>>''The A300 has a service ceiling of 40,000 feet and the very highest mountains in afghanistan are around 21-22,000 feet''<<Tue enough.  Unless you're not in an A300 but in a C-130 which has a much more limited ceiling.>>''Anyway it is highly unlikely a raghead is going to be sitting on a mountain top hoping for a lucky ...

>>''The limitations, which is on the hardpoints, does not make it much worse in a BVR engagement.''<<Agreed.  But even when carrying BVR missiles, most fighters also carry a 'winder and a gun in the event of a visual engagement.  It sounds to me that if these early F-16s are carrying a BVR missile or any kind of ...

>>''Nope!! Not the case with the F16. The problem is not the weapons themselves, but the stores they are carried on. They can't take the same stress. It is very easy to overstress them even given the high weight of the aircraft.''<<Yowsa!!!  That makes for a lousy ''strike'' fighter in my opinion.  Your pylons are the weak ...

A Naval Aviator lifestyle can be pretty good.  On the boat, expect 14 to 18 hour days.  Shipboard life is austere as well as requiring LOOOONG hours.  And obviously your totally away from your family.  Shiboard deployments last around 6 months.  Expect two to three deployments per tour of duty.Ashore in a fighter squadron, ...

There are umpteen variables including type of missile, your speed, your altitude, etc.As for detecting an inbound missile, again there are multiple variables.  If it's a radar guided SAM, your systems will tell you when the tracking station has detected you, when it has shifted to tracking mode, when it has a firing solution ...

The tactics were VERY diverse and changed drastically during the course of the war.  The tactics also varied greatly depending on the type of mission (ie. close air support of ground troops vs penetration missions into Hanoi vs SEAD missions to support an Alpha strike vs high altitude carpet bombing) and also varied by service (USAF vs ...

That works in non-mountainous terrain.  In Afghanistan, flying above the manpad threat in many areas means flying well above 30,000 feet.And if the manpad is sitting around an airport, staying out of range above him is impossible.

Flying for the South African AF as a female is by all accounts is unlikely if not impossible.  If you want to fly for the USAF or USN, the first thing you have to do is get US citizenship.  Also be SURE to have UNcorrected 20/20 vision.  If you're visual acuity is below that, forget it.  Flying for the Navy will also ...

>>''I don`t now what BVR will be for stelth fighters, as useing them would give them away''<<Careful.1.  The F-22 radar is very frequency agile, has very high bandwidth, has very very narrow beams with almost no side lobes, and uses very unusual waveforms.  It is a very low probability of intercept (LPI) design.  So ...

>>''Weight in that respect is not going to be the major a lim factor for the F16 in DACM. More so the limitations of the external stores.''<<Weight is usually THE limiting factor in any kind of manuevering.  External fuel tanks are designed to handle the same stresses as the aircraft.  Air-to-air weapons can also go to ...