CVA-01 Opinions?

They put on a good low-level show in (not over 😀 ) Beirut.

We haven’t fought anyone with a medium level air defence capability, except Iraq. Iraqs fighters didn’t fly, & the GBAD was rapidly reduced to low-level only. When the enemy has a huge amount of low-level AA, but nothing else, you fly over it. Tactics depend on who you are fighting.

It does, but when ever an airforce has flown at low-level since WW2 it has suffered- Korea, Vietnam, Harriers in Falklands, Tornados in GW1. Its great for pilot skill and testing daring but has it ever been relevant post 45? Bucaneers would have fallen like Swordfish had they attempted a low-lev strike against the Soviet fleet using iron bombs. Bucc became relvant and useful again once Martel and later Sea Eagle was fitted. Same with Tonka, until Alarm and Storm Shadow were fitted…

They put on a good low-level show in (not over 😀 ) Beirut.

We haven’t fought anyone with a medium level air defence capability, except Iraq. Iraqs fighters didn’t fly, & the GBAD was rapidly reduced to low-level only. When the enemy has a huge amount of low-level AA, but nothing else, you fly over it. Tactics depend on who you are fighting.

This low-altitude capability was not a “show trick”, but a planned and valued combat capability.

Yet it has not been used in any conflict in the last 25 years? When Buccs went to war they flew at medium alt where a good dash of speed is useful.

Actually, the French have had many successful multi-national consortiums (Transall, Alphajet, Horizon, FREMM, Helios, not to mention all the Airbus and Eurocopter aircraft, including NH90).

For whatever reason, it’s only on the minority of projects where both the French and the Brits are both onboard that problems arise: Jaguar, CVF, Eurofighter, Horizon… The only exception is for missiles (PAAMS, Storm Shadow). Who’s to say the French are to blame? :diablo:

never tried saying that it was always the French fault that they all went to the dogs, BTW: You’re forgetting AFVG and one or two more i think.

and as for EFA if the RN had required a naval CTOL fighter, would France still have demanded 50% workshare(despite the fact that overall numbers and funding from/to france wouldn’t have exceeded 30%) and to be Project leader?

If I understand the origins of the Rafale correctly if there’d been a requirement for replacement C-TOL RN aircraft, the French might never have left the Typhoon programme and Typhoons would be flying from CDG. The increased number of orders for the FAA plus the French might have lead to a smoother development and earlier in-service date (another reason for the French withdrawl from EFA)

It is certainly expensive to marinise a terrestial warplane (even my off-the-cuff list of mods for Tsunami should serve to illustrate that) so actually French were not illogical in deciding that building their own platform to serve Navy and Air Force might be better than collaborating for Air Force and then either a) buying something different for Navy or b) spending big bucks marinising the collaboration.

I wonder whether this was in fact the main driver for pulling out rather than the oft stated demand for an unreasonable industrial share of the EF programme?

Al

…..the GR1 is a superior platform to a Bucc what ever the old guard say, its supersonic for a start. …..

Ummm… you are aware that the Tornado (and virtually every supersonic fighter or strike fighter) loses that supersonic capability when its pylons are loaded with bombs, etc?

And that a Bucc could fly faster at low-level (below 1,000 feet) than even the F-4 Phantom?

A Tonka (even a Sea Tonka with more powerful engines) would be slower with a full war-load, and slower at low altitude (where penetration missions were flown in the 1960s-1980s).

This low-altitude capability was not a “show trick”, but a planned and valued combat capability.

well it might have resulted in an Anglo-French EFA (not too sure about German, Spanish and Iti involvement maybe they would be involved but i’d wager they would buy SHs instead.)

but multinational consortiums with the French never went too well (theres no way to word that well)

Actually, the French have had many successful multi-national consortiums (Transall, Alphajet, Horizon, FREMM, Helios, not to mention all the Airbus and Eurocopter aircraft, including NH90).

For whatever reason, it’s only on the minority of projects where both the French and the Brits are both onboard that problems arise: Jaguar, CVF, Eurofighter, Horizon… The only exception is for missiles (PAAMS, Storm Shadow). Who’s to say the French are to blame? :diablo:

If I understand the origins of the Rafale correctly if there’d been a requirement for replacement C-TOL RN aircraft, the French might never have left the Typhoon programme and Typhoons would be flying from CDG. The increased number of orders for the FAA plus the French might have lead to a smoother development and earlier in-service date (another reason for the French withdrawl from EFA)

well it might have resulted in an Anglo-French EFA (not too sure about German, Spanish and Iti involvement maybe they would be involved but i’d wager they would buy SHs instead.)

but multinational consortiums with the French never went too well (theres no way to word that well)

also something to consider is that the need for a replacement CTOL naval fighter in the mid 90’s would have changed MoD’s mood towards EF Programme so who can tell whether a Naval P.110/120/ACA would replace them or late F-18C perhaps F-18E at a push

If I understand the origins of the Rafale correctly if there’d been a requirement for replacement C-TOL RN aircraft, the French might never have left the Typhoon programme and Typhoons would be flying from CDG. The increased number of orders for the FAA plus the French might have lead to a smoother development and earlier in-service date (another reason for the French withdrawl from EFA)

*and the French? Hey actually hang on that’s not so silly mayhap give our gallic chums a chance to show that they can play nice in multi-national aircraft porgrammes

oh come on, why collaborate when you can do it yourself with half the performance for 3/2 of the cost?

on a less synical note:

producing Sea Tonka’s would have cost more than anglocising Tomcats and i think Obi Wan hit it on the head suggesting tonka avionics in a bucc package (even when they were replaced by the RAF the Bucc wasn’t an exhausted design that had been eclipsed by bigger, better and brighter A/C. As for Phantom Blue-Vixen or similar (Early 90’s might be a bit late, perhaps modified AN/APG-66 (i couldn’t put a time scale to this but i think it was late 80’s?)

also something to consider is that the need for a replacement CTOL naval fighter in the mid 90’s would have changed MoD’s mood towards EF Programme so who can tell whether a Naval P.110/120/ACA would replace them or late F-18C perhaps F-18E at a push

Would it be feasable with late 1980s avionics and radars to produce a new version that combined both GR and F variants. It could be the FRS5. Also what would have to be done to navalise a Tornado, whats the shopping list of things?

