billd766

You are not even debating. Quote "The weapons system can be simulated in a simulator just as can be the flying itself. That keeps the hardware and software away from the Chinese which is why the Thais offered to buy it without weapons. The weapon systems could be retrofitted in a heartbeat." Nothing can be retro fitted in a heartbeat. To start with the aircraft will need to be returned to the factory in the USA. How will they get there? The ferry range of an F35b is about 900 miles without external fuel tanks. The RTAF does NOT have any air refuelling tankers so, they will have to rely on another country, probably the USA to get them back The alternative is to dismantle the aircraft and then fly them back in another aircraft. Will the fit in a Hercules? I have no idea but that is the largest aircraft that the RTAF have. Having returned to the factory they will then need to be slotted in somewhere in the production line for the retrofit when it is available. Eventually they will be returned to service but that will cost a lot more as it won't be in the original contract. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7990022#:~:text=Fighter af...-,There is a difference between combat radius and ferry range,35Bs fly without external tanks. Now where will this wonderful simulator be situated and who will own it? If it does not belong to Thailand then Thailand will have to send the pilots to wherever it is and book the time to use it. If it does belong to Thailand they will have to buy it and pay for the people to be trained to operate and maintain it Where then will it be situated? In the USA or in Thailand? Is there a contract to buy, rent or hire the use of it? There is NO justification at all for buying only two weaponless aircraft let alone the extra cost and manpower required. I do research my subject and I supply the links, in this case about the purchase of only two F35 aircraft, pointing out very carefully the cost and pitfalls of that purchase. You on the other hand have no conception of the extra costs entailed by Thailand and cannot even come up with any sensible arguments in favour of the purchase other than they can be refitted in a heartbeat. Any aircraft designed o be stealthy and as an air to air combat fighteris useless without any weapons system. You were correct in one sense when you quote Phoenix Rising who you said "You are not even debating." The thing that you got wrong it that it is not him, not me or anyone else who is not even debating, it is YOU. You have dug yourself into a deep hole and refuse to be helped out of it. I have only two things left to say. 1 I am glad that you have nothing to do with any military purchases in Thailand 2 On ignore

If you don't have any weapon system and the aircrew trained to use it then the aircraft is of no use at all, so why would you waste money buying it?

No they don't. If the contract specifies ONLY the purchase of two aircraft, without weapons systems, that is what they will get. OTOH if they wish to purchase a training package and a spares package, then they have to specify what they want, and those packages will be in separate contracts. If you don't need to see the contracts then perhaps you are making assumptions that are not correct.

Really? Have you had access to read the contract in English and in full? Would you like to post it here for us all to see?

You believe a Hollywood movie over real life?

Flight simulators are specific to aircraft type and AFAIK Thailand does NOT have an F35 flight simulator Of course it won't take much longer to train a Thai pilot than a US pilot, provided that the Thai is completely fluent in (US) English speaking, reading and writing. You have simply no idea about any military air force ground crew or aircrew for that matter. To simply assume that any groundcrew trained on any aircraft can simply move across to a different type and start work straight away is foolishness. If you think that groundcrew will simply be trained in the USA or Singapore on a completely new aircraft type and it will be easy, think of the language barrier. The common language is UK or US English, all the manuals are written in English. So the groundcrew men from Thailand will need to be like the Thai Pilots, that is completely fluent in (US) English speaking, reading and writing.

However I live in rural Kamphaeng Phet which is about 400km from Rim Ping which makes buying a bottle of rum a bit expensive.

Not necessarily. It depends on what you are buying and that will be laid out in the contract between the Thai government and Lockheed-Martin. Thailand wants to buy two F35s. Training aircrew, groundcrew and support equipment will come under separate contracts. There are NO 2 seat trainer F35s, so long before any Thai pilot goes solo there Aircrew training will probably be done under contract to the US Air Force. The groundcrew training may be done the same way or perhaps by a different company. There is no your word, obviously, about it at all. Nothing is free nowadays. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-35-lightning-ii-training-systems.html

Don't you? It was published a while ago in the Thai newspapers.

I very much doubt that they will bother. The problem with winning a battle on your enemies territory is that you need troops to garrison it 24/7/365 which takes an awful lot of manpower. IMO what the Ukrainian's will be much happier with is ALL their territory and ALL their people back. In addition they will probably want all the military, including Putin, to stand trial for war crimes, and for reparations to rebuild their country. This is my opinion FWIW. They don't want or need any Russian territory

If you believe it so much, then show the evidence that you have that it was fraud.

Just because you don't see doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I am quite sure that if the Jan 6 Select committee were told about it, then someone would have investigated it. If the report was false then she would have been charged with an offence.

25 cm is only 10 inches.

If you go 30 days early then if there is a problem you have 30 days to fix it in. If you go on the day or the day before and you have a problem, then you have 2 problems, especially if the last day is a Friday or the day before a public holiday. You can go at any time within the IO limit and you extension will still be dated 12 months from the date of expiry.

I am one also.

