... payback for all the times American jets stood in for MiGs.

Actually I find the F-35 to be quite chubby.

Considering how much love the A-10 gets around here, I'm surprised there's been no mention about the recent deployment of Warthogs to Campia Turzii AB, Romania. A dozen A-10s from the 354th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron stationed at Spangdahlem AB, Germany have been forward deployed to Campia Turzii in another move…

I wonder if it's possible that, while the US has been negotiating with Iran and has been generally avoiding any open confrontation with them in recent years, they've been quietly manipulating/encouraging its middle eastern allies into a conflict against Iran. Basically setting up the region for a conflict that the US…

It's not for no reason that the US armed forces have created an aura of invincibility in air combat around their fighters. I think the only air-air loss the US has confirmed post-Vietnam is that F-18C that was shot down by a MiG-25 Foxbat-E in the 1991 Gulf War.

The main contractor for the Sniper upgrade would've been Germany's DASA (now merged into EADS), with some of the systems integration work being done by Israel's Elbit and Romania's Aerostar.

The air intake spike in the MiG-21 is meant to house a radar. They just replaced the original RP-22 radar (seen below) that came with the Romanian MiG-21M and MF with a new Israeli designed radar.

It's not pretty, but it'll still set the sky on fire.

Yeah, Romania was never on friendly terms with Russia, even during the WarPac years. The relationship got even colder once Romania started going West. By the late '90s buying spare parts for legacy Soviet equipement became increasingly difficult.

"Also, I've never realized how ...... Different the typhoon looks and design is compared to the rest of the world's fighters."

Romania is still using upgraded MiG-21 Lancers (not for much longer though, they'll be using F-16MLUs in the very near future) and they have fully NATO compatible avionics and all sorts of upgrades: modern HUD and HOTAS, DASH, new radar, digital flight computer, new ECM, RWR etc. In terms of radar and other…

What a daft comparison. The US Navy, by tonnage, is probably larger in size than the navies of Russia, China, Japan, India, the UK and France put together (the next 6 largest navies in the world). And that's not even accounting for the technological gap between the US and Russia, China or India or the capability gap…

Thing is it doesn't need to be that stealthy if it ends up costing only a fraction of a F-35.