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Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

None of the Pilatus trainers are armed nor do they have provisions for arming.

This is not true. The PC21 has 5 (factory) optional hard points (one on the fuselage and 4 wing stations).

I wonder whether an AtG missile is not classified as a weapon in Switzerland.

Last Edited by mdoerr at 16 Oct 09:24
United Kingdom

Mooney_Driver wrote:

First of all, what is a weapon ….

Tell me?

EDDS - Stuttgart

Nah, that’s just aux fuel tanks ;-)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

…and secondly what is a unstable third world country.

These are the lists of countries which were officially supplied with PC-7 and PC-9 planes in their military version (the second hand market for even more countries is too tedious for me to research). Looking at the list of countries from which our refugees are coming I can recognise quite a few of those Pilatus customers.

PC-7
Angola
Bolivia
Botswana
Brunei
Chile
France
Guatemala
India
Iran
Irak
Malaysia
Mexico
Myanmar
Nigeria
Netherlands
Austria
Switzerland
Republic of South Africa
Suriname
Tchad
Uruguay
USA

PC-9
Angola
Australia
Bulgaria
Guatemala
Irak
Ireland
Croatia
Mexico
Myanmar (Burma)
Oman
Saudi-Arabia
Switzerland
Slowenia
Thailand
Tchad
USA
Cyprus

EDDS - Stuttgart

Mooney_Driver wrote:

First of all, what is a weapon and secondly what is a unstable third world country.

That can be difficult to say. Variants of the Auster J/1 that I have, have made up parts of a weapons system (artillery – someone has to do the spotting). The aircraft’s good slow speed handling capability and short/rough field capability made it excellent in that role. I have to bet at some time some light armament has been fitted to that airframe somewhere at some point (certainly there was a rocket launcher available for the AOP.9)

Last Edited by alioth at 16 Oct 11:28
Andreas IOM

Was a Swedish? O200? powered side-by-side 2 seater used with underwing rockets in the Biafra war? MFI Junior?
I was told early in WW2, Tiger Moth trainers at Montrose were flown by instructors with demolition charges, set to explode at depth, to scare U-boats who thought it was depth charges at a greater distance.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Maoraigh wrote:

Was a Swedish? O200? powered side-by-side 2 seater used with underwing rockets in the Biafra war? MFI Junior?

Yes, the MFI-9, a productionized homebuilt, which was also produced under license in greater quantities in Germany as the Bölkow 208 Junior. The Swedish went on to produce a larger dedicated military aircraft of the same configuration.

Indeed. Also, look around for one Carl Gustaf von Rosen.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

Any airplane can be turned into a weapon of sorts or others. There were cases of Cessna 182’s with rocket launchers, you can easily add a machine gun to most high wing planes. Heck, even the Piper Cub has military variants.

The fact of the matter in the Pilatus case was that these people see any sale to a military as a crime, no matter what. Pilatus reckognized that they will have massive problems with this if they want to stay in Switzerland so they did the right thing and it proved them right too.

Switzerland has been a very bad place for military airplane projects, as the politicians so far have killed every single one of them one way or the other. I have once researched the P16 and the N20 projects which both would have been absolutely ground breaking designs and BOTH were killed by kindergarten politics of the worst. IMHO the people who did that deserved prison at the very least, but of course got away with it. And Billy Lear got himself a lovely blueprint for his Lear Jet by buying the remnants of the P16 project. Switzerland also has been incapable of buying a new fighter jet without major scandals for as far as I can think back. And in all those cases, the air force suffered as it had to put up with inferior airplanes as opposed what the original intention was. Hawker Hunter second hand and outdated vs the P16, half the fleet size of Mirage III’s due to a massive spending scandal… massively overpriced F18’s. Maybe the only plane they bought in the last 50 years which was a reasonable success was the F5. They could have gotten the Gripen as an inexpensive but top of the line and very up to date multi role fighter but screwed that up as well.

No, if I ever wanted to develop a military plane, trainer or not, Switzerland is not the place. They also forced very successful other industries out of business or being sold to less saint states. Eventually, with this kind of policy, there won’t be anything left of the once proud Swiss machine and airplane industry. Thankfully Pilatus proves to be the one big exception so far. But what will happen once it’s current patron retires is up for anyone’s guess.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

From here

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Why are there so many airplanes registered in the IOM…

Tax evasion. Will not work in the UK I guess.

EDDS - Stuttgart
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