FedaykinNo. Flight plans must be filed with the overflight country.
FedaykinEU aerospace is like assembling Iphones by Foxconn from parts spread around the world. EU can recycle old stuff in mass quantities like A320. but it can no longer launch new complex unique capabilies. The scientific power behind IL-476 is on level of A380. It takes alot of deep structural knowledge to keep MTOW at 200 tons that can lift 60 and still have long flight cycle time. There will be no 5G fighers in EU. There will be no mass produced high performance AESA radar in EU. (key word is high performance).There will be no intercontinental transport. No new heavy lift transport and attack chooper. Most of fabs for seminconductors will be closed down. and even those remaining will lose ability for specialized military products. even with Soyuz lunch vehicle Galileo only can be completed in 2019. EU will always need external help. EU simply dont have any plans for military constellation on this scale.
OH WOW! I have tears rolling down my face with what you have written there JSR! It is the funniest fantasy I have ever laid my eyes on! You really believe that stuff don’t you…god I haven’t had this much fun reading such crazy fantasies since Star49 was on this forum:D:D:D
The IL476 is a development of the rather elderly IL76, it presents no particular stunning new developments and is entirely conventional. That you are comparing it to the A380 is just a bit amusing. Europe can no longer launch complex new development projects?…darn the A350 must be all in my mind then. A320NEO, A320 replacement and multiple different helicopter projects so a new intercontinental transport or attack helicopter would present little to no problems. Soyuz is being used to launch some of the Galileo constellation on a commercial basis, that doesn’t mean Europe couldn’t use alternative launch platforms to do it. Anyway Galileo is a civilian network and EU armed forces use GPS. Also I suggest you don’t throw stones in a glass house as GLOSNAS has hardly been a huge success. No new fighters? No new high performance AESA? New fighters will be a long way down the line and high performance AESA radar have been tested. Any suggestion otherwise is purely in your mind…
Also what is your fascination with European semiconductor production? Facilities open and facilities close…that is normal business! Its certainly larger and more sophisticated then anything Russia gets up to. There is no threat reported anywhere of a collapse or a draining of skills in that sector anytime soon…again one of your fantasies.
Wise not to go into your strange obsession with rare metal production, the EU can get what it needs commercially with little to no hassle.
Anyhow please do continue with your fantasy it does give us all some enjoyment…welcome back Star49!;)
FedaykinThe Kurds want to split their section of Turkey away to form an independent Kurdistan. Intolerance of them by the Turkish armed forces is aimed at stopping that and protecting territorial integrity.
Kurdish nationalism is based on Marxist ideology and has shown no connections with Islamic extremism which is no surprise considering the Kurdish people span a number of religions including Islam (Shia, Suni and Sufi), Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and a number of other lesser known faiths. The Turkish government actually encouraged Hezbollah to assassinate prominent PKK leaders.
The secularism of the Turkish armed forces is heavily influenced by the Secular nature of the founder of the modern state Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This is well documented and anybody who has studied 20th century history (I did just for reference) would know this. Now in recent years the elected government has become more Islamic nevertheless society is still secular in nature and the armed forces have made a clear threat of dire consequences if the parliament dare try and make the country more theocratic or apply Sharia!
So suggesting the Kurdish people in Turkey or the Turkish armed forces are somehow a hotbed of Islamic militancy shows a profound lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the region.
FedaykinErrrr? How exactly is the Typhoon not working out for Germany SpudmanWP? They appear to be very happy with them as it stands, there were some through life maintenance costs that had to be looked at but so far induction is proceeding nicely. Germany has virtually no need for an expeditionary warfare capability or the ability to do day 1 strikes against a peer rival. The Tornado are getting a SLEP to extend the remaining airframes through to 2025 whereupon Typhoon will take over the niche roles performed by the legacy type. The Typhoon could well see a forty year plus service life with the Luftwaffe so they don’t have to think about a replacement for decades!
FedaykinWell I have a hunch COMINT will be most interesting for the US in this situation to get a picture of what is happening in the country so a stand off platform makes sense. I have no doubt that if the RAF Nimrod R1 were still in service at least one would be cruising close to the Region in open airspace having a listen in as No. 51 Squadron were the Kings of such things…
FedaykinHmmmm, well the UH-60L is effectively an upgrade of the vanilla UH-60A with uprated engines and a more durable gearbox. The UH-60M has wide chord rotor blades, a new integrated vehicle management system and a fully glass cockpit. If it is the upgrade variant of the UH-60M then you can throw in fly by wire as well.
