CVF Will It Be Built

Its not like the mothballed one is sitting rusting away in the boonies somewhere, it was tied up at the main quay at portsmouth, last time I looked.

Now if you want to see mothballed go looking for the decommissioned Fearless and Intrepid while in Portsmouth; now that is a sad sight, parked out the way and looking very poorly. 🙁

In fairness on the question of the Invincible class carriers, one has always been in mothballs (at least since as long as I can remember), one in refit and one ready for front line service, and since one of their main roles was as commando carriers and supporting amphibious ops this is now largely no longer that important with the big increase in RN amphibious capabilities in the last decade with HMS Ocean, the two LPD’s Albion and Bulwark and the RFA Bay class auxilliary LPD ships, so the question of Invincible numbers is no great problem. What is a problem is retiring the Sea Harrier FA2 and leaving them with no air-air capability.

The problem is that the submarine threat did not disappear, it just became harder to find… Instead of needing to track Russian nuclear subs, the threat is now Kilo class subs (among others) operating for unstable regimes, in dangerous areas. The problem this creates is that Russian nuclear boats were being tracked in open oceans, whereas the diesel boats nowadays are sitting still (very quiet) in places like the straits of hormuz, which makes hunting them a lot harder.

In spite of what Beedle is saying I just don’t see it being cancelled now, particularly as the French are now on board and due to the recent improved optics around the JSF. It is more likely that some of the other projects will be cut or delayed.

Quite why the RN persists in upgrading the type 23’s with improved sonar at great expense baffles me as the the major submarine threat disappeared with the cold war. There might be some savings to be made there

They already mothballed one carrier, and could well decide to put one into a long term ‘maintenance’ cycle, leaving just Ocean and probably Ark. The carriers will probably survive, but be crippled by not getting the aircraft they need – they will probably have to make do with ~3-4 AEW Sea Kings (with the equipment then transplanted into Merlins later), and ~15-20 JSFs. The government will claim that in emergencies the carriers could embark more, but for normal operations the ~20 aircraft are sufficient, after all, the sky has not fallen down by having just Ark with a few GR-9s…

Basically, the government is drunk at the wheel, as usual! It is not a new phenomenon, it has almost always been that way – short of bringing back Winston Churchill, the UK is probably not going to regain a position of real power!

I find it ironic that in stuffing Britains own shipbuilding industry Labour is also shafting their own core vote. A great deal of British shipyards are in Labour seats, heck the yard which was going to build the final CVF is Gordon Browns old seat! Talk about being taken for granted! It shocks me that the people in these seats still vote for people who are so happy to hang them out to dry…

Labour’s core vote doesn’t depend on the working class any more, there aren’t enough of them anyway 😀

Labour depends on the votes of morons who will always vote Labour no matter what, civil servants whose jobs have no useful purpose and people dependant on the various forms of benefits and advantages that this government hands out like some political drug pusher 😡

I expect we will soon hear that the Invincible class carriers will be retired early to safeguard the CVF program in the same way that Sea Harrier retirement has safeguarded the JSF program 😉

Military coup now! :diablo:

wonderful once again we are more than likely not buy the carriers thus loosing any organic air defence for our fleet,

Bet that if they don’t build them we will not get any thing to cover the gap.

Oh well here comes the final stab in the back of Britains shipbuilding industry! I bet it will be announced as meeting the needs of the modern world and the war against terror yada yada yada!

I find it ironic that in stuffing Britains own shipbuilding industry Labour is also shafting their own core vote. A great deal of British shipyards are in Labour seats, heck the yard which was going to build the final CVF is Gordon Browns old seat! Talk about being taken for granted! It shocks me that the people in these seats still vote for people who are so happy to hang them out to dry…

From http://navy-matters.beedall.com/

Update 17/6/2006. A report by Robert Fox in the Evening Standard of 12 June 2006, stated:

Under next year’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the Treasury has warned that the defence budget will have to be cut, threatening a number of major projects including plans to build two aircraft carriers.

Chancellor Gordon Brown also wants £1bn taken from defence and given to the budget for homeland security, according to Whitehall officials.

‘It is a major defence review and cut under any other name” said a senior official of next year’s spending plans, which have already completed their first stage.

