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He is building a fighting force of extra-ordinary magnitude.
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Lux Interior wrote:
He is building a fighting force of extra-ordinary magnitude.
You have my gwatitude.
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Um... Dude has ATF permission for cannons and ammo on the aircraft ? hoo.... Kind of surprised he hasn't bought a few Aardvarks or Lancers..
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I'm guessing leaving the cannons in is a weight and balance thing. The F/A-18 is fly by wire, and taking out that much off-center mass would probably throw off the FLCS algorithms. I'd be mildly amazed if any of them were actually loaded with gun ammo ever again.
The author of that piece is either pretty knowledgeable or very well-advised. Very good point about the APG-65; an old boss of mine who was an expert in EW used to regularly refer to it as a "Mickey Mouse radar" back during my flight test days.
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I believe his private air force is larger than Ukraine's currently.
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Speedy wrote:
Ukraine…
Not enough time. It's not just the jets: it's the armaments and the spare parts and the maintenance long tail to keep them flying. While there are very likely pilots in UKR who could pick up the basic flight and avionics systems quickly, the rest would take months if not years to get in place. That's why there's been a focus on scooping up old Soviet gear in the former Warsaw Pact states to transfer there instead of direct transfers of Western systems: the commonality of parts and maintenance experience.
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He’s pretty much doing this stuff (I took a quasi-deep dive into the guy after reading the article yesterday) with the blessing of the US government and all necessary approvals. I do believe he has some planes that are capable of firing live ammo as well.
I’ve always fantasized about owning my own F-16 or F 18 to go tooling around in (obviously I’d have to have all the sensitive stuff removed, but even then there are just some components like the engine that are still using classified technology, so probably will remain a pipe dream).
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Carnos Jax wrote:
I’ve always fantasized about owning my own F-16 or F 18 to go tooling around in...
T-38 for me. purty. and figure maintaining it would be far far less $$ than anything more modern. gas, parts, etc. still has plenty of capabilities.
Speedy wrote:
Ukraine…
Doesnt know how to fly them even if they were dropped off for free.