FedaykinI will say almost all of NATO barring US will be obsolete by 2020 relative peer competitors. India/Saudi will have more powerfull airforce than all of EU members.
I highly doubt Polish F-16 will get radar upgrade for proper exploiting Meteor class missile in 2020.
Very tiny fraction of EU based EF/Rafale/Gripen will have AESA/Meteor combo.
Turkish procurement is extremely slow and dysfunctional. and country will be taken over by islamist/kurd majority.
There will be complete lack of modern full size AWACS/JSTAR, new satellite network.
very small effort of couple of hundreds million dollars towards UCAV at best.
Above all the industrial capacity in EU to design and manufacture complex weopons will completely evaporate.JSF future will depend on Natural gas fracking. if the wells become dry (less profitable) in less than 10 years. there will no competitive energy for US economy. so they will have to cut down in big way.
And let me guess JSR, once the US and European economies go down the pan as you are predicting the mighty Russia will stride upon the earth crushing all before it?!:rolleyes:
Polish F16 are fairly new and if they want something beyond AMRAAM in the future then I’m sure something can be worked out. With an MLU including a new AESA radar those late Block F16 should offer sterling long term service.
Turkey might well be a dysfunctional country in many respects but it is in no risk of an Islamic style rebellion, its military is secular in nature and won’t stand for that. Turkey is going through an economic boom at the moment due to its geographic location next to Europe and its cheap products. Finally Turkey is a regional Super Power when it comes to its armed forces with a very impressive re-equipment program over the next couple of decades. They even have plans for an indigenous stealth fighter.
I wouldn’t write of the economies of Germany, France or the UK quite yet as well. There will be new fighters in the future when the procurement cycles require it. As for:
Above all the industrial capacity in EU to design and manufacture complex weopons will completely evaporate.
Get Real! Only in your wildest fantasies! I know some here don’t like me mentioning it but Russia’s industrial aerospace sector as a whole is tiny in comparison to Europe. To suggest that the entire European capacity to design and develop complex weapons is going to evaporate is almost comical.
Fedaykin
Zaporozhye dived.
Its amazing to see a stalwart of the cold war a Foxtrot back in action!:D
Even with modernisation the old girl is forty years old. I presume The Ukraine intends to use it as a stop gap to reintroduce core skills with Submarine operations prior to obtaining something a bit newer.
FedaykinAnyhow we are going over very well trodden ground in respect of MRA4 when this thread is about possible future options.
FedaykinAll these platforms were competivly examined in a BAESYSTEMS study in 92-94. FLA (A400m) was the winner.
I did not know that, thank you Vega, but that doesn’t change the fact that FLA couldn’t of met the desired in service date and the P7 was the preferred choice right up to its cancellation.
My contention is that the RAF’s preference for Nimrod, the treasury’s desire for an apparent cheap option and Bae’s desire to get the contract overweighed logic on the matter. If four engines was an absolute must then the other two P3 options or even the C130 should of been put on the table.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing as you point out but that doesn’t make up for the mess that was made in proceeding with Nimrod.
FedaykinKC-135/RC-135 upgrades and rebuilds have a number of advantages over a Nimrod rebuild. The engines are podded meaning you don’t have to mess around designing new wings. They also have the advantage of a huge number being in service allowing economies of scale. Finally its a far more spacious airframe in comparison to Nimrod.
I agree that it is far easier to fit modern electronics into airframes these days but then again one of the options for Nimrod AEW was to use the radar and avionics of the Hawkeye which would of easily fitted then.
As you suggest Swerve effectively new build could of been done with the Nimrod but I wonder about the through life costs of a type built in very limited numbers. I agree that an a320MPA could of made Bae Systems far more money but they were clearly interested in dangling something tempting in front of the treasury and MOD. That actually speaks volumes about the broken aspects of our procurement process. Nobody within Bae or the MOD at any point said “hang on is this a wise route to take”.
Its done now I suppose and the blame can be spread around.
FedaykinI think that Aardvark’s point – which I agree with – is that the Comet airframe should never have been considered for the job.
Why were the systems not considered as installable items onto an A400M airframe (then FIMA) for instance? For that matter – if FIMA timescales were a killer why not just use an A320?
