Posts by Strath Dionard

Crash grounds RAF Eurofighters - for Battle of Britain Day!

Slightly unfair on the Manchester

The Manchester had problems - especially with the Vulture engines- but that is far from the whole story. Avro decided to re-engine the Manchester with the less powerful but more reliable Merlin X engines. As they were less powerful, they extended the wings and added an extra two engines, making the MkIII Manchester.

Why is this important? Well, the MkIII Manchester was renamed the Avro Lancaster. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Manchester. Therefore the Manchester led directly to the Lancaster, and there was much commonality between the two airframes.

Indeed, there is more than a little reason to believe that if Rolls Royce had managed to make the Vulture engines work reliably, then we would be talking about the Manchester in the same glowing terms that we now do the Lancaster.

There are much better candidates deserving derision in WWII - for instance the Gloster Gladiator or the Handley Page Hampton.

That was the EAP

If you saw it in the eighties, then it would have been the EAP, the mostly-British technology testbed built by BAe- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_EAP

This first flew in 1986 (hardly the early eighties) and was a long way from being a fully-capable combat aircraft. According to one contact in the industry, it would have had to have been totally redesigned to make into something akin to a weapons platform.

IMHO the biggest problem causing the delays in the Eurofighter has been that there has been no real need for it until recently. The existential threat it was designed for - countering developments in Russian aircraft - did not occur, and the existing planes - mainly the Tornado and Jaguar fleets - have been capable of filling the requirements of the respective air forces. Yet the countries involved always knew that they would eventually need something to replace their existing fleets.

The previous generation of planes is now getting rather long in the tooth (although the Tornado in particular is still a very useful aircraft). Because of this, it makes sense to replace them with Eurofighters as its capabilities in A2A and A2G are introduced and enhanced.

One thing I have not seen - and is vitally important - is the running cost per unit for the Eurofighter and (say) the Tornado at the same point in their service careers. Such costs can easily dwarf the initial purchase costs over a 25-30 year lifespan. Additionally, availability figures would be interesting to see. Are the Eurofighters really hangar queens?

Boffins authenticate Apple 'Antennagate'

Apples and oranges.

The results are different because they are not comparing the same two things.

All of the tests we have seen so far seem to show that iPhone 4 reception is better than that of the 3GS (excepting the external antenna issue). This is what you say Telstra are claiming. What PA are saying is that, even with the improvement and without the death-grip, the iPhone 4's reception is marginally *worse* than two equivalent phones from other manufacturers.

Therefore what Telstra and PA claim are both right - it is just that PA are giving you a fuller picture. Oh, and PA are not trying to sell you a phone, either.

It would have been nice for you to have provided a link to the relevant page on Telstra's site - I think you are referring to http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/phones/iphone/index.html. If you notice, they say:

"Testing by Telstra has shown that use of some rubberised bumpers or cases with the iPhone 4 can improve its hand held performance to the equivalent of a Telstra "Blue Tick" rated device. "

i.e. Telstra are admitting there is a problem, and it only receives a blue tick *with* the use of a bumper.