Extend the service life of these aircraft
- Thread starter Monk78
- Start date
Presumably not, given the US was the one offering.
The Draken's hard because it was only retired in 2005 and doesn't have the massive volume of spares that, say, the MiG-21 or Mirage III have to keep running.
Same deal with the Super Mystere - it actually outlasted the Super Sabre in Honduran service, and the MiG-19 only still flys because of North Korea, though Pakistan managed to keep their J-6s flying until 2002.
I was going to say much the same thing. It's arguably just as similar to an early Lancaster as a current B52 is to a 50's one, or a late model Spitfire was to a 1930s Mk I.
And does the BBMF count as "active service", in the same way that Victory and Constitution are warships in commission?
This aircraft wasn't on the OPs list but it was still in service flying around Kabul Afghanistan International Airport in 2006. How many years of service would it have? I don't recall ever seeing another aircraft there that was older than I was.
Oddly enough I've only just finished reading the Tintin story The Red Sea Sharks from 1956 which has the fictional Middle Eastern Emirate of Khemed employing a squadron of Mosquitos.
You Baltic Bandit ! … what was his name ?skootOddly enough I've only just finished reading the Tintin story The Red Sea Sharks from 1956 which has the fictional Middle Eastern Emirate of Khemed employing a squadron of Mosquitos.
He appears in flight 714 too
Extremely difficult. The plane was retired, obsolescent, from PVO service in the early 1980s, and pretty much nobody else willing to buy Soviet kit has the specific operational needs to justify the plane. It was a pure interceptor, and if it got in a dogfight with anything it was dead meat.
Maybe get it into the hands of a South American country? Could probably get it into the early 90s like the Bolivian F-86s.
Lasted until 1991 in Greek service; I really can't see it lasting any longer than that.
You'd need to somehow save the Royal Navy's carrier fleet, with the Sea Vixen staying on the smaller carriers. That said, getting ten years past the OTL 1972 date is tricky given how much of the Royal Navy's carrier fleet was going to age out by 1975. Hermes is the only Sea Vixen carrier liable to last until 1982 and I don't see any realistic way for her to avoid her fate as a commando carrier.
There were supersonic proposals, but they would've amounted to a new airplane and thus competed unfavorably with the Phantom and Crusader.
Last edited:
NASA is still flying three WB-57F's, one of which was pulled out of the boneyard at Davis Monathan after being stored there for over 40 years!!!! (I remember seeing two of them in 1971 at Kirtland AFB as a young soldier back CONUS for a Pershing shoot at White Sands)
Fuzzy Dunlop
Banned
Did you mean Tu-28 'Fiddler'?
Now that's one aircraft I'd like to see continue in service.
Your best bet are electronic warfare and ASW. The PLAAF used the former, Soviet naval aviation the latter. But for your original question, this is another plane still kept in service by the KPA, so… not really possible to keep it going longer than that.
Personally I like the variant they tested with a 20mm Vulcan cannon located in a rotating turret underneath for usage as a gunship.
That’s fiddler not firebar
It was developed into tu128 with better missiles apparently more adapted to intercepting low level targets. It soldiered on till late 80s
Or you sell
Fuzzy Dunlop
Banned
No one has mentioned the elephant in the room!
Keeping the Vulcan in service with various updates . . . like the B-52?
Keeping the Vulcan in service with various updates . . . like the B-52?
Switzerland is the most plausible of these - they operated Vampires/Venoms for quite some time, and they might be interested in an all-weather replacement or complement with longer-range weapons. I can't see the others going for an orphan fleet, except in the Swedes case (and if they're going to do that, they'd probably rather build their own).