21st Century, an MRCA era

[Awang se]

I'm not expecting this thread to drag on, but i just want to stated that for me, it seems that once considered a "poor man" choice, MRCA concept have been accepted and implimented even by major world air force. The breakthrough in several new technology have made the MRCA extremely capable on both air superiority and Ground attack mission. They are "Jack of all trade and master of all". Even the USAF are now begin to equip some of it's once air superioty only fighter with ground attack capability. At least with a capability to run a SEAD mission.

I've heard that once, RAF have seriously considered purchasing Mig-29 to replace it's Tornado F1. Is it true?

 

[gf0012-aust]

nope, thats not true. they obtained access to a Mig 29 (before the US bought a squadron of 21 units from Moldavia for further evaluation) and even though the Mig 29 is a very good platform, with the right pilot and weaps its advantages are pulled back.

The english were never going to look at russian aircraft. Russia did offer australia SU-32's to replace the F-111's and we were also offered SU-37's plus an agreement to develop a hyper long range ALI if we accepetd it for consideration for our Hornet replacement prog.

They are very good platforms, but the issue for all Russian equipment is that of uptime, longevity, parts availability, durability. They do not do well at all on those criteria.

 

[Revival_786]

What's MRCA? :]

 

[gf0012-aust]

Multi-Role Combat Aircraft

 

[umair]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that MRCAs have been around for a long long time.The earliest examples are in my opinion the WWII fighters such as Typhoons,Thunderbolts,Furies etc(the first "Jabos") so as to speak.
Then we had the Sabres, the F4Fury,the Hawker Hunter and so on.
Next generation the MirageIIIE and V(day time only),the ubiquous F-4 PhantomII,the F-104G,MirageF1,F-16s,The F-5 family and so on.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that MRCAs have been around for a long long time.The earliest examples are in my opinion the WWII fighters such as Typhoons,Thunderbolts,Furies etc(the first "Jabos") so as to speak.
Then we had the Sabres, the F4Fury,the Hawker Hunter and so on.
Next generation the MirageIIIE and V(day time only),the ubiquous F-4 PhantomII,the F-104G,MirageF1,F-16s,The F-5 family and so on.

you're right, but I am sure that Awang se is looking at another angle

 

[umair]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that MRCAs have been around for a long long time.The earliest examples are in my opinion the WWII fighters such as Typhoons,Thunderbolts,Furies etc(the first "Jabos") so as to speak.
Then we had the Sabres, the F4Fury,the Hawker Hunter and so on.
Next generation the MirageIIIE and V(day time only),the ubiquous F-4 PhantomII,the F-104G,MirageF1,F-16s,The F-5 family and so on.

you're right, but I am sure that Awang se is looking at another angle

you're right too! but what I was trying to point out was that the MRCA concept was pioneered by the major airforces although why it fell by their way side I don't know.

 

[gf0012-aust]

The MRCA and/or MMA is undergoing a revival due to tighter military budgets, The reality is that smaller militaries (like ours) have always had a MRCA type function because we haven't had the luxury of lots of money to have role specific platforms

I think we probably started with the Mirage 111's. we had dedicated interceptors and dedicated ground attack models, when we went to the FA/18's we used that as a multi-roler.

IIRC we sold 50 of our 116 Mirages to Pakistan. They were good aircraft - faster than the Hornets in a straight line.

Don't know whether the other 60 would be still in storage.

 

[Aussie Digger]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were gf. I know our centurions still are.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were gf. I know our centurions still are.

I've managed to establish that about 20 are scattered all over the country in museums and static displays. that leaves 46 somewhere in the country. Not sure how many model D's Pakistan bought, we had 10 duallies originally, 106 were single seaters..

 

[Aussie Digger]

Yes the curse of the ever tightening defence budget is the cause of the dominance of the MRCA. Even the US cannot really afford the single role fighter any more. Look at the ever dwindling numbers of F22's they plan on buying. I've seen reports of as little as 180 F22's will be bought by the USAF in the end, due to their massive cost. They will probably end up buying more, but other things like numbers of JSF's will have to be cut to make room for more F22's.

 

[Awang se]

I made this point by refering to the F-22 program. Actually this platform was intended for air superiority role only. But in the end, they became an MRCA type fighter.

 

[umair]

Regards the number of MirageIIIODs bought by Pakistan.gf there is a whole inventory list of PAF Mirages with refference to their source&type on a Pakistani site(I can't remember the link)I'll search it up and then post the link here.My rough guess is that the ODs were 3-5 in number.
P.S hijacking the thread a bit but I was wonderin if you and AD could shed some light on the circumstances that killed the GAF Nomad/Mission Master series?Acordin to it's specs it was a really usefull short-medium range multirole transport.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Correction on our Mirages, We had 100 singles and 16 D's . IIRC 48 singles were converted to a fighter interceptor role, and 52 were ground attack.

The Nomad (IIRC they made 172) was a top little plane, not really sure why we killed it off, but it might have been because the production line was needed to build the Hornets.

We gave a few (18) to Indonesia for their Navy under a regional assistance plan, some to Malaysia (2?) and a few went to nations in the pacific rim like New Guinea. Indonesia then bought another 20 aircraft about 2 years later.

 

[Aussie Digger]

I'm not an expert on the Nomad, but I know the reason it died off. They kept falling out of the sky for unexplained reasons. They became a liability to it's uses and were thus generally taken out of service. Pity, it was the last truly "Australian" military aircraft.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I think the Indons had a pretty good track record with them. I know when they bought the last 20 they indicated that they knew the vagaries of the aircraft so were more than willing to buy them as active maritime units.

what were the probs? I know a couple fell over mid air, but what were the accident reports?

 

[Aussie Digger]

Not sure, but they were well and truly out of service when I joined the Australian Army. Here's a website I found that appears to be quite authoratative on the subject. http://www.fourays.org/nomad/nomad1.htm, hope you find this interesting.