Hi all,
I have become somewhat saddened that after my original post a
couple of days ago about how Strike Eagle cannot be written off
etc, the forum on the NGF* has deteriorated a little into a
slanging match with no small amount of "Who says so?! I did!? Yeah
so what!?". It was actually my first time posting on any forum ever
and I was under the mistaken impression that there would be a lot
of passionate opinionating, sure, but opinions would be backed up
by the truth. Reading all the recent posts makes me feel like I was
in Secondary 2 again and there was this guy trying to covert me to
this religion or other and I was asking him about evolution : "Why
didn't evolution take place?" , I'd ask... "Cos the Book said so!"
came the cheery reply. "But why did the Book say that?", I'd
counter... "Cos evolution didn't take place!" *Grin*.
Sbs guy - I am not casting any aspersions - you may really be
curious about why Singapore is looking at the planes we are looking
at and why not just "get the Gripen for photo shoots and [insert
your fave "striker plane" here - I'm still not sure what it is] for
Singapore". But you have a knack about making (frankly speaking),
wildy exaggerated statements about weapons systems and, when
confronted with a helpful explanation, responding with "I KNEW THAT
- but what about [insert another topic]?". A forum is for
expressing your opinion, sure, but remember we are not talking
about abstract subjects here - instead we are talking about a topic
with a lot of widely publicised open source info - you'd do better
to read something other than Huxley before you post and when
someone corrects you - accept it in the spirit of info exchange and
constructive help. We are all friends united by a common interest
in the end.....
To set you straight about a few of your remarks:
1) " It [the Eurofighter] has become infamous as well, quite a lot
of accidents involving Eurofighter." - I have heard of ONE case of
a EF flameout - an early DA6 platform out of Toldedo, Spain using
prototype engines. That hardly qualifies for "quite a lot of
accidents". A casual online search finds at least one F-15 crash
per year since 2000 in the US alone. A YF-22 Raptor late model
prototype crashed in 1992. TWO F-18 prototypes crashed during
testing. What do the crashes mean? No too much, I'd reckon - just
so long as the problem is identified and rectified and planes don't
fall out of the sky willy-nilly. So - please stand corrected.
2) "Singapore is one of the largest operators of the F-16C/D
outside of the United States" - I have done a survey using online
sources (primarily F-16.net - great site that). I discount
countries and planes which either operate the F-16 A/B or even have
F-16 A/B's "upgraded" to C/D standard. i.e. the survey only covers
countries who have bought C/Ds "straight off the market". There are
11 countries which operate C/Ds outside the US (Bah, Chile, Egypt,
Greece, Israel, Oman, Poland, Sing, South Korea, Turkey, UAE). So,
splitting it down the middle, if Singapore is among the Top 5
operators (numerically speaking) of those 12 countries - your
statement is true. That should be fair, yes? Well gues what -
Singapore is number seven - behind Egypt (200+), Greece (140),
Israel ( well duh!), Turkey (240), South Korea (180) and even
little UAE (80). It isn't even the largest operator in Asia - see
South Korea. So - please stand corrected.
My final point is - lets stay on course here. Explain why you think
one of the three contenders among the Strike Eagle, Typhoon and
Rafale has an edge, and why you think the evaluation team will pick
it. You can throw in a lot of pictures too - I love pictures! But
in the end, be happy to know that what we will purchase will be an
order of magnitude more kick-ass than we have ever operated before
- then go breed some kids without 500 degree eyesight!
Cheers all,
Your friend,
HiI'mBob
