Nobody's Buying

The Paris Air Show is going on this week. It used to be a magnificent gathering of commericial, military and corporate aviation. The airline industry would attend to shop for their new equippage. Nations with defense needs would attend to scope out what they might be able to afford and get as much intel as possible about what their enemies might be purchasing.

There would be static displays, but what everyone came for was the aerial demonstrations. The Brits would send the Red Arrows, the Italian Frecce Tricolori would be there and in the really good old days the US might send the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels. The high point every year it seemed was the Soviet military demos which almost always involved an impromptu illustration of how good their ejection seats were when the pilot got over-enthusiastic. Lots of crunches went on.

This year, the worst possible confluence of events has occurred. Start with a global economic crisis and then lead into the air show week with a mysterious loss of an Airbus from the French national airline. Not good for business.



The US isn't selling Raptors and the F-35 is not yet ready for prime-time demos. That means the field is open for the other national efforts to sell their wares. The problem is that for the knowledgable tactical types, the demos don't sell the product anymore.

The Typhoon is the best they can offer and it shows the type of demo they've been doing for years. Lots of sturm und drang, but little tactical utility. High angle-of-attack gymnastics make the crowd go ahhh, but the fighter pilots simply chuckle softly about how stupid anyone would have to be to hover in a cloud of your own hot exhaust while your opponent slices and dices you with IR missiles and cannon fire.

Ask a tactical aviator how a Typhoon engagement against a Raptor would work out and he will simply tell you that the Typhoon driver isn't going to die all tensed up. He'll simply blink out of existence before he is even aware that the Raptor is a threat.

Gotta love all of those canards and flapping control surfaces. Look at all that reflective sheet metal and those nice hot tailpipes. Ahhhh, to be young again and at war in a Raptor!