Take it easy.
In a few years, half of the european airforces will fly the F35.

Some? Yes. Half? Ehmmm noooooo. That would be the Yanks wet dream come true if they could get around 25 European countries to buy the F-35.

And if the Yanks are worried about the French getting “secrets” or whatever it is from the F-35, well let them whine & moan about it, what are they going to do about it? Stop the UK from buying them? I think not. Anyway who cares, they don’t do things like we evil, EVIL Europeans do, do they. (last bit was sarcasm)

At first I wasn’t too sure about this UK/France military cooperation thingy-ma-jig, but hey, why not give at a go, if it works out well then okay, good, if it doesn’t, then oh well, at least we gave it a go.

Theres one thing I’m curious about, if French aircraft such as the Rafale will operate on British carriers, (now I’m saying IF) would RN and even RAF pilots operate them, too?…If so, it’d be a pretty good stop gap until when, and I emphasis the word, ‘when’ rather greatly, the F-35 enters operational service. At least the FAA will have something more than capable of defending the fleet with since PM David Cameron-bless his little cotton socks-thought it’d be a good idea to axe the Harrier.

I personally would be considering that option and I belive I’d go with it. If the French would be okay with that of course.

Heres a quote from Commander Ade Orchards, (and James Barringtons) book; Joint Force Harrier, him comparing the GR9 and the A-10: Pages 228-229;

“In the new Harrier GR9 the Fleet Air Arm is flying what is arguably the best Close Air Support platform in the world. Previously it was second only to the A-10, and now it’s on par with the famous (and bloody ugly) Warthog, because we now have the helmet-mounted cueing system. Harrier pilots can look out of the window at a target and instead of having point a sensor at it, we can just click a button on the throttle. This enters the target we’re looking at directly into the weapon system. It makes a huge difference. The speed at which Joint Force Harrier is now able to bring weapons to bear on a target is staggering.

The aircraft is also getting an upgrade of its self-defence suite-real state of the art stuff. And to be introduced before long are a data link system using Link 16-by allowing different assets to share information, this ensures more effective cooperation-and a short-range data link for communicating with troops on the ground. From that point on, I don’t believe there will be a more capable CAS platform than the Harrier anywhere in the world.

It’s also worth saying that while the A-10 is an awesome piece of machinery, it does have one significant disadvantage in that it is so slow (as well as ugly). It can only only travel at about 240 knots with all it’s gear on. That’s slower than a Second World War Spitfire. At full chat the Harrier can get to the scene of the action at over 500 knots. Or, put another way, in half the time. That difference could be crucial.”

I found it by just scanning quickly through the book but I’m going to read through it properly, so when I’m done I’ll quote some other words from it, they’re quite interesting and shows how very well suited the Harrier is to CAS.

And how would they keep the skills base to make the SSBN follow-on class if the Astute class was canned?

They want to keep the nukes, so they’ll keep the SSNs.

It was a bit of a joke. 😀

Well anyway, anything can happen, don’t forget that this is the same government that thinks its a good idea to scrap the Harriers very soon but still go ahead with two huge Aircraft Carriers. They must’ve been up all night trying to think that one through.

Just don’t mention to the Tories and their tea boys that its possible to carry nukes on the back of an articulated truck. They’ll think its a good idea and scrap the SSNs.

No brains Tory without a clue: “Whats wrong with an articulated truck? Its cheaper than a sub, it can carry nukes…” Yes but…

…As Jeremy Clarkson once said: “Why go to a club and spend money on a stripper when you can stay at home and get my mother to do it for me for free…Shes a woman!” Yes you could….But its a bit more than wrong isn’t it.

Thats how the Tories think in this country.

Usually on forums such as this, those making claims are required to provide some sort of back up…telling people to go read a book doesn’t hack it.

Were we able to see what he was saying, we could judge for ourselves his point.

Problem is, sport…I didn’t say that. Before you call someone names, read their words a little closer.

What I have to say is that your statement alleged that Orchard deemed the Harrier to be “…the only aircraft in theatre capable of flying in very bad weather conditions at night.”

There are other attack aircraft with night or all weather capability. Ranking the Harrier first among those is a bit of a stretch.

