Oh I mistook that for the laughter of a madman. Carry on then ;)

It all has to do with strategy and doctrine. Russia builds superior SAMs in lieu of top-notch fighters, the US builds air dominance fighters and very limited SAM capabilities.

Very sad. I saw the picture of the F-18 and thought “awesome!” until I read the headline. I can’t imagine being the crew chief of this bird right now, waiting for details on the cause.

Am I the only one that thinks this may increase risk of neck injuries? By redirecting the force into lateral motion it’s going to move it from the head to the neck...

If the Red Army had been marching across Europe you might have a point. They weren’t. My point was that Canada would not have the option of remaining neutral no matter what. They could let Russia use their airspace to attack the US (not neutral) or forbid it (and then have to defend it). In either case the US was the…

Yes, plenty else. You seem to be assuming there are only ever one or two groups of “grunts” in operations at any given time in Afghanistan, and that they could each have their own air support circling overhead.

My understanding is that it is still in production, as South Korea still buys versions of it.

I wouldn’t say “riding coat tails.” A big part of the reason they would be involved in a fight to begin with would be because of the US. In the cold war days, the Soviets would have to cross over their territory in many cases to reach the US, so they couldn’t remain neutral.

While I don’t doubt this is a bad decision for Canada, the reasons he gave give me pause... They think stealth capability is only a first-strike weapon?

The natives had no trouble finding them. And again, if they find the parts and are all standing around it, it is easy to spot (see photos above).

Finding them would not be a problem if they had not moved, given the MK1 eyeballs, targeting pods, crowds around them, etc.

Doesn’t really matter if they have booby traps or not. I doubt they would, as unexploded ordnance is already a danger to farmers/civilians finding them later.

There’s just as much chance the A-10 would be the same distance away as the F-16 was to start out, and it will be slower to close that distance.

I was wondering, why not immediately send in a strike on the place where the jettisoned weapons fell (before the guy even got back to base) but there are problems with that. Often it is members of the local population (not necessarily Taliban) that come out to see what that loud noise was.

My first thought is how sad it will be when the warheads from those jettisoned weapons are used in IEDs.

Just like a bullet-resistant plate can’t take an unlimited number of bullets, armor on aircraft can only take so many hits. The rotor may be able to absorb some damage, but multiple hits increase the changes of a problem.

Yeah, that has been thoroughly debunked. It was a short in the electrical system going to the center fuel tank measurement system.

You are taking the phrase too literally in the translation. That would be like an Arabic speaker saying “Holy shit?” Why are they glorifying their shit? Or “Bloody Hell” or any of the other many things people say that don’t make literal sense.

This is basically assault with a deadly weapon no matter what the motorcyclist was doing wrong. I hope they get prosecuted as such.

And what would they do with them once launched? Remember that the orbiter allowed astronauts to actually put it together. It’s not use just dropping off a bunch of parts, and probably not safe to stage the parts first and then send a single manned mission to assemble.