The Poms and Yanks are retiring their Harrier Jets after an illustrious career including very successfull sorties in the Falkand war. Thailand are keeping theirs in the sky for now.
you have NO idea of the truth about their "capabilities" it's a piece of piss to launch 10 mins before an UNARMED Mirage (bar the Exocet) turns up that only has enough fuel to make it to the ships and back flying at optimal height for fuel efficiency, then these supposed brilliant planes just launch missiles to pick the Argentinian pilots off as they fly by BFD !!! I had a lot of respect for the Argy pilots KNOWING they had little chance of coming back ..... even the guys on the boats were setting up a flak screen that the Argy boys were flying thru and taking them out. I always thought the Harrier was a brilliant idea but don't let the history written by the poms re the Harrier in the Falklands be your guide, they were great Farnsborough displays and excellent for pilots that couldn't land 100 ton aircraft on a pitching deck
Thanks,but i think I'll let history be my guide rather then a RAAF has been pimpled face ground worker.
from memory the odds were heavly in favour of the Argies with there frog mirages. what about 20 to 25 harrier's against the Argie airforce,how many mirages?
many considered the Mirage to be the better play,how many were shot down? how many Harriers went down? Answer the hard questions.
we got the reports while I was in the RAAF re the Falklands, Harrier .... sh!tbox compared to a real fighter, they are only good when air superiority has been established I'll believe the REAL story , you can re-read the Walt Disney version written by the yesterday hero nations. The Argentinian pilots were very brave to get in their planes as far as I was concerned, and even the poms knew where the danger was which is why they sent the SAS in behind the lines to blow the Mirages up before they took off. The pommy Harrier pilts were using US satellite info to scramble their Harriers just as the Mirages were approaching due to the poor loiter time of the Harrier. You're letting your pommy bias select the rose coloured glasses again, choice of Harrier or Raptor to go to war in , I'd take the Raptor thanks. The Harriers are like the A10s, they only come in after the real fighting is over , but that is what they are designed for, air to ground support
the Mirage was the better plane, but after the first ship got "Exoceted" they moved the fleet out of the range of the Mirages, so the Argies stripped out all the armament and added a fuel bladder to make the range with one Excocet and then they had to fly at optimal height with no deviations .... then the big, brave Harrier jets launched and played space invaders with the Mirages Like I said, the Argy pilots were very brave to enter into that deal, imagine going out to face guys who KNEW you coming, WHEN you were coming and that you had no armament, plus you could only fly straight there and back or you'd run out of fuel A fully armed Mirage II would blow ALL the Harriers out of the sky in a fair fight, this wasn't fair and definitely not a fight
they were the ideal aircraft for that war,odds 20 harriers Vs 120 mirages. 10 mirages were shot down in one day. LOL who could ever forget this. Image Unavailable, Please Login
the Belgrade was sunk on day one I think but a pommy atomic sub that sat at the entrance to the harbour .... no other ship came out after that It was surplus WWII German anyway, the Argies couldn't afford real boats or planes, the Falklands was just about oil anyway, that island sits on top of a huge oil reserve
wonder if there stupid enough to have a crack at the 60 billion barrels,last time they ran into Thatcher. Image Unavailable, Please Login
while we're on about retirements, I here they finally retired the old girl, here's a photo I took on Australia Day 1988 on Sydney Harbour Image Unavailable, Please Login
Moretti Did you sniff too many AVGAS fumes......your memory's going....L.O.L! Belgrade is the Capital city of Serbia(former Yugoslavia), the Argie ship was the "General Belgrano"...............get it right man!!!!! The most interesting thing that came out of the Falklands and one that is a lesson for Australia was the attitude of the Yanks! The Poms were running dangerously low on AAMS and such and asked the Yanks for a resupply.........Ronnie Reagan told em........"gee,love to help but the Argies are our biggest Ally in South America,don't want to piss them off,so we'll sit this one out" The Iron Lady then made very loud noises about pulling UK Forces out of NATO/Europe.............guess who got resupplied pronto??? Now what would happen if we had a ****fight with our neighbours,the "Missourians"..........what would our Ally the USA do???? Think about it! P
I don't do Wiki but I knew the name I did was close Was a 2nd hand US, not German, ship with 300+ people onboard from memory, either way it went down and a lot of dudes died ... and I never sniff AVGAS, F111s run on kero
I Don't do Wiki either JM.......... Had several mates who were there.One was RAAF on exchange with RAF and several RAA on exchange with Brit Army and Royal Marines........ What you say about the Argie Mirage pilots concours with what I've been told privately too..................they had big cojones all right! We still love ya........even if you are a Banana bender,exRAAF and........................................................................................................................................................3 seconds slower! P
Tell us how you really feel mate, dun hold back this time. The Falklands wasn't where the real action was, you had to go to the Malvinas Islands for that!
