Chinese Vic,
Sorry bud, wasn't taking a pop at you. Just getting a bit frustrated with some of the 'solutions' being offered by inadequately educated 'MoD spokesmen' to an even less educated public.
Jacko,
People like Tim Eastaugh are putting on a public show of being 'upbeat'. I know that Tim devoted his career to improving the FA2s air-to air and air-to-ground capabilities with great success and would be anything but upbeat about his life's work being towed to the scrapyard. The only thing that Sea Harrier people are upbeat about is the fact that sacrificing the jet means that funding can continue for carrier air power. That way, at least they will get to fly something. Important lesson about being an officer in the UK armed forces: Publicly criticise such a decision and watch your career disappear before the aircraft does.
As for the ASRAAM/HMS debate, my understanding is that the BV range capability of the ASRAAM was designed to be used when the missile is cued with an accurate target position and vector from the host fighter's radar. Having a seeker more sensitive than the human eye means that you can lock the seeker head to a target BVR if you have a good radar track. However, without mid-course updates, any lock-AFTER-launch firing risks either missing the target due to target post-launch/pre acquisition manouevre, or hitting another aircraft in the vicinity. If you have no means of cueing the seeker because you have no radar and the target is BVR, the HMS won't help you.
It's clear that you're a great fan of the system; I'm convinced that it will be very good within it's own limitations/envelope. However, as a professional fighter pilot I have to tell you that if I was told to fight a duel, and the two available platforms were a manky old MiG-29 with short-burn Alamos and a GR9 with HMS/ASRAAM, in less than a second my name would become Nozzleski. I can't imagine any fighter pilot choosing the GR9 as an AD platform.
WEBF,
Just looked at my User Control Panel; I have no private messages waiting and there is a caption saying that private messages have been disabled by the administrator. I tried to mail another ex-SHAR mate a while ago (think it was Pontius), to no avail
