Ah yes that makes sense, it could mean they have used their numbers of cat launch and traps, but still have life in them.

But then it’s strange that more F18C/D don’t show up in USMC land based squadrons or offered for export?

Nic

The reason is tied up in the fact that the USN and Marine Corp are trying to get the maximum value and life out of their lagacy Hornets. All the A/B Hornets that could be sold abroad have been shifted years ago! As for the ramaining A/B and C/D to ensure that they meet their OSD they are doing some rather nifty fleet management, in effect when a Hornet uses up its cat and trap life it gets parted out to keep the remaining fleet alive.

Land based Marine Corp squadrons still need to be able to deploy to a carrier when needed to, so hornets that have used up their carrier cycles are useless to them! It should also be noted that Marine Corp squadrons do form a normal part of a carrier air wing these days.

As I have said before I feel it was a mistake for Boeing to cease legacy Hornet production. Certainly countries who purchased the F16 in recent years might well of looked favorably on the Hornet if it had been available.

Following on from that here is a report by Richard Dannatt about the use of Apaches in Libya, it does rather show his bias! For those not in the know he is the former chief of the general staff who said aircraft carriers were a cold war relic!

In the report whilst he happily points out that the attack helicopters are ARMY he doesn’t make one mention of the fact that they are being deployed off an aircraft carrier!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8556816/How-Britains-Apaches-will-turn-up-the-heat-on-Gaddafi.html

I think PA2 would be happening now if the UK had played ball a few years back. When the French purchased access to the design they were looking to participate in the CVF build. They had realised that they were not going to persuade the UK to build CVF in France so they were looking at a proportion of the super block construction. They were looking to build one or two of the super blocks for each ship in a French yard with final assembly of QE and PoW in a Britain and final assembly of PA2 in France. It might well of reduced costs through economies of scale and the French hoped they UK might be attracted by getting super block and systems work for PA2, they even sweetened the deal by selecting the Rolls Royce MT30 over the French navies preferred solution of the LM2500.

When the UK didn’t bite the CVF based PA2 started to die a slow death as the French navy started to push for their ideal solution and DCN started move in a different direction design wise. Finally with general political dithering its gone into limbo. Nevertheless I bet the French navy were pleased when the UK decided to switch to CATOBAR for the QE class.

Hi all,

New to this forum but have been following for a while, very interesting indeed.

Just to let you know I see the Goliath crane/Rosyth everyday and will be happy to update as to whats going on at Rosyth when possible.

For example it hasn’t been reported yet as far as I am aware, that the crane is actually now on the dock from the Zhen Hua 13 and has rolled back to approximately half way over the dry dock. Mission success!!:):)

Welcome Cockneyjock1974, I saw it a few weeks back from the train to Aberdeen (I was on a business trip) with the Scaffold around it. If its finished then it is into its test period. I believe proper assembly work will start end of August.

Once they get going I think people will be surprised how quickly it will start looking like a carrier!

Any pictures you can post of the build will be very welcomed here as frankly what you get out of the Carrier Alliance website is a joke! Heck they still haven’t updated their homepage!

Can we think that the Typhoon will close the gap in the incoming years (2012-2018) ?
Personaly , I don ‘t think so and I ‘m not affraid to be right . 😎

Cheers .

Again I am going to bring this up again as you just can’t seem to understand it:

The Indian Air Force, MOD and Eurofighter consortium don’t agree with you!

They think that Typhoon can meet the schedule desired by India, if not Typhoon wouldn’t have made it to this stage of the process!

As for the matter of training why are you focusing on British problems? Why not look at the other countries who use it? The problems that Britain are facing are nothing to do with the quality of the aircraft or training! The problems arose due to airframes and training capacity being taken up to meet the Saudi Arabian order. The problems were also due to Tornado F3 being retired early leading to an overstretch in UK QRA. With that overstretch keeping pilots ground attack qualified on the Typhoon when they are needed for QRA when there are Tornado GR4 available was crazy.

Well I’m suggesting a larger array based on the modules used in SELEX radars like the Seaspray. Modern AESA modules allow for a building block type construction giving infinite scalability opportunities. I presume there is scope to adapt the radar modules to the required frequency.

Well America has purchased foreign equipment when there really is nothing else suitable for the role. Famously the Canberra was built under licence or the purchase of the MATRA Durandal anti runway munition.