CAP? Did you really mean to say that? I doubt Cmdr Orchard used that term.

Well….If you want a source about this then the best I can do in this particular situation is head you in the right direction, purchase the book, its not like I can get him to come on here & explain to you & its not like I know him personally, like I said before its as a good a source as any, weither you believe in it, its up to you. Doesn’t really change anything.

EELightning, the problam is your arguments are from crews points of view, unfortunately they can be the worst people to speak about a particular type subjectively and in a greater context of other types in service or theatre.

Well, I’d rather take their word for it rather than some peoples on forums. Would you?

In about 25-30 years time, someone on here will have an idea to make a thread about the British Armed Forces then realise and think; Oh, we haven’t got any have we. Ah well I’ll do one about them in the history forum’.

Its what it’d be like if the Tories had their way.

Such an opinion begs a little ‘splainin’.

Buy the book, thats what I did after I first heard about it. I was going to buy it anyway, but you know. And, its not my opinion, his words, along the lines of his words, anyway.

‘Explaining’. ex·plain·ing. Yanks still having trouble with the English language after all these years I see. JOKE! 😉

The announcement that the RAF’s Harrier fleet will be axed in 2011 was quite a shock to me, and I must say I didn’t see it coming. I suppose I haven’t been keeping a close enough eye on military matters as they pertain to the U.K.

With all of that having been said, I figured I’d ask some of you from the U.K. what your opinion is on the Harrier fleet being axed:

Did it surprise you?

Do you consider this “retirement” a bit premature or perhaps do you agree with the decision that the Harrier fleet should go.

Just seems shocking to me as the Harrier has more or less been one of the backbone aircraft of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force (& Navy) for over 40 years and I was under the impression that the current Harrier GR.9 fleet was in the process of getting quite a number of new capabilities.

It surprised me…But it didn’t surprise me. Put it this way, if Labour were still in and they did the same thing then I’d be surprised. But you know…Tories…Say no more, they’re cutting everything now…

But anyway, I was/am well aware of the cuts to the armed forces, I was expecting the Harrier’s, Tornado’s and to a certain extent even the Typhoon’s to be cut, but I didn’t expect the Harrier’s to be axed altogether.

Personally, its a stupid decision to axe them alogether, a cut in numbers silly but possibly exceptable, but alogether, just beyond that.

The Tornado is, probably, the better platform in a lot of ways but the Harrier could do a fine job too, its already proved that on many occasions. If you go the likes of pprune, theres a few British FAC’s that’ve served in Afghanistan that have said that they preferred the Harrier’s to the Tonka’s and even other allied aircraft. And if I recall correctly, when the Harrier was serving in Afghanistan, it was the only aircraft in theatre capable of flying in very bad weather conditions at night, according to Royal Navy pilot, Commander Ade Orchard.

A lot of people might think it was a good idea to scrap it, but I don’t and I’m sure the people that operate it think the same as me.

Good riddance. It is a one trick pony (STOVL). AV-8Bs are very expensive to maintain and have a fraction of the capability of an F-18 (or Tornado GR4A). And MQ-9s provide better bang-for-the-buck in low intensity operations.

Yeah, its only going to take 40+ years to come bring something into front line service that has similar basics. Quite like to hear you say “good riddance” to the British pilots & FAC’s etc, would be quite interesting.

And the MQ-9’s…Well, a couple of them got in Commander Ade Orchards way when he was on a live mission where lives were at risk on seperate occasions, all because the pilots, or shall I say, pencil pushers, were a bit confused as to where they were. :rolleyes:

So really, just a stop-gap until 2015. The Captor-M is a very good radar anyway, so its not really such a bad thing to have until 2015, its already proved to be quite formidable.

What I’d quite like to know is, will the Captor-M recieve any upgrades until then? Maybe not but it’d be good to keep it up date.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/10/06/348142/bae-orders-captor-m-radars-for-tranche-3a-eurofighters.html

“BAE also last month gave the Selex Galileo-led EuroDASS consortium a roughly £400 million contract to deliver Praetorian self-protection equipment for Tranche 3A Eurofighters”.