billd766

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.

I don't think that anybody can persuade him to let it go. IMHO he is like a person seeking the holy grail, (or in his case the Presidency of the USA) and he will not be happy or satisfied until he gets his hands on it. He is willing to sacrifice any thing or anyone to get it, and the thing that frightens me the most, is that he truly believes it, even to the extent of destroying the USA to get it.

When financial "experts", both professional and amateur, cannot predict even 3 months forward with any degree of accuracy, why should anybody in their right mind believe a forecast for 10 years ahead? You might just as well go to KFC and get a pile of chicken bones to use for predictions.

That is why I didn't bother to take part. Posters seem to think that a result like Brexit is simple, easy and completed in a short time. Promises were made on the answers known at the time, but nobody, not even Nostradamus can predict world results with any accuracy. Who in 2007 predicted the 2008 financial crash, or in 2012 predicted Brexit, or Covid? Who indeed back in 2016 could have predicted the Russia/Ukraine war? All people can do is make plans with the information at the time. If the information changes subsequently, then either the plans have to change, or you have to live with unpredictable results.

I haven't been to Pattaya since 2010 and have no desire to go again. I live with my wife and my Thai son in a comfortable 4 bed house in rural Kamphaeng Phet and I don't drink any more. Which is not exactly 100% correct, as I have one Stroh rum and coke every New Nears eve. I figure that I have another 10 years to finish that bottle nd by then I will be 88 I would like to say that I would go back to the UK but Thailand IS my home and has been since 2001.

Here are The Old Moore's Almanac predictions for 2023. https://www.nationalworld.com/news/offbeat/old-moores-almanac-2023-predictions-list-2022-3965609 What are Old Moore’s Almanac predictions for 2023? Here are the predictions Old Moore’s Almanac has made for 2023: Atlantic event: An Atlantic event will affect the west coast of Ireland next year. House prices: The rate at which house prices increase will slow, but they will still go up. Asteroid: An asteroid will be “too close to comfort”. Trump’s health: There will be a "severe health warning" for former US President Donald Trump. Connectivity and the internet: The internet will suffer a global outage. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Harry and Meghan will face "marriage and money problems". Pope: There will be a change in the Pope. But still no lottery numbers.

Here is a Wikipedia article on him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Parscale

Me too.

The local Thai people that I know and talk to say the last thing they want is for the current government and the military to stay in power. The majority of the Thai people would welcome the PTP as the government, and if Thaksin were able to return, that would be a bonus. Just look at all the polls that show the positions of the PTP compared to the other parties and you can see the trend. Just look and the effort and expense that the government is going to to destroy ANY opposition party who is daring to challenge them IMHO what we are seeing now is the death throes of the dying dinosaurs in the military nd the ultra-royalists who have seen enough of their future to be terrified of it. If that could/would happen and the power of the military was to be broken (hopefully), THEN Thailand could be on the same path that S Korea trod many years ago ALL the courts will do as the military tell them to do, instead of what they should be, which is totally independent of government. The youth of today are the future leaders of the Thailand of tomorrow. The current lot are the dead dinosaurs of the past who have no idea that they are dead, certainly from the neck up.

It could well be due to the RTN being a little busy searching for bodies from their sunken ship. Also it would depend on where the available rescue craft and divers came from to get to those bodies.

I was here in 2006, in 2006 and in 2014 and Herfiehandbag was correct. I initially supported the 2014 coup and it took me about a year to realise how stupid I had been and it has been reinforced year after year since then. Unlike you, Herfiehandbag DOES do his research, and he does know his stuff.

Well I have been married to the same Thai woman since 2000 and I knew her for 7 years prior to that. I am 78 and she is 57. Yes I bought the land and paid for the house, the pick up is a grey area without looking it up. I have supported her through 3 businesses through 2 of mine, and she has supported me even to the extent of selling her gold when I got scammed. I guess that I must be one of the lucky ones and there are quite a few of us about and more than you would think through reading some of the horror stories on TVF and ANN over the years. Most of us lucky ones don't normally post about the good times, because good news doesn't sell or get as many responses. as the bad news do.

I have a feeling that it may not be so easy to do this time. The older ultra royalist dinosaurs are dying off and the younger less biased generation are growing in numbers. Prayuth may find that what he wants and tries to do will end up in courts rather than be overlooked like the last time.

That is probably the best and most sensible advice you will get from this forum. Many of us have been down that path and have learned a good, painful financial lesson.

Nice parroting, but you didn't answer my question. I have no doubt that if I did a search I would be able to come up with a completely differebt answer

What a load of Horlicks. If you are going to post anything do some research first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra Thaksin Shinawatra was born on 26 July 1949. Thaksin entered politics in late 1994 through Chamlong Srimuang, who had just reclaimed the position of Palang Dharma Party (PDP) leader from Boonchu Rojanastien. In a subsequent purge of Boonchu-affiliated PDP cabinet ministers, Thaksin was appointed Foreign Minister in December 1994, replacing Prasong Soonsiri.[31] Thaksin left Palang Dharma along with many of its MPs in 1996, and founded the populist Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party in 1998. He was 35 before he entered politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_coups_in_Thailand The first coup was in 1933, the next was in 1947 the next was in 1948 That makes 3 before he was even born. The next was in 1957 the next was in 1958 when Thaksin was 9 years old Again in 1971 Thaksin was 22 again in 1976 again in 1977 Thaksin was 28 That makes 8 coups