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Old September 17th 04, 11:20 AM
Thomas
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"John Mullen" wrote in message ...
"James Bond" wrote in message
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Anybody remember the F-16E ? It had a cranked arrow wing ?


Wasn't that the F-16XL?

I wonder what happened to the performance when the Delta wing
was added ?


It got a longer range ISTR

The Eurofighter may not have the required range but it certainly has
the performance? Could somebody explain why the British deleted the
gun from their version ? Seems an odd thing to do ?


Damn right. To save a little money basically.


Yup. Not for the gun as such since it is cheap, and will in fact be
installed in the UK euro-fighters whether they want it or not because
rebalancing the plane would be a pain in the ass.
But they are not going to load it, and they've eliminated the budget
for training their pilots with it. Upside: This will be a fairly
easy* decision to undo if they ever change their minds.

*I just got a sudden mental image of a senior german flight-mechanic
reduced to tears of frustration after being brought in to oversee the
activation of hundreds of eurofighter cannons. None of which have
seen much in the way of maintaince or any use. For years. Of flight-time.