The ultimate sacrifice

[Skybird]

Pilots and commanders had to consider what they would do in a worst case scenario where they had a Taleban or al-Qaeda commander in their sights and found themselves out of ammunition or suffered a weapons failure.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6521311.stm

http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/...aid_52500.html

said one pilot:

Originally Posted by Focus

„Nach Ihnen, Sir. Ich bin dabei, wenn mir der General vorher zeigt, wie es geht.“ (After you, Sir. I'm joining if the general would show me before how it is done). "

Such an order would cost a lot of money: 73 million for a Typhoon, and 9 million for the pilot's training.

P.S. Al Quaeda commanders I would not consider to be a worthy target for a Kamikaze attack. They are simply not important enough, and are too easy to be replaced. nice to get rid of them, but not at that price. On the other hand: maybe wouldn't it have an impact on their attitude and moral if they see the enemy (us) going for them even if it would cause the enemy to die himself? Would it make a difference if they see an enemy confronting them as death-defying as they claim to be themselves?

But to stop an airliner from being flown into a WTC building... an option hard to be ignorred... At what ratio the value of a single life must be considered to be of lower importance than the life of many? 1:10? 1:100? 1:1000? 1:1 million? Ask yourself.

[gnirtS]

Tornados are also 2 seater. Better get permission from the guy in the back as well before plowing it into the desert !

Fail to see the point anyway. A crashing/exploding plane wont have the impact a 2000lb bomb going of will and with the JDAM bolt ons you can get them to hit a point more accurately than a crashing aircraft.

Strange comment really.

On 11/9 some US pilots in unarmed fighters it was suggested they could consider ramming the passenger aircraft if they had to down one and had no weapons. Didn't come to it though, not as many hijacks as thought and they got QRA aircraft up eventually fully armed.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by gnirtS

Fail to see the point anyway. A crashing/exploding plane wont have the impact a 2000lb bomb going of will and with the JDAM bolt ons you can get them to hit a point more accurately than a crashing aircraft.

You missed the point: the general laid out a hypothetical scenario where your weapons are blocked or you already have run out of ammo. The best JDAM is useless for you if you don't have one with you, or your weapons control system is broken and refuses to fire it.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by gnirtS

Tornados are also 2 seater.

Tornado is 30 years old, very very work-intensive and surely will start to be phased out soon, both in germany and Britain as well. As a matter of fact I think I red that German Tornados already have started with that when the Eurofighter started to get delivered to the Luftwaffe. Typhoon/Eurofighter is the future.

[ASWnut101]

Don't you guys (Germans) also have alot of Mig-29's sitting around collecting dust? You could put those to good use, you know.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

Don't you guys (Germans) also have alot of Mig-29's sitting around collecting dust? You could put those to good use, you know.

Yes, after the reunification we suddenly found ourselves in possession of a squadron of Fulcrums. It was planned to sell them immediately - until the testing began, and then German testers and American observers were surprised how damn well these birds performed. They were upgraded with Western avionics, and served for some time. Nevertheless they were retired some time later. One did not want to become dependant on material and supplies from Russia. I do not know what became of them.

The lesson to be remembered is that NATO testers found the Fulcrum to perform much better than expected - and the Fulcrum already had a good reputation! It's running a bit on short legs, though.

I would be surprised if it is much different with let's say the Su-31, and later planes. Add to this an impressive array of AA missle technology in the Russian inventory, some of which is very innovative, and you have no reason to snob about Russian military air-tech. Just because the Eurofighter is of younger age and probably has more modern avionics does not mean that it is invulnerable to Russian designs.