First of all - all crews testing the planes at delivery have an extensive training in the simulator. And also the manual is largely presented to the crew _by oral presentations_ so no matter what - the crew on board s aware of the safety etc features of the plane.

Secondly… Etihad happens to be in the possession of several Airbus-family planes - the pilots at the delivery will most likely have flown the types of aircraft previously and would have had the adequate training needed for that.

It really seems stupid and incosiderate to spread this kind of childish messages in here.

Jerry

I really should go there soon!

geezus, anoop, i try being civilized and you still don’t get it. obviously you, being Indian (and Hindu, i presume, or at least oriented against Muslim Pakistan) would have a certain bias against any Muslims, and i can understand that. but my consideration only goes so far, and if you look at this thread, you’ll see that whenever you’re confronted with facts proving you wrong or contradicting your evidence, you automatically revert to insults and never mention what any of us have said to contradict you. what do you have to say now about your Japanese or MiG pilots who know better about the USAF? throughout the past year you’ve called me an idiot, retard, jackass, asshole, etc. and i have never responded in kind. then you started attacking my family. so here’s a new question for you: what is wrong with you? do you feel inferior or something? sane, reasonable people don’t randomly attack other people’s intelligence without due cause, and so far none of us have been unreasonable in dealing with you. but you continue to insult us and our intelligence without even answering our rebuttals. think about it…

as to what you’ve been saying about Muslims, i never said they “loved” me, just that most of them don’t care either way and would be fine coexisting. some of them don’t agree with our societal quirks, and we don’t agree with some of theirs. and I AM NOT CHRISTIAN and I won’t stand for being accused thereof. religion is evil in my opinion because it is political religion that is causing the messes we have in the world. there will be no Islamic scourge, not if anyone can help it, because it is not ISLAM that is attacking us, it is some greedy fundamentalist idealistic bad guys with some very strong dedication to cause. they’re not anywhere near approaching the devotion of, say, the Irish terrorist groups back in the 60s, 70s, but their willingness to kill and devastate for a deity is obviously not something most Muslims espouse. i’d refrain from saying so again. Islam is just like Christianity, Judaism, and many other world religions in terms of belief systems and backgrounds, and all of them are pretty much hypocrites, but that has nothing to do with the fundamentalism we’re seeing now. no, most muslims, i’m sure, are just like the rest of us.

please refrain from wildly generalizing and insulting others again. this is supposed to be an intellectual exchange, not some racist mosh pit. i mean it.

and why the hell would you want to know how old i am?

- “you know, a lot of this thread has related to rather opinionated / technical discussions about the various aircraft involved.
nothing was really mentioned about the man-machine interface.
look at the american response: we are the best!!
tell that to the jap zero fighters or the North vietnamese mig-21 pilots who know otherwise.
nothing in my opinion - is more disastrous than under estimating one’s adversary.
the usaf tends to do this routinely
with disastrous results when faced with a well trained and equipped adversary.” -

let’s critique this, shall we? “opinionated/technical discussions about the various aircraft involved. nothing was really mentioned about the man-machine interface.”, i assume, means you think we’re only looking at the aircraft, and not their crews. well, read this, and eat your heart out: “multiple variables determine the outcome of a dogfight, among them pilot skill and experience, windage, altitude, first sighting, first shot, etc. when comparing such capable aircraft, it’s impossible to determine which would actually kill the other first.” I wrote that on July 21st, and I specifically say “multiple variables” influence “the outcome of a dogfight”, particularly “PILOT SKILL AND EXPERIENCE”! many of us have reiterated, time and again, that pilots are the most reliable factor in judging comparisons between planes. but at the same time, we also look at the planes without the pilots, and examine what’s what. is that truly so bad? to me, this represents simply another facet, another perspective, however limited, of which of these aircraft would perform the best. as to your “jap zero fighters or North vietnamese mig-21 pilots who know otherwise”, a purportedly self-righteous asian like you should have recognized that “jap” is a very offensive and demeaning term for a japanese, like “gook” is for your vaunted “North vietnamese” pilots. again, stop with the derrogatory attempts at civilized speech. as to the japanese fighter pilots, their main advantage was in their planes; the A6M Zero design in particular was incredibly lightweight and therefore maneuverable compared to the armored heavy F4F Wildcat and P-40. whatever skilled pilots the Japanese Imperial Army Air Force and Navy had were soon wiped out, as we proceeded to rotate our experienced veteran pilots back to training schools as flying instructors and they did not. so in this case, you’ve contradicted yourself; many times it was American ingenuity that persevered against the technical advantages of the Japanese, not the other way around. and the MiG pilots of North Vietnam, MiG-17, -19, and -21 all, were fighting against disadvantaged American air power that was put under ridiculous ROE requirements and was forbidden from attacking the enemy at the bases. once again, American skill, born of schools like Topgun established for this very purpose, turned an already impressive (relatively, under the circumstances) 3:1 kill ratio into the 12/13:1 ratio trumpeted by documentaries and popular culture. you are right that underestimating a well-prepared adversary is bad, but this is not something the USAF tends to do; rather, it is usually the government. besides, most pilots of most air arms prepare tirelessly for whatever scenario they are likely to face, and there was no underestimation of Iraqi air defenses in Desert Storm, I can tell you that.

