Yep that is the crux of it! Anyone who is a long time member of this forum know I was a long term supporter of going to CATOBAR for QE class and argued that idea long and hard right up to the decision to go back to STOVL.

It pains me to concede now I know the political and engineering details about that decision that I now say trying to go CATOBAR in 2010 was an in ill thought out and ultimately forlorn fantasy. Fact is when the Thales adaptable design concept was selected ten years ago (yes really that far in the past now :eek:) there wasn’t actually a detailed design. The period from initial selection to eventual main-gate was apparently a torturous process of delays and demands for cost cutting by the MOD and treasury. So what was meant to be an adaptable design was anything but, by the looks of it with STOVL selection being so certain BAE Systems only paid lip service to the idea of an adaptable design. If we were really serious about it the Americans would of had far greater involvement in the design process. The other issue is the behaviour of the Americans in relation to the catapults and arrestor gear. They wanted a highly unrealistic price for them, entire control over the conversion design process for the ship and it to be an FMS contract.

Then there is the training issue, with STOVL we get a surge capability for the carriers utilising RAF pilots but with F-35C the FAA could never of maintained enough qualified pilots.

The right decision was made to return to F-35B all things considered and believe me it is hard for me to type those words after all the effort I have expended defending CATOBAR for QE class! I think F-35B is safe personally but if it was canned then yes we are talking about a helicopter carrier as any other option is probably out of reach time and cost wise.

Yes of course John whatever :rolleyes:, when you need the help of the NHS you might just change your tune on that.

Again we couldn’t crew them! All vessels entering RN service are lean manned because we don’t have the personnel numbers we once had! That includes twelve Type 45, once the order was dropped to six the personnel numbers were cut.

A single USN Nimitz class carrier has a crew approaching 6000! That is equivalent to 17% of all the personnel within the entire Royal navy and Royal Fleet auxiliary together! Permanent crew of a single QE class will be just under 700 with a further 1600 if we have a full compliment of aircraft on-board. This is why QE class has expensive things like a highly automated weapons handling system:

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/RDS_201206_Wright.pdf

I should point out that the aviation personnel number is not a fixed amount as neither QE class will operate with a permanent air wing like a US CVN would. F-35 and helicopters with appropriate numbers of support personnel will deploy to a QE class carrier as needed. In peace time a QE class carrier will probably deploy with no more then six F-35. In the event of a crisis the plan is to operate a mixed air group of RAF, FAA and AAC types as required. This is why the carrier is as large as 65 thousand tons. A QE class going to war will probably be carrying:

F-35
Merlin
Lynx Wildcat
Apache
Chinook

Plus Commandos in the sizeable accommodation reserved for them. I should also point out that the crew of HMS Queen Elizabeth will be significantly made up of those that were assigned to HMS Illustrious (about 685) and when HMS Ocean retires her smaller crew (285) will go to HMS Prince of Wales along with others in effectively a caretaker role. In peace time one carrier will be the operational strike carrier whilst the other is in reserve and they will rotate in role along with the bulk of crew. In a real crisis they will surge personnel from land establishments, the reserves, RAF and AAC to get the second carrier in operation as a second deck.

I don’t think about CVN carriers in the carrier role and LPH in the LPH role because as a country we can neither afford to man, build or run them.

65 thousand tons actually and it is that big for a reason!

In a surge situation operating the maximum air group of 36 F-35 plus assorted helicopters anything smaller can’t meet the planned hourly sortie rate.

As has been pointed out a million times now “THE COST IS NOT ON THE STEEL!” The systems in a smaller carrier would cost much the same as in the QE class so the imagined saving would not be there at the price of reduced effectiveness.

The RN, MOD, Thales and BAE Systems didn’t design the QE class on a whim! Rather then post inflammatory posts why don’t you bother to do a little research first…:(

You need only to look at the Mig 21 vs the F-4 in Nam to see how that turned out.

Errr yeah right, the F-4 Phantom including the missile only models utterly dominated the Mig-21! Actually more kills were made with missiles then anything else and later on in the war the much maligned AIM-7 was the weapon of choice for US fighter pilots. How about the much vaunted last of the gunfighters the F-8, well all its kills were with Sidewinder bar three! Of those three two were with the cannon! The USMC pressed the F-8 into the role of a bomb truck all through Vietnam!

