BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

After an enjoyable (if somewhat hectic) vacation, I am back! Thankfully for me, there is not a whole lot of news to catch up on.  Just some very good news for the Dassault Rafale and an "editorial" that left me rolling my eyes.  Here is quick review. Great news for the Rafale (finally)! The Rafale:  Finally getting some love. The biggest news, which I touched on briefly before, is the new found sale of 24 Rafales to Egypt .  This comes to a huge relief to Dassault, no doubt, which is anxious to finalize the much-delayed Indian deal for 126 fighters. That Indian deal now looks like it could be finalized as soon as the this spring .  This, despite rumors that the deal has been cancelled in favor of Russian-sourced aircraft . Adding to the good news are reports that Qatar may order up to 36 Rafales in the near future.  The deal, which would lead to an order of 24 fighters with an option for 12 more, would certainly give the Rafale some muc...

The good news:  Your prostate is fine  The bad news:  The proctologist can't find his ring... Despite Loren Thompson's  assertion that the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluations (DOT&E) report on the F-35's status " doesn't matter ", the general consensus is that the F-35 is going to be late .   That is...   Even later than its originally planned 2008 entry into service.  It is quickly approaching the one decade mark, with 2016 being the likely initial operational capability (IOC) with the USMC.  The USAF is looking at December 2016, while the USN is looking at 2019.  Needless to say, any further delay could likely push initial JSF deliveries well into the next decade. Meanwhile, the Lightning II hasn't exactly gotten ringing endorsements from the USAF or the USN. One of these is an an air-superiority fighter.  The other, notsomuch. General Michael Hostage, head of the USAF's Air Combat Command, recen...

Best performance ever from a non-Alec Baldwin brother. Do a Google (or even Bing )  search for news about various fighter jets, especially the F-35, and you will see that certain names pop up fairly often.  Sometimes you know exactly what the article is going to be like just by examining the names involved.  Certain authors will wax poetic about a subject, while another will scream that the emperor's naughty bits are showing. As much as writers (or anybody else) would hate to admit it, we all have biases.  Nobody is truly objective.  One way or another, we are all swayed by our experiences, and by what resources we have at hand.    This is nothing to be ashamed of, it is simply a part of the human condition.  What is important, however, is that those biases be freely examined. So let's look at some familiar faces and names involved in Canada's fighter jet procurement, shall we? Billie Flynn Lockheed Martin's Canadian poster boy. ...