Recent content by Riain

Indonesia took delivery of a bunch of Soviet equipment between 1961 and 1965 including M21, Mig 19, Mig 17, Su 7 and Tu16. During the Confrontation the RAF deployed Lightnings to Malaysia alongside Javelins, RAAF Avon Sabres, Canberras and even Victors and Vulcans. The Confrontation was very low...

The near contemporary Ferrari F50 was built in numbers 1 less than the market could bear; 349. Apparently the last few XJ220s were not sold for several years after they were built, indicating they were overproduced. If you're looking for early 90s supercars which need more success I'd suggest...

Jaguar only planned to build 350 and ended up building 281 in the 90s recession. The McLaren F1 built 71 against a plan to build 300, so the XJ220 did quite well in comparison. A supercar is not a Camry, building thousands is not a good thing as it makes them too normal and not special.

There would be a limit to what level of maintenance could be undertaken at a regional city like Darwin or Cairns so they'd have to go back to Perth or Sydney after a certain number of patrols. This might be 2 or it might be 5, but the intervening patrols could be of reasonable length and...

Just to provide some context around Australia's nuclear industrial capacity. 1958-2007 10mW thermal, HEU reducing to LEU HiFAR research reactor from Britain 1961-1995 100kW thermal, HEU MOATA training reactor from USA 1965-1983 secret, small scale centrifuge uranium enrichment, reduced from...

Yes they did, but again the devil is in the details. The F4K did not have a stall speed 20kts higher than the A7, although the F4J might have. The Speys gave a lot more bleed air than the J79 to run a much more powerful BLC than USN F4s while the Spey installation had a 2 degree downward thrust...

This is de-railing this thread, which I'm happy to do because I find carrier stuff endlessly interesting, but it might annoy other people. Firstly, Albion, Bulwark and Centaur were completed with hydraulic catapults, Centaur with an axial flight deck and the Albion and Bulwark with 'interim'...

Is an escalation followed by withdrawal a possible course of action? Could me mine Hiaphong and do a Linebacker in 1969 as a precursor to withdrawal?

The port 145' BS4A catapult on the Hermes after 1966 could launch 50,000lbs to 97kts and the 139' BS4C on Centaur could launch 35,000lbs to 99kts. The Hermes retained the 103' BS4 on the starboard, although the RAN had the BS4 on the Melbourne lengthened by 9' to 112' in 1971 which did not...

Mmmmmm. I'm not a great fan of how the Collins played out but Australia is in a unique situation which requires unique solutions, this is particularly relevant for nukes. I'm very interested to see how @McPherson addresses this reality. For mine I'd try to work on making Australia less unique...

Is that SpazSinbad?

HMAS Melbourne could launch Skyhawks at full weight in nil wind conditions, but these were more powerful A4Gs with J52 rather than old USN A4Bs with J65s.

These Majestic class carriers used the BS4 catapult: 103ft...40,000lb@78kt...30,000lb@110kt. The weights of the A7 Corsair are : Empty weight: 19,127 lb (8,676 kg) Max takeoff weight: 41,998 lb (19,050 kg) overload condition. Basically the A7 is too heavy for the catapults of these small...

IIRC USAFE had a wing of F111Fs and another of F111Es based in Britain for the deep strike role. There were also about 6 or 7 F4 wings in USAFE in the late 70s and 3 or so in the early -mid 80s.