But nobody really knows as it has never been put in a combat situation What you have written is meaningless, simply because it has never been put to any test against ANY other air force in the world. Thailand has no need for any aircraft as sophisticated as the F35. If you have 10 aircraft and your enemy has 100 to use against you, they can afford to lose 10 for each 1 of yours, and if their aircraft cost 20% of the price of yours they can afford to buy 5 for every one you can afford to buy. It may well be a superior air defence or attack aircraft, but is it any use in ground attack? Can it fly up and down, forwards and backward, left and right like a helicopter or the old Harrier? Remember that the more it costs, the more sophisticated it is, the more expensive it is to repair and maintain? I will give you a simple example of costs. If you have 2 aircraft you will need 4 pilots so that there are always 2 available, so for 10 aircraft you will need 20 pilots. This is the cost of training only one pilot to the USA standard at 2018 costs. https://www.statista.com/chart/17661/estimated-total-cost-of-training-a-basic-qualified-pilot-by-platform/ USD$10.17 million per pilot so to simply train 20 pilots will cost over USD$200 million or in baht at todays forex TT rates of 34.37 thb that will cost Thailand around 7Billion thb. Remember that each pilot HAS to fly a certain number of day and night flying per month just to keep current. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a41956551/cost-per-hour-to-fly-us-military-aircraft/ The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs $41,986 an hour across all models, including the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the F-35C for the Marine Corps and Navy. That $41,986 comes in at over 1,517,xxx thb per hour. Multiply that by 20 pilots at only 5 flying hours per month and you are looking at over 150,xxx,xxx thb per month, not counting the fatigue life of the aircraft. If you buy a 10 or 20 million thb car and write it off, the insurance will pay for it. Military aircraft are NOT insurable, so if you write it off, the country has to buy a new one which puts you at the back of the queue. Thailand CANNOT afford an out of control military spending just as it cannot afford to give extra face to bought and paid for generals.

Where do you get the idea that the USA will provide the F35 to its allies? Just supplying the aircraft is easy. However the training of extra air crews is lengthy and expensive let alone training the ground crews and providing spares, tools and backup is also lengthy and expensive. IMO with 25 years experience the the Royal Air Force you can expect an attrition rate of around 25 to 30% per sortie, or Thailand with only 2 aircraft may last out day one before they are all shot up. Remember that the F35 has never been tested in a real live situation yet so all the wonderful fighting information is only what people think it is capable of doing.

But the F 35 was flown by a US aircrew and Thailand does not even have a spy plane to work with the F35 that they haven't got either. Have you any idea of the cost of a spy/reconnaissance/control aircraft? https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Boeing_RC-135#:~:text=The cost per airframe is, in the signal intelligence role. The cost per airframe is believed to be $330 million. This is without trained air and ground crews, spares and backup systems for only ONE aircraft. To be operational tactically a country would need about 4 of them to keep one in the air 24/7/365.

I don't think so at all. https://breakingdefense.com/2022/10/f-35-might-not-ever-reach-80m-target-again-lockheed-exec-says/ The prices are only going upwards and from the link. quote "The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a detrimental effect on F-35 production. Before the pandemic, Lockheed planned to ramp up production to 169 F-35s per year starting in 2022, but disruptions to the global supply chain forced the company to slow down production of the F-35 in 2020. Lockheed has since rebounded, delivering 142 F-35s in 2021 and is on track to hit its new maximum production rate of 156 jets per year in 2023." Thailand has not yet put in their order with Lockheed-Martin and if they ever do it will go on the waiting list. It is not only the trained pilots that Thailand will need but also the fully trained ground staff, facilities pares etc. None of these are cheap or readily available, not to mention the cost to Thailand to provide them. Why should the USA provide lease/end aircraft to Thailand? They don't to any other country, and Thailand under the military, is certainly not a stable country. The USA is not providing F 35s even to the Ukraine and they are in a real war against Russia.

And which country would Thailand be fighting with only two F35 and no updated weapons or avionics? No advanced missile systems or weapons of any kind.

This is Stroh 80 which is 80 proof rum, oddly enough made in Austria. If I could get it in Thailand I would much prefer "Pusser's" rum as issued to the Royal Navy before "Black Tot Day" (31 July 1970) "Black Tot Day" (31 July 1970) was the last day on which the Royal Navy issued sailors with a daily rum ration (the daily tot). We used to get it sometimes in the RAF in extremely cold weather. 1 bottle in a 5 gallon urn of cocoa. https://pussersrum.com/

I looked and I am still laughing. It was done 60 years ago when I was just 18 and I am still alive and kicking. Have you nothing newer than that?

I suffer from Arfuritis in both knees and a bit of screwmatism as my Dad used to call it. I don't like the cold any more and if I went back to the UK permanently I would consider myself lucky if I lasted a year before I turned up my toes. The house here is quite comfortable and the red ants are the worst. The mosquitos aren't too much of a problem, jing jok's and tokays doing their business in the drawers on crockery and cutlery. We just turn everything upside down and then wipe any mess off.

With apologies to Napoleon XIV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xRCbdFrSSc&ab_channel=NapoleonXIV-Topic They're coming to take you away, Haha, they're coming to take you away, Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha, To the funny farm Where Life is Beautiful all the time And You'll be happy to see Those Nice Young Men In their Clean White Coats And they're coming to take you AWAY. Have a good New Year

How sad.