Replace most of the structural materials with non-corroding equivalents

Replace most of the structural members to take the impulse of catapult launches and impulse of much larger sinkrates

MAYBE re-engineer keel for arrester landings although Tornado has an arrestor hook so this may not be as full on as first looks

Replace nose oleos to increase AoA on takeoff

Replace the tyres (sink rates again)

Raise the cockpit to give pilot a decent view for takeoff

Get ready of bloody ridiculous go/no go flight computer so that don’t lose 50% of sorties as they prep for launch

Call it Tsunami and sell to JMSDF*

Al

*and the French? Hey actually hang on that’s not so silly mayhap give our gallic chums a chance to show that they can play nice in multi-national aircraft porgrammes

Would it be feasable with late 1980s avionics and radars to produce a new version that combined both GR and F variants. It could be the FRS5. Also what would have to be done to navalise a Tornado, whats the shopping list of things?

I think the most major barrier to Tornado navalisation is its rather fragille airframe, early in its career RAF F3 used up their FI points at a frightening rate. Also the RB199 probably wouldn’t give adequate performance in go round situations.

Probably possible with enough money spent on it. I’d assume two variants, one based off the GR.1B and one based off the F3. One variant to replace the Buccaneers and the other to replace the phantoms.

Would it be feasable with late 1980s avionics and radars to produce a new version that combined both GR and F variants. It could be the FRS5. Also what would have to be done to navalise a Tornado, whats the shopping list of things?

Mid-late 80s, the RN with 2-3 large carriers and a fighter/strike force of 6-7 squadrons would have probably made a navalised GR1/F3 afordable and a full functional F3 would have been similar to a Tomcat, while the GR1 is a superior platform to a Bucc what ever the old guard say, its supersonic for a start. By the mid-late 90s Buccs and Phans would have been out of hours after 2-3 decades of punishing north atlantic sea landings.

And given a Falklands scenario i would much rather an F3 than a SHAR….. would be a BVR turkey shoot.

Sure, and even if they got WVR the tornadoes would have all aspect sidewinder AIM-9L’s against the rear aspect only missiles carried by the Argentine Mirage fighters.

A far better idea would be to take the Tornado avionics and fit them into new build Buccaneer airframes. The Bucc was already a successful naval aircraft, and theonly advantage the Tornado had over it was it’s avionics. Transfer them over (the prototype Tornado radars were flown in a trials Buccaneer anyway) and the FAA has a superior strike aircraft. The F-3 is a dog as a fighter (against the SHAR FRS1 I don’t think it ever won a dogfight, it was designed to shoot down TU-95s, big, slow, and an easy target), and again fitting an upgraded radar system to the F-4Ks would produce a better naval fighter at much lower cost then navalising the F-3 from scratch. That would extend the useful life of the Phantom through the 90s until both it and the Buccs could be replaced by something ‘off the shelf’, such as the Super Hornet…

Mid-late 80s, the RN with 2-3 large carriers and a fighter/strike force of 6-7 squadrons would have probably made a navalised GR1/F3 afordable and a full functional F3 would have been similar to a Tomcat, while the GR1 is a superior platform to a Bucc what ever the old guard say, its supersonic for a start. By the mid-late 90s Buccs and Phans would have been out of hours after 2-3 decades of punishing north atlantic sea landings.

And given a Falklands scenario i would much rather an F3 than a SHAR….. would be a BVR turkey shoot.

Probably possible with enough money spent on it. I’d assume two variants, one based off the GR.1B and one based off the F3. One variant to replace the Buccaneers and the other to replace the phantoms.

A far better idea would be to take the Tornado avionics and fit them into new build Buccaneer airframes. The Bucc was already a successful naval aircraft, and theonly advantage the Tornado had over it was it’s avionics. Transfer them over (the prototype Tornado radars were flown in a trials Buccaneer anyway) and the FAA has a superior strike aircraft. The F-3 is a dog as a fighter (against the SHAR FRS1 I don’t think it ever won a dogfight, it was designed to shoot down TU-95s, big, slow, and an easy target), and again fitting an upgraded radar system to the F-4Ks would produce a better naval fighter at much lower cost then navalising the F-3 from scratch. That would extend the useful life of the Phantom through the 90s until both it and the Buccs could be replaced by something ‘off the shelf’, such as the Super Hornet…

Not Tomcats? I could imagine Navalised Tornados myself. Whether that be an ‘Ultimate Tornado’ that combined the roles of both GR1 and F3 or navalised versions of each.

Probably possible with enough money spent on it. I’d assume two variants, one based off the GR.1B and one based off the F3. One variant to replace the Buccaneers and the other to replace the phantoms.

Sea Tonka is a no, by late 80’s the only real CTOL jet the FAA could operate (assuming we had the carriers of course) is an Anglosised F-18C

Not Tomcats? I could imagine Navalised Tornados myself. Whether that be an ‘Ultimate Tornado’ that combined the roles of both GR1 and F3 or navalised versions of each.

Naval Tonka maybe? Sea Tornado?

Sea Tonka is a no, by late 80’s the only real CTOL jet the FAA could operate (assuming we had the carriers of course) is an Anglosised F-18C

Naval Tonka maybe? Sea Tornado?