That's fascinating, and I wonder how complete it is. I'm sure for civil crashes it's quite good.

I've read the Russians started to have serious troubles in Afghanistan after the rebels were given Stinger missiles. The US was unwilling to give it to 'em for years, fearful the technology would fall into Chinese hands.

Indeed, there were various factions fighting, 7 of them, all independent in operations, command, goals, everything. They were given one or two, missiles if they had a plan for them, and not given any more until they could demonstrate they had fired those.

It was my understanding from reading a couple of histories of that conflict that after getting the Stingers the Afghans had a better than even chance against the Russian helicopters. Up till then they could only rarely resist them.

I posted while you were gone an article on the V-22 Osprey, which seems to be what the the basket into which the Marines are putting all their vertical, heavy lift eggs. At around $90 million a copy, the current cost, which should go down with production and up with the modifications and time, will be too vulnerable to use near any resistance. The US Army spend between $500 million and $1 billion preparing support areas, supplies and transporting helicopters to Bosnia. Then were afraid to use them as the area is rife with missiles.

I wonder how many airliners survived a man-portable SA attack. How many missed, how many left enough of the aircraft intact enough to land.

And thanks again. Interesting information. The idea of those missiles "loose" still scares me.

Arf