as to “F-22s intentionally being kept away from Su-30s”, I have know clue whether that is indeed true; I would not be surprised if it was (I imagine the Pentagon PR department is balancing a worst-case scenario of Su-30s beating F-22s - and the accompanying world mockery, and a best-case scenario of F-22s winning, which at best would not elicit a peep from the world community; it is very similar to discrimination in athletics - when a boy beats a girl, it is nothing to shout about, but when a girl beats a boy, woe be unto the boy). i thank your children for their service to our country, and i wish you would not impune my own relations, who have served this nation in the past themselves. I have never contradicted you when it comes to the need for adaptation in the newest generations to survive and advance in this geopolitically radical world; indeed, many times I have said the same thing myself, usually after observing with disgust many of my own classmates. but I do object to your labeling “Islamic” the threat the world faces; this is a subjective opinion, and not necessarily ture, nor is it fair. i know many nice muslims, and throughout the world there are muslims disgusted with the radical fundamentalism they see manifesting itself as terrorism. this fundamentalism, i assume, is what you were actualy referring to, and in that i agree it is a threat. but no more so than biological homogenization, chemical-biological-nuclear proliferation, global warming, etc. besides, from Islam’s point of view, the Christian West is to blame for the imperfections of the world, so in my opinion the real culprit is organized religion. but that’s another topic…

I live under an occasional air refueling track. I can barely hear the tankers but I can see them. I can hear the fighters, but the only time I can spot them (20/15 vision) is when they are right next to the tanker or they light off their afterburner (glow visible at night time only). This is at a vertical of 3-5 miles and maybe 3 horizontal. Let’s say 8 miles away I cannot spot a fighter in it’s most visible configuration (full profile). So what is the range when it is head on? Moving 600 miles per hour you cover a mile every 6 seconds?(closing, reduce that to 3 seconds) So if you completely ignore everything in your cockpit you have how long to see me? Oh yeah, is it ever cloudy in Northern Europe or Russia? What about nighttime? Do they have that up there, and during the winter is it longer than half the day? So when, exactly, do you actually have visual range jet combat? And if you have any, what percentage of the time is it?

So now your in a visual dog fight. What weapon are you using? Probably a heat seeking missile. Does anyone believe that you can out turn one of these? Every sharp turn reduces your speed, making you more vulnerable. Let’s assume all the planes have pretty much the same counter measures. But you just can’t get away. If you manage to shake one, the next one will get you. Missiles are a lot easier and cheaper to improve and test.

Does anyone know when the last time a jet was shot down with a gun? I don’t recall the Falklands well enough, US Navy vs. Libya it was missiles, and I am ignorant of India (if any) and am not sure about Israel. There was an A-10 that took out a helicopter in Iraq, but not quite the same.

Any platform that brings a missile into range of the enemy can shoot him down if the missiles are good. If they had self directed missiles they could load a B52 with them and just park it next to an AWACS and clear the skies.

So lets move to the F22. Stealth is claimed as a one trick pony. Lets just call it a counter measure that reduces the effectiveness of your enemies weapons by 50%. Would you like to have that on your personal airplane? Thought so. It’s not perfect but it’s sure nice to have. As for losing the advantage (”your dead as soon as you open your bay doors”) does that mean the other guys are dead as soon as they leave the runway? I also can’t believe that the F22 is criticized for only holding 8 missiles. I imagine you would be real low on fuel if you managed to expend that many weapons. As for being a one trick pony (no ground attack ability) once the air defenses are destroyed, stealth isn’t an issue and you can load all the bombs you want under the wings.

In summary, stealth is a huge advantage. If the F22 had fought in Vietnam I imagine its radar and missiles would have precluded the need for the gun.

i wonder why

Red Flag 08-2.2: 02/04/2008 - 02/15/2008

Role Aircraft Home Base
Red Team Air F-16C Nellis AFB, NV
Blue Team Air F-22 Langley AFB, VA
Air-to-Ground B-52
F-15E
F-15S Ellsworth AFB, SD
RAF Lakenheath, England
Saudia Arabia
SEAD EA-6B
EA-6B NAS Whidbey Island, WA
NAS Patuxent River, MD
Command & Control
Reconnaissance E-3
E-8
RQ-4
U-2
RC-135 Tinker AFB, OK
Robins AFB, GA
Beale AFB, CA
Beale AFB, CA
Offutt AFB, NB
Refueling KC-135
KC-135
KC-135 Ohio ANG
RAF Mildenhall, England
McConnell AFB, KS

Estimated Total Aircraft: 75

Red Flag 08-4: 08/11/2008 - 08/22/2008

Role Aircraft Home Base
Red Team Air F-15 / F-16C Nellis AFB, NV
Blue Team Air F-15
F-15
Rafale’ Jacksonville, FL
Eglin AFB, FL
French Air Force
Air-to-Ground Rafale’
F-15
SU-30
F-15K French Air Force
Nellis AFB, NV
Indian Air Force
Republic of Korea Air Force
SEAD EA-6B
F-16
F-16
EC-130H NAS Whidbey Island, WA
Nellis AFB, NV
Eglin AFB, FL
Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ
Command & Control
Reconnaissance E-3 Tinker AFB, OK
Airlift C-130
C-17 French Air Force
McChord AFB, WA
Refueling KC-135
IL-76/78 unit to be determined
Indian Air Force

First time participation of Indian Air Force with eight SU-30 MK-I fighters, two IL-78 mid-air refueling aircraft and one IL-76 transport aircraft. Also first-time participation of six F-15K fighters of the South Korean Air Force.