It’s on the Google home page news, if the link doesn’t work. Click on the photos, which were picked up from the Chinese News Agency and attached to a BBC Wire story, and purport to show “destroyed helicopters” in the Ivory Coast, bombed by the French. Well, they look an awful lot like Su-25 Frogfoot aircraft to me. With big sharkmouths painted on what’s left of the nose. Sure would be great to model with that Monogram kit from early 90s. I didn’t know Third World countries were operating the “Soviet A-10 Warthog,” though I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. MiG-29s fly for some pretty impoverished countries too, as do our F-5Es. I just thought the Su-25, and in particular some of the armament, would be a bit expensive.
Tom
Agrred with with there, Tom. Unfortunately, whether it’s for third world countries or wealthier ones, governments still devote more resources on ‘defense’ than on education and basic public services…
Well said, and though I may get flamed for this, because some of us are to airplanes as PETA is to animals, but those SU-25s in that country are two admittedly great a/c I don’t mind seen stricken from books (.
I once, not as long ago as it would seem, watched an old ANG crew chief work. He was preparing two T-33s to be transferred out of the squadron, two of the last in the Air Force inventory, and I asked him if they were going to D-M for scrapping or to be gate guards somewhere. Nope, he said, they’re going to St. Louis to have bomb racks installed and the .50 calibers put in the nose and then they’re going to the (a poor country near our southern border) Air Force.
What good, I asked, are two old T-Bords with machine guns and bomb racks in (name of country)? What could they possibly use them for down there?
“Crowd control,” he replied.
Um, I had to think a second, but then I got it. A chill went up my spine, because having worked down there, I knew he was right.
Tom
Sharkskin, after the fall of the Soviet Union large numbers of aircraft were sold off quit often with out government knowledge. Many Migs were sold and the money went in the pockets of the local commander while troops on the base were hunting and fishing to provide thier own food and hadnt been paid in many months. Another intersting money maker was pilots selling rides to civilians. The USAF even bought several Mig-29’s from Moldovia, a former Soviet Block country.
Here’s 2 links to reports that correctly identifies the planes and also a bit more on why there were destroyed by the French. Seems like the governement decided to bomb the French peace keepers…
Ya didn’t see’em. They were hidden real well at the aft end of the engine intakes.
New chinese camoflage design. It’s a helicopter made to look like a jet.
While all countries are spending more on defence instead of education, atleast here in Nueva York we got it right and are spending more useless sports stadiums
than on education.
What good, I asked, are two old T-Bords with machine guns and bomb racks in (name of country)? What could they possibly use them for down there?
“Crowd control,” he replied.
Um, I had to think a second, but then I got it. A chill went up my spine, because having worked down there, I knew he was right.
Tom
/quote]
Well, sorry to say this, but this commentary seems a little patronizing considering what US Apaches and Cobras are doing in Irak… I know, I know, those are terrorists, right? One still wonders. A matter of perspective, I think.
What the guy meant be “Crowd control” was that the T-Birds would be armed, then bought by that government, then used to bomb and strafe the very people whose taxes were used to buy them in the first place. I try to avoid anything closer to political commentary that than on this sight, hence the comment on being flamed. Most people of any end of the political spectrum in this country are pretty outraged at the notion of a nation using its military might not on external threats (which in this case the country does not have) but, say, to force farmers off their land so a wealthy family can have some (scorched) land for free, and then again on the crowd that assembles to protest the act. I didn’t think there was much controversy about the morality of that.
As for Iraq, I don’t even use the word on this modeling site, though I have my own opinion about it – no one here has the slightest interest in hearing what I think about our involvement in Iraq, and that’s as it should be – and I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the unnamed country anecdote since it was far removed from modeling.
However, as a modeler, not as a person interested in human rights, I think the idea of a bombed up T-33 with machine guns sticking from the ports would be an interesting build. Most people don’t even know the docile old T-bird has hard points under the wings for racks, easily removed covers over the gun ports and machine gun and ammo mounts under the doors in the nose.
Tom
ya… thats a nasty can O’worms that doesnt need to be opened here. I have to say that National Pride is about boiling over in my right now and the temptation to start flaming people here is overwhelming. But I wont. Omeros as that was your first post I should tell you that this forum is about models not political views. There are other forums to express your view points on such things. Even one here so long as it doesnt get to far out of hand. That said I hope everyone else here is mature enough to let that one go. Id hate to see another Blackwolf and (oops I forgot who was the second party in this one)incident that gets blown way outta porportion