…. Ahead of the spending review to April 2008, defence chiefs have already been told that ‘at least one major procurement programme has to go’. The most obvious candidate, say several senior officers, is the plan to build two 60,000-tonne aircraft carriers, due to be commissioned in 2012 and 2015.

… Labour’s blueprint for defence and foreign policy in the Strategic Defence Review of 1998 first introduced the plan to build the aircraft carriers as a vital tool for overseas operations. The programme was due to go to final construction contract in October but this will almost certainly be postponed.

No it is NOT a valid point. Both the X-32 and X-35 demonstrated vertical to conventional flight transitions. And back again. I have no idea what makes you conclude there was not. It was a required part of the flight test program. Jeesh give it a rest already.

Be as pedantic as you want, it’s a valid point.

Thanks both. But that’s as I thought; there hasn’t been a VTO-conventional flight-VL hop, only STOVL-CTOL-VL. Which whilst completely relevant to the aircraft’s intended mission profiles, isn’t the same thing as VTOL operation (what was claimed earlier). I can’t see a need to “certify” the F-35B for true VTOL operation, as it will never need to do this outside of an airshow display. But still, being pedantic, you can’t describe it as VTOL unless it’s demonstrated the capability to transition from VTO to conventional flight.

X-32 and X-35 videos can be found here http://www.jsf.mil/gallery/gal_video.htm

If I remember correctly both aircraft aborted a transition from VTO due to a engine pop surge on the X-32 and some instability on the X-35.

The best example would be the show off flight that Lockheed’s X-35 did. I think they called it X mission or something flashy like that. Short take off, supersonic flight, transition to hover & vertical landing. Claimed it was the first time any aircraft had done that. Not so sure myself. The real reason was that the Boeing aircraft couldn’t match because the X-32 could do supersonic and could hover but not in the same flight because the engine nozzle for supersonic had to be unbolted to make the aircraft light enough to VL. Nothing like rubbing that in.

PS there used to be video on the Lockheed site of transitions into and out of the hover into conventional flight. It was mandated by the rules of the competition.

X-35B demonstrated transitions into and out of hover on many occasions. That’s what it was built for – to show the technology worked.

Thanks for the info. I could have sworn I heard Simon Hargreaves (?) on one of the Lockheed videos saying that they’d attempted a transition from the stationary hover to forward flight, but hadn’t followed it through. Something that’s been overcome perhaps? The reports online certainly seem to talk about transitions just from STOVL mode into CTOL mode: not hover into CTOL. I’m not doubting you; from your other posts you really seem to know what you’re talking about!

X-35B demonstrated transitions into and out of hover on many occasions. That’s what it was built for – to show the technology worked.

The carriers will be built because the Royal Navy needs them. Our current carriers are reaching the end of their effective lives and the government knows that. Although they could put up with the new ships being delayed for a year or two, having them delayed for as much as a decade would seriously harm the RN’s capabilities.

If Geoff Hoon had stayed as D.S., I could imagine the project being delayed further. However I think that Dr Reid will get things moving. Plus the news about sales of Typhoons to Saudi Arabia (though not fully agreed yet) is good and should relieve some financial pressure on the MoD so that they can release funds for CVF.

The Navy needs them that much I will agree with you on. The next time (other than allout war) the government gives the armed forces what they actually need instead of what the politicians think they need will be the first.

What’s all this talk of F-35B doing VTOs? I thought a transition from the hover hadn’t been attempted (though it was thought possible, theoretically)?

HMS Ocean

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060531/wl_uk_afp/britaindefencepress_060531001458
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/31052006/140/reporter-broke-past-navy-security.html

“Investigation begun after reporter sneaks aboard British warship”

Tue May 30, 8:14 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) – The British military said it had begun an investigation after a newspaper reporter apparently managed to walk unchallenged onto the Royal Navy’s largest warship posing as a cleaner.

Sorry for being rude.

I was correcting your erroneous statement that the recent Bush/Blair meeting discussed a potential ITAR waiver for the UK. It did not. They had already discussed that topic several months ago when Bush fully agreed with the UK request and said it had the full support of his administration i.e. Congress is over there Tony, good luck!