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Old 09-11-2011, 06:21 AM
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Mohoender Mohoender is offline
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Location: Near Cannes, South of France
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker View Post
Thats a very good point about aircraft (and applies to all other tech too). Although the US might want the return of all the items they've handed over/sold to other countries, those recipient countries wouldn't have accepted/bought them if they themselves didn't have a use for them.
In other words, they're not coming back...
Who ever said they are coming back? US still had plenty of A4 Skyhawk especially from USMC and I'm sure that a fair number could still be refurbished from storage. A few more could have been bought back as for exemple those from Kuwait. Last, I don't know if any were already operated by civilians or agencies such as NASA but these would simply be taken back.

When it comes to S2 Tracker, several were also available, France would probably have sold its complement back to US if required despite neutrality and more important, I stated that they were probably manned by Canadian crews. I never said they had been sent back to US. I might be wrong but having Canadian pilots operating from a US carrier providing escort to NATO supply ships over the Atlantic prior to the nukes doesn't sound that impossible or irrealistic (In fact, some crews might even be Australian, New Zealandese or Turkish). Of course, Australian, Canadian or Turks can all be from traitorous countries full of cowards refusing to collaborate fully with their allies. Just teasing this is left to French and Italians.

Still, most of the carrier complement would probably be made of helicopters. Harrier could be used as well but I think they would be put to a better use elsewhere.

By the way, finding pilots for these aircrafts would be the easiest of things and will not need much than a few hours of complementary training. I'm sure that by 1996, you simply had to shoot in a trash can to get about 10 retired USMC/Navy pilots who would have been more than happy and ready to serve again. I'm of course equally convinced that canadian pilots who had been doing fishery protection duties/under retirement would be as reluctant to such an assignment.

Last edited by Mohoender; 09-11-2011 at 06:29 AM.
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