RichardPrice

No I am not missing the point at all, and in one of the two cases I highlighted there was a mechanical failure which resulted in the crash. I maintain that there was a very different approach to the two crashes, and personally I believe that is entirely down to the CAA and AAIB engaging in PR rather than informed decision making. If this particular Hunter had crashed in a field and not killed anyone, do you think it would have resulted in the same grounding? I don't. Air crash history in the UK shows that it typically won't. But this one crashed on a busy road, killing people, so the CAA had to be seen to be doing something and grounded the type.

I'm not being belligerent specifically to you, but there are no CAA or AAIB rules which require waiting until the final report to be published for a grounding to be lifted. If this was a Boeing 737 grounding we are talking about, the restriction on 737 operation in the UK would have been lifted the moment it was determined that there was no inherent issue with the type, and from the look of the interim report the AAIB and the CAA have determined that. And whether bystanders were hurt or not is immaterial - if there is no issue with the type in any of the cases I highlighted then the chances of further bystander injury occurring from further failure is the same in all cases. So why the grounding of one type and not the other? The Hunter was grounded immediately after the crash (even while the wreckage was still being recovered), regardless of there being evidence or not of an issue with the type, but no grounding was considered at all after the two crashes I highlight, even as an immediate precaution. Then why haven't they taken the "safest option" of grounding all Spitfires after last years spate of incidents involving them? Its not as if the question of "are deaths involved or not" is going to be a factor in any answer to the question of "will an inherent issue with the type cause future deaths if this type is allowed to continue flying". The Hunter has been operated "within tolerably safe limits" for decades - one crash does not change that fact. Just the same as one civil airliner crash does not change the fact that 99% of operators of that civil airliner can operate it perfectly well. I think the continued grounding of the Hunter is appalling and is in danger of destroying our continued living aviation heritage in this country.

This was released in September 2015 - I think its unreasonable to continue to ground every single Hunter in the UK, especially when there are no indications of a fault with this particular aircraft, or a design fault with the type in general. Neither the Biggen Hill Spitfire crash three weeks before Shoreham nor the Woodchurch Spitfire crash two weeks after Shoreham resulted in every Spitfire in the UK being grounded. Grounding the Hunters was a knee jerk reaction, and continues to be one. The longer they stay grounded, the fewer will return to flight if the grounding order is lifted.

I read that this morning and a couple of questions came to mind... Does that mean that airshows such as RIAT aren't affected? Why are Hunters still grounded when there was no problems found with the aircraft itself, with the focus being on the pilots actions? If the Hunter restrictions are not removed soon, we may find that a lot of airworthy Hunters won't fly again as the cost of bringing them out of long term storage and pilot concurrency certification will be far too high for most operators. Keeping them grounded unduly will most likely kill the Hunter long term in the UK.

Im flying the A380 to Vancouver in May, with British Airways business class

Aaaaaand SpaceX did it, landed a rocket on a barge

Thats what Im currently doing with that exact lens Its a beast alright!

Oh Im sure we will see an NG Gripen at some point (Revell have just released their new Gripen C tooling), the issue is that its only just entered serial production, so give it time to enter service so model companies can get a range of schemes together.

Hopefully an MKI/MKM/SM is around the corner...

Dont forget the making it work, putting the model back together and then finding out something electrical broke along the way...

If the primary customer isnt going to use those weapons, why would the primary customer pay to certify those weapons on the platform? So you end up with two options - the manufacturer certifying those weapons at its own (considerable) expense, or a secondary customer certifying the weapons on the platform. Wasn't it Malaysia that certified the AMRAAM on their SU-30MKM's?

I think hes referring to the fact that, when first commissioned, HMs Illustrious et al were resolutely not referred to as aircraft carriers, but rather as "through deck command cruisers", as otherwise the RN wouldnt have been allowed them...

Why is it a shambles? The leasing was only ever a rumour, which has now been dispelled - we have no negative news on the purchase itself, so thats still going ahead as planned... Cant really call the government not sticking to a rumour a "shambles" really, imho...

The barges are needed because it opens up the range of velocities you can use in a launch - need a higher staging velocity for a payload, but also need to recover the stage? Then you either need a lot more fuel to turn that baby around for the RTB burn to cancel out the lateral velocity, or you put a ship downrange for it to return to with less of a RTB burn, meaning less fuel required. Remember that every pound of fuel loaded needs to carry itself, and the heavier the structure needs to be to support that additional fuel load - it starts becoming a diminishing return, so the best alternative is to land further away so you don't have to expend as much fuel getting back to the start point. Why not have a down range land based pad? Well, when you are launching from Florida, the closest realistic land mass to do that on is Africa, when in fact the staging happens only at about 150 - 200 km down range, so the stage would need to cover another 3000km or so to make it to the landing pad. The same issue exists for launches from the west coast at Vandenberg AFB - polar launches puts the nearest southern land mass as Antarctica, while western aspect launches puts Hawaii as the nearest land mass a few thousand km's down range and off on a southern heading. Their Texas launch facility has an option to potentially land the first stage at Cape Canaveral, but that would require a lot of FAA approval and oversight as it means the launch trajectory would take it over populated areas (currently the launch trajectories from the Texas facility are very constrained due to Florida, the Caribbean islands and traffic in the Gulf - including a Florida landing would mean the first stage continuing down range for a lot longer than usual, plus it means less acceptable alternatives if the landing was aborted during staging). So the barges, if they can be made to work, would dramatically increase the ability of the SpaceX launch vehicles to be reused, as each time you could not land them on a barge, you would essentially dispose of them in the ocean.

If there isnt a 1:72 Su-30MKI, I shall remain disappointed

How is the canopy fit for you? On all the Revell Eurofighters I have built the fit has been abysmal

The Hasegawa kit includes those pylons, while the Revell one doesnt - just incase you wondered ooooo

I dont see why not...

I have a load of Revell Eurofighter decals if you are after the Austrians one - the RAF decals and weapons are the only thing I use when I buy the Revell kit, so I also have a few spare kits minus those parts if anyone is looking for cheap kits...

The Revell Eurofighter cannot hold a candle to the Hasegawa one, and its worth spending the extra if you are going to build a Eurofighter. Plenty available around the £25 mark on Ebay, just ordered another two myself today.

Nice find, but that aircraft looks more like an F-15E to me - CFTs with 3 hard points off the side of the CFTs - or were these hard points available to the original Eagle versions?

This page from Eduard depicting 1:48 resin AIM-120C missiles suggests that there are two different seeker heads, one for live and one for training. http://www.eduard.com/store/Eduard/AIM-120C-AMRAAM-2pcs-1-48.html?listtype=search&searchparam=AIM-120 My suggestion would be a mixed loadout for balancing issues on the pylons - one live and one training.

If my post was considered political and several others in this thread are not, then I'm done with this website. I can see at least three existing posts which have more obvious political content than mine - why are you trying to polarise the discussion?

Thats pretty much all the info available right now, emergency services are on scene near Ely.

They are combat capable, but no current operators employ them outside of the training role currently.