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[rlbell]

Originally posted by troop18546+May 10 2006, 08:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (troop18546 @ May 10 2006, 08:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-ShadowXIX@May 10 2006, 09:34 PM
Ofcourse they have all the weapons demilled and the advanced weapon systems and avionics are all stripped out.

Now where's the fun in that? :eeeeeh:
I really would want an F-22 Raptor. It's the best damned plane around. [/b][/quote]
Nah, there are too many problems with the raptor. For the average joe that actually wants to fly his ex-military jet, the A-10 is about as modern as you would want, if you insist on flying an american craft. For performance, you would want an F-4, as maintaining the engines is not beyond the skills of an automotive enthusiast (Art Alphonse, creator of the Green Monster landspeed record challenger from the 1960's, built his car around a J79 turbojet [from an F-4] that the airforce had deemed no longer airworthy).

For high performance jets, ex-soviet aircraft are the way to go. American aircraft are designed around the premises of absolute performance and a full team of maintenance specialists. Thus the american aircraft are always at the very margin of serviceability and require long hours of specialised technicians to maintain if they do anything besides gather dust. The russians acknowledged that they would never have the skilled technicians in sufficient numbers to match the USAF ground crews, so they designed their aircraft to be maintained by semiliterate peasants who knew the ins and outs of turbocharged diesel tractors and their associated hydraulic systems. Quite simply, the MiG will not break down as often, nor will it be as difficult to fix. Also, as the russians never throw anything away, there are lots of aircraft available, at an affordable price.