Early relatively poor performance was down to skill fade in USAF/USN fighter squadrons since the Korean war (and it should be noted that a fair few members of the fighter squadrons in Korea were WW2 combat vets) and poor handling and maintenance of the missiles carried.

The first issue was sorted out by introducing red flag and Top Gun (partially based on some rather good work by an exchange FAA pilot). The latter issue was ironed out by training in proper handling and maintenance of the AAM munitions. USN deck crews were literally treating sensitive electronic munitions like the AIM-7 that needed careful maintenance after each flight like a dumb rocket that could be slung under the wing over and over again. The representative from the manufacturer sent to investigate the poor performance nearly had a heart attack when he saw what was going on!

The F-4 also dominated the Mig-21 in the Middle East in Israeli service. But why let pesky things like facts or the truth get in the way when someone has an axe to grind!

Also you are wrong in your assertion that China and Russia are building simple single role fighters. Both are retiring (or already retired) their single role fighter fleets in favour of multi role types that can do all jobs. Even the export orientated light fighter the JF-17 is multi role with a modern radar, WVR/BVR missiles and an ability to drop precision munitions or self designate with a pod.

Fact is even aircraft that were designed purely as fighters have been pressed into service as tactical bombers because we needed them as such! As 19kilo10 points out as long as there have been fighters people have been slinging bombs under the wings. That you write off a whole recent generation of fighters that have proven supreme in air to air combat as well as dropping bombs is rather funny…

The Fighter Mafia isn’t dead apparently…:cool:

Well maybe not an APA drone but your Venom over the F-35 is similar to their rants.

And now for a polite, friendly, almost brotherly forum member observation:

For the 2020s when the threat board is still mostly green and Australia secure under the American umbrella, sure. For the 2040s when China is the dominant regional power and Indonesia the dominant power in Australia’s immediate environment, not so much.

AND

The basic qualities of the aircraft are fixed and thus amenable to long-term analysis. The long-term view is often upsetting to those who don’t wish to hear of it. And yet the basic trends are often visible many decades in advance and far less uncertain than most folks would like to suppose. Witness the eerily prescient writings of Jack London in the early 1900s, who predicted not only that Japan would rise to challenge the west, but that it would fail in the attempt, and moreover that its lasting legacy would be in awakening the nation that would prove the real downfall of western — including American — supremacy: China. Note that he was writing of the end of American supremacy long before most folks were prepared to acknowledge that it was even coming!

Is probably some of the most paranoid stuff I have ever seen written in this forum! In the here and now it is a respectable combination of state of the art defence technology! Yes mistakes have been made and threats not seen through history. Some were obvious, some were not! If you direct your entire defence procurement policy based on the possible threat of China and Indonesia in the 2040’s then you are in a very strange paranoid place. Does Indonesia or China even want a fight with Australia? To be honest I think you are over egging Indonesian capabilities now and in the future. As for China, well they exist and their armed forces are going through a fifty year plus plan of modernisation (yes that is how long China thinks when it comes to defence modernisation). Trying to compete on a like for like basis is probably a waste of time and money. On the other hand buying what is available and modern in the here and now thus maintaining a credible deterrence is probably the best policy.

Will Canada’s government genuinely reappraise the requirement for a CF-18 replacement? If Dassault see this exercise as “un jeu perdu d’avance” (= losing is a foregone conclusion), they may choose not to waste time and money bidding. I also wonder if Eurofighter would want to bid if they thought the selection process was going to be like the process in Norway. It sounds like there is a strong preference for a US product ie choice is really between F-35 or Super Hornet.

Exactly, the thorny issue is to bid costs time and money but not to bid makes you look less competitive.

To be honest any reply from Dassault or EADs might well be a paper shuffling exercise of brochures rather then anything significant.

Any contest would see F-35 and Super Hornet as front runners and to be totally hard nosed I see plenty of logic in that however much I would like to see Typhoon in RCAF colours!