Wrong. Nevermind, I will give you proof myself.

Conversion Program Designed by the OEM Designer

The Gorshkov conversion program was designed and developed by the OEM design bureau i.e. Nevskoye Design Bureau 😎

Fedaykin, Where is St. Petersburg? It’s in Russia not in Ukraine and Nevskoye Design Bureau is in St. Petersburg. 😎

These are the main reasons why I said the program is risk-free i.e. technically sound …

Again let me reiterate: the refit is being done by the country that gave the original designs i.e Russia.

The word OEM in this context refers to the meaning “original design source”. That is where the Intellectual Property is.

India wanted a ski-jump and the Mig29K. This meant the Nevskoye Design Bureau who had the IP had to be involved from the start.

Eh?

So you think that the Gorshkov coversion is a glowing success so far.

Yes it was designed by Nevskoye design bureau, but it was built in the Ukraine by a yard with experiance of building this type of vessel. The Russian yard doing the conversion had no experiance of this kind of work and made a mess of it. It is well reported that Sevmash did not have access to original blue prints requiring them to be redrafted and the project management has been dire!

The project is billions over budget and years behind schedule. For the cost of this mess they might as well of gone for new build. The IAC at Cochin is going to be ready not that long after the Vikramaditya.

So who is wrong? I suggest taking off you rose tinted glasses…

Interesting, I never considered that a Merlin MASC solution would end up in a competative tender.

I would think the Thales solution is in a stronger position at the moment as it offers a very low risk (all the electronics are already in service) solution. On the other hand Lock Marts solution of conformal arrays potentially could offer superior performance not only in detection capability but also flight performance as it doesn’t involve hanging a draggy bag off the airframe.

So why would it be so implausible that Romania shared the IAR-95’s designs with China or at least in some way influenced it ? They were both communist nations back then and several reports talk about MiG-33 designs having been sold to China as well. I can see that even suggesting that the FC-1’s strong resemblance to the IAR-95 may have had some more basis than just coincidence is pricking a lot of people.

Its implausable as we have no documented evidence of collaboration between Romania and China in respect of the IAR-95 or Super-7. On the other hand we do have documented evidence of the work done by Grumman with Chengdu prior to the cancellation of support by the USA after Tianamen square.

In the end the IAR-95 looks a bit like the Super-7, nothing particularly unusual by that its happened before and it will happen again.

how do you think the FC-1 compares to the MiG-21 M.Bison? another aircraft evolved from the MiG-21 (a bit more obviously than the FC-1)

Well the Mig 21 Bison is still a Mig 21, its certainly not an evolution into a new design. Its primarily an avionics upgrade whilst the FC-1 is effectively a new design albeit evolved from the J7 that benefits from advancements in materials technology.

true, FC-1 is actually based on the soviet mig-33 project, not only does it look similar it also had a very similar set of specifications.

No it isn’t.

The FC-1 is based on the Sino-US Super7 project, the Super7 was in effect a highly developed J7 variant.

There is a precident for cutting the MRA4 at this late stage and that is the Nimrod AEW which also left us with around 12 airframes which had been paid for and large numbers of trained personnel so nothing can be taken for granted.

There is a massive difference between Nimrod AEW and MRA4 at this late stage.

In the end Nimrod AEW was still in prototype form when it was cancelled and didn’t work properly. It would of taken many more years and millions upon millions to change that if ever. The MRA4 on the other hand is in full production and not only works but is a world beater. Aircraft are now being delivered to squadron, personel trained and support equipment purchased. The money has been spent.

To the pull plug now would be crazy, we still need an ASW type so we would have to procure another. Frankly the only solution off the shelf is the P8 but it has inferior performance in airframe and systems. We would also have to get in line with the USN and Indian Navy meaning we would have to wait longer and at greater cost then if we just induct the MRA4.

No the report was an opinion piece in Janes by a journo who has an axe to grind or has missunderstood speculative thinking from the MOD around worse case scenarios for the SDR.

Adendum

The biggest mistake with Nimrod MRA4 is the use of old airframes rather then opening a new production line to give the impression of thrift to the MOD procurement types. With the work required to rework the fairly small part of the airframe reused they might as well of built from scratch!

In peace time CVF will probably deploy with no more then 12 F35 which is similar to the Invincible class. Enough to wave the flag, maintain currency and participate in exercises.

The RAF will provide the surge airframes and crew in the event of something going up. With modern flight simulators and the F35b’s automated benign landing characteristics should be fairly easy for the light blues to jump onto ship if required.

Lets face it the GR3 crews who operated off Hermes during the Falklands had barely any chance to work up for the task and nothing like the modern training aids.

Totally agree Jonesy!

This has got silly for a thread about CVF construction.

If people want to talk about the UK aid budget why not do it in the general forum.