Originally Posted by LO
The Australian government had a fighter program going in 2001, headed for a competition, but in 2002 (after the PM had been in Washington) announced that the future fighter would be the F-35.
There was never any instruction that AIR 6000 should be a competition, ever! Much like the UK's FOAS, at that time it was established as a study of future fighter and strike options to replace both the F/A-18A/B and the F-111C/G, for which the F-35 was determined to be the best.
Originally Posted by LO
The guy who was supposed to be leading the Dassault campaign landed in Melbourne hours after the announcement, with a phone message recalling him to France.
Have you independently verified this urban myth with Dassault, or are you just regurgitating a Chinese whispers-like story which has been re-told and embellished at every opportunity?
Originally Posted by LO
Since then, successive Oz governments have simply refused to re-evaluate the decision, backed up by phony foundations, a complaisant local media and a platoon of online fankiddies.
In fact, there have only been two successive governments since then, and one (Labor) of these did a comprehensive study soon after being elected in 07/08 and found the decision to be a sound one.
Phony foundations...care to nominate any and back that up with proof? And Complaisant? Did you mean complacent or compliant? Either way, these are both massive calls which I suggest you are unqualified to make based on the drip feed of clippings you see or get sent from APA.
And the "platoon of fankiddies"...oh dear, I would suggest many of them established themselves online specifically to counter the likes of you and your 'platoon of basement dwellers' who continually insinuate that all pro-F-35 fankiddies or media cannot possibly hold such views unless they are receiving funding from Lockheed or elsewhere.
MODS - if Noritake can get banned for arguing a rather silly aircraft A vs aircraft B point quite respectfully and succinctly but without substantiating his claims, how is it that B..., I mean LO is allowed to continue to make apparently biased, often spurious and sometimes just plain incorrect claims about a far more important subject matter with a far less respectful tone, and yet remain on these pages...?