Increased flexibility, reduced cost and more airlifter airframes (if using the A400M option) into the bargain. Whats not to like?
As you guessed the a400 was right out when it comes to the time frame of the procurement project. The project was started in 2002 with an initial in service date of 2003. The plan at first was to buy the P3 derived P7 before it was cancelled.
Looking at what was bid:
Lockheed P3 newbuild
Loral corporation P3 rebuild
Dassault Atlantique 3
Nimrod 2000
Looking at that list I wonder about the sincerity of the earlier plan to buy the P7. You had two P3 based options and the Lockheed Martin presumably lifted plenty of development work from the P7. The Atlantique was probably a non starter with too little UK content but the UK did have two options similar to the P7.
On PPrune it was mentioned a while back that for British Aerospace it became a must win project of they wanted to stay in the large aircraft game especially after the A400 gained steam. They dangled a solution in front of the RAF and treasury that on face value looked really attractive. For the RAF a jet based solution with its higher transit speeds and the treasury the apparent savings of retaining significant parts of MR2. Finally a choice popular with the voters. Apparently one of the reasons Nimrod was stuck with is the RAF didn’t trust the ditching characteristics of podded engines making Nimrod even more attractive. Any consideration about development issues of recycling elderly airframes or the through life costs of adopting a small number of a unique type were ignored.
I feel BAE should of looked at alternatives to the Nimrod Airframe preferably based on a civil airliner type. My personal favourite is a solution based on the Boeing 757. Boeing had already done a significant amount of work to develop that aircraft as an ASW/MPA type as a rival to the P-7. It was spacious, long ranged, has British engines and operated by many airlines including British Airways offering clear maintenance synergies. Or an a320 (or a310 for that matter) based solution with its British wings and possible future sales to France could of been nice. There is another thing as well, the B757 or a320 would of made a perfect, cheap replacement for the VC10. Just imagine the maintenance and cost synergies if that had happened…not to mention troops flying out to A-stan now in a modern reliable airline type!
I think this article of Spyflight about the Nimrod AEW has interesting parallels with the MRA4 debacle and has interesting points for the future:
FedaykinTotally agree there Swerve but I think there could be some interesting opportunities to experiment with the pilot pool. Other option is some form of joint force with the sensor operators coming from the navy and the pilots from the RAF. Now the words “Joint Force” does tend to set people off 😉
Then again it has worked in with the Sentinel force, I was chatting to an army crew member at Waddo and he seemed happy with it all. Actually he made some interesting points, firstly as we have already talked about here he mentioned that an over sea capability with the radar is really a software update away. He also mentioned that when they upgrade the SATCOM the space freed up in the front of the canoe would allow optics to be fitted allowing a Canberra PR9 type capability again. That upgrade would piggyback the images onto the SATCOM setup for the SAR traffic. The old datalink with the ground stations is apparently going as the new SATCOM means they can transmit directly to the theatre commander or Northwood. Considering how versatile the type is proving there was a strong feeling from the squadron guys that a stay of execution was certainly on the cards.
FedaykinWhilst there are some plan-form similarities I don’t think its an L-15 variant.
The L-15 has large LERX whilst this aircraft has a flat sided fuselage up to what appears to be a squared off air intake.
FedaykinIt is sheer madness for the UK with its huge exclusive economic zone, NATO commitments etc. but a few months ago Phil Hammond made a statement about future military purchases and priorities etc and there was no mention of MR/ASW aircraft.
While those who crewed Nimrod and those on the ground who managed their operations leave the RAF it is a capability that will become more and more difficult to re-instate.
While countries such as New Zealand, Portugal, Spain appreciate the importance of this capability the UK decided that the money be spent elsewhere.
While I could rant about government policy the fact is that there is no future UK MPA/ASW.
If there is the money and will it could be regenerated as a capability but the navy would have to take the lead in my opinion. The Navy retain an ASW/ASuW training scheme for its Merlin and Lynx fleet, it isn’t much of a stretch to see sensor operators from the helicopter fleet crossing into fixed wing ops. Pilots are a more thorny issue but I see it as an opportunity for the F35B pilot base within the FAA if they rotate onto any future type. Fact is budget for the RN is pretty much locked until 2020 with the carriers and Type 26. Any capability regeneration won’t happen till then I think…then again if a future government gets twitchy its not impossible things could get moved up.
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