Actually looking at the E.C.A. website I am quite surprised, they appear to be far more legit then I was first expecting with the backing of Price Waterhouse Coopers amongst others and apparent EASA agreement.

They seem to be looking at providing a turnkey OPFOR/Red-air capability and EW IOPFOR training on a power by the hour model. The ground based facilities training seems similar to what RAF Spadeadam offer.

The equipment sources are interesting with Belorus being talked about, not so sure about the Flankers as the Belorus millitary doesn’t have the airframes to spare. My hunch would be surplus Ukranian airframes.

1. has anyone even asked if the F-18 is compatable with the QE?

here is a good quote from someone in the know.

There are serious issues involved with the, crazy decision to go with a split island on the QEs (shortest vent route distance from the engine rooms), bungled flight deck layout that resulted, and the plane handling issues.this caused, ***** decisions followed as to hanger layout from the stack exhaust routing. This also involved lift placement, as the split island cut into usable available below and above storage, plane park space, and plane movement routes.

These plane handling decisions are not as involved or critical when the planes are VSTOL, where either fore or aft lifts can serve as either feed or strike below, but remember how a CATOBAR aircraft carrier actually works?

Rear lifts feed the catapults, and the waist and forward lifts strike planes below. Planes move in a conveyor fashion from stern to bow on the flight deck, are parked everywhere, where space that does not foul the clear run can be found and the planes, that are struck below decks, are moved from bow to stern to the feed lifts behind the catapults…

The QEs may have a CATOBAR design add on provision as the UK claimed, but they were never CATOBAR optimized or intended..

As for the PA2, can I believe this at all? First, where is the funding? Second, from the same bunch that created the CdG, with its original bungled takeoff runs and bad island placement, you expect a competent CATOBAR design mod of a QE STOVL carrier? Please don’t make me laugh so hard.

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/6-72504.aspx

IMO GF is one of the smartest guys on that page. The QE my be able to use CATs but it isn’t exactly optimized for it

2. The only area a F-35 is inferior is range! it can hit the same number of targets as an F-18E ( using SDB) it can penetrate better than a F-18,
it almost certainly will out accelerate a F-18. why are you painting a picture of a vastly inferior aircraft? Load up both with A2A loads, a 4 ship F-35B formation and a 6 ship F-18 E formation. Start at BVR and then tell me who you think will win.

3. Why is the UK throwing good money after bad money? your gonna spend insane amounts of money to refit the carriers to cat then train F-18 drivers to qualify, then spend almost what the F-35s would cost on the jets?
They will do all of this and still end up a generation behind, by 2020?

4. UK is betting that they wont need 5th generation capability? they are betting that they wont fight enemies with out the US? is that what history says? Does history tell you that traditional enemies like Argentina, Iran, ect will stay in the dark ages?

Well that someone you say is in the know is publishing an article on what is reguarded as the worst millitary forum on the web. So on the whole I don’t trust it as far as I can throw.

QE class was designed as a CATOBAR class adapted to STOVL, its plenty big to operate Super Hornet if wanted and as Badger1968 said (a poster on this forum happy to post pictures of his USN service days) not even used as an operation profile. This is not forgetting that the RN isn’t interested in the same level of sortie generation that a US super carrier can as it can’t afford that number of aircraft.

In the end MOD, Navy and the carrier alliance have spent a lot of time and money developing the design and as has been pointed out before the twin island concept is more suitable for the Gas Turbine propulsion. I will take them over a supposed someone in the Tabloid of the millitary forum world.

I find it highly unlikely that the Saudis have the bottle to attack Iran however much they don’t like Iranian nuclear developments. The blowback is too great in respect of retaliation by Iran and any proxies against Saudi Arabia.

Iran would also attack American interests in the area, Israel and shut down the Persian gulf anyway.

Saudia Arabia wants Iran contained not stirred up like a hornets nest.

The major problem with attacking Iran is she can retaliate with all the IRBMs and anti ship missiles she has mounted on mobile launchers, remember Saudi Arabia was attacked with a small number of Scuds during GW1. Imagine that but multiplied many hundreds of times!

The best solution at the moment is deterrence with the threat of MAD via massive counter strike.

Interesting photoshop of QE at Rosyth as if it gives a nice scale comparison to the Invincible class.

Certainly a tight fit, then again I always feel that choosing Rosyth was a political choice to keep Gordon Brown happy. Personally I feel Harland and Wolff was the better build site, with a floodable basin big enough for a Nimitz class carrier let alone CVF plus Sampson and Goliath.

Indeed thats what I feel should be done, a few pod kits for the A400 to move around the fleet with one stationed on the Falklands much the same as they used to do before the VC.10 was stationed at MPA. Its a waste operating one of what will be a small fleet of A330mrtt off the Falklands, rotate one of the A400 instead. If C130J is retired early there won’t be much capacity in the A400 fleet to do tanking but rotating one should be OK.

As for Argus, I feel her days are numbered. Better to go on a capability holiday in respect of her then lose a newer and more capable unit.

Some new pictures have gone up of the training mock up and the carrier itself:

http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2010/08/chinese-aircraft-carrier-photos-early.html

Notice the Top Plate copy isn’t on the mock up anymore but the fixed AESA arrays are installed.

Difficult considering that the testing and OCU setup for the different nations sort of blur into one.

I think if I remember correctly Italy was the first nation to release Typhoon for QRA.

As nocuts has pointed out with all the armour and crash resistant seats Wildcat carrys less then Lynx AH9. Hardly a capability improvement.

It does make me wonder what would of happened if they had gone ahead with the RTM322 powered Westland 30 400 series. What was in effect an enlarged underpowered Lynx might of been viable if they had put more powerful engines in it. Then again it isn’t that far in concept from the AW149…