We haven’t had an empire for quite some time, I wonder why it is our responsibility to educate the children of Africa?

Because we spent the best part of four centries asset stripping the continent for our own benefit? because the long term wealth of the UK (and much of Europe and the USA) is built on the foundation of Trans-atlantic slavery? Because we are decent human beings who realise that the state of Africa is a stain on the world especially given that its the closest continent to Western Europe? Because helping the poorest nations to educate is the best way of lifting them out of poverty and that is also one of the best ways of keeping the peace….having spent some of my career trying to educate African children I can assure you its a very worth while and much needed enterprise….BUT we digress, back the QEs….

Seems to be an awful lot of petty nationalism flying around in this thread… For those debating at what level UK VLO is at the UKs first VLO airframe was “Replica” and that project ran in the mid 90s. see picture below(via spyflight)

Seems to me that BAE for once has come up trumps and has developed a cracking piece of kit on what is essentially a shoe string budget, especailly when its compared to the X-45 project, for what seems to be a heavier larger aircraft

Very interested in the various sources, including todays minister talking about “intercontinental” range. It is fitted with a very efficient engine and appears to be a volumous airframe, but I do wonder what “intercontinental” actually means. Is the RAF about to get back into the bomber game?

It was a shame to put off the Sea Harrier, and the Royal Navy would greatly feel their absence if a crisis was to sparkle, because attempting to provide air defence with radarless GR9 and short-range Asraam missiles would be an epic pain in the ass. The Asraam is awesome for self defence and duel, but seriously. There would be no way to cover a battlegroup at sea with Asraams.
“Ghost Force” of Patrick Robinson is a book about a second Falkland war scenario in which the RN gets humiliated. Sad reading, and admittedly exagerated in some assumptions, but we can’t ignore the fact that without Sea Harriers the fleet is very vulnerable from the sky. What’s worse, is that the book is a few years old already, and it is higly critical against the constant shrinking of the navy… But still, the numbers of submarines and ships presented as “critically low” in the novel are actually higher than the current, real lows that the RN reached!
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I’m going to disagree with you and Patrick Robinson about how a “new Falklands” would turn out. The current air group that would be taken to sea I would argue is better than the one in 1982. The Harrier GR9/Seaking ASaC 7 combo would do better in the same scrap than the SHAR FRS1 only air group. The only advantage the SHAR has is a tiny non-look down radar. The GR9 carries more stores, has better endurance/range and other than the radar is fitted with far superior avionics and when tied up with an AEW system as good as ASaC7 there is no contest. In fact a task group going south today would have so much more going for it, kit that those in 1982 could only dream of, a couple of minutes thought has given me….
– ASaC 7, when its not spotting raids hundred of miles away, its mapping enemy troop positions.
– Harrier Gr9, more range, more missiles, longer CAPs further from the fleet…
– TLAM, absolute battle winner in that scenario, forget Vulcan.
– A dedicated Helicopter assault carrier, no yomping.
– 6 LPD, more kit and vehicles landed more swiftly (no Galahad etc)
– CIWS Phalanx/Goalkeeper/VL Seawolf, turkey shoot in San Carlos.
– Harpoon, the range of leathality around the task group massively increased.
– GPS guided munitions, accurate 24hr CAS, now reimagine Goose Green, Longdon etc.
– Merlin HM1, the flying frigate, an MPA with rotors.
-Type 2050 sonar, ok lots of dead dolphins but lots of dead subs too.

There is more, but basically I think people need to stop sweating so much, time and technology has moved on.

Since when has that been a motorway? It’s the A400M. :p

A400(M)….perhaps one of Boris’ crazy plans

You are not wrong. they say “capability” what they mean is “no-one must die”. Its no way to run a military really.

IMMOO seaslug is a bit naff as a name. But no worse than other near contemporaries ‘Red Top’ what? Are we firing copies of the Scum at our enemies? Sparrow? Sparrow? Of all the birdies to name your AAM after

Sparrow? Vicious little ******s, ever seen a Passerine fight? ouch. Sea Slugs (Nudibranch) are pretty nasty too, some species eat Portugese-man-o-war.

Red Top made me laugh! never thought of that, now picturing Lightning pilots lobbing copies of the daily star and sun at Russian Bears. “hey dimitri look at the jugs on her…”

I Love the UK Rainbow codes, my faves are Pink Possum (amazingly code for nerve agent!) and Orange Poodle ( a radar system).

Black Arrow though has to be the coolest name ever for a spacerocket, straight out of Dan Dare.

Are we sure of it…? Or the need to save money will mean having the future F35 pilots trained in the US anyway? The USA plan a massive training facility in the US, and it is likely that many pilots of several F35-equipped nations will train in there.
The future pilots of the UK may end up training there anyway.
And then again, is it really so important to avoid training pilots in US or France, when there are suggestions to share tanker aircrafts and even aircraft carriers to a degree?
If USA and France aren’t recognized as trustable partners enough to train pilots in collaboration, it is like saying that they are possible future enemies. This is extremely unlikely. Even if there was a chance of it to be true, they wouldn’t even say it, because it would require an increase in the defence budget. We all know how fond people is, lately, to say that “state-on-state war is no more”.

Besides, several european nations including Germany are already setting up an European Common Training unit for fighter pilots… We may one day see the UK join and have ALL its pilots trained inside a multinational program, like it or not.
Thus i don’t see that pilot training issue being a real problem. If anything, train them abroad may allow substantial savings… and the government may be tempted of it, regardless of B or C anyway.

Oh i’m all for greater co-operation, right old pro-euro man me.

BUT there are still questions that need to be talked over in all this. I am not suggesting that the US/France will be enemies of the UK, that would be ridiculous, but they can disagree with UK foreign policy. If the UK insists on maintaining an independent Foreign Policy outside of the EU and the USA then maintaining sovereignty over key defence capabilities is crucial. If we became embroiled in a conflict that the people training a key skill to the pilots of one of our key conventional strike capabilities disagreed entriely with then we might see the tap turned off, or at least stalled.

Think Suez 1956, America was such a darling friend to us that time…

I think its important to realise that we are coming at this from different concepts of Ops. For our septic friends the F35B is a Harrier on drugs, its a CAS aircraft for operating off of an LPA/LHD and then sending ashore with the troops, it will operate in small groups. In this case a buddy refuel unit would appear pointless as the short ranges involved would canel out the advantage of ‘losing’ an a airframe or two for the tanker role.

For the UK the F35B is a Harrier replacement only in the sense that the Harrier is what we use now and the F35B is what we will use next, in the same way that the original Harrier was the Hunter replacement but it was never really viewed like that even at the time. For the UK the majority of F35Bs sea time will be in the air-defence and strike role. Its main armaments will likely be ASRAAM/Meteor and Stormshadow/Paveway IV types. It would be better to view the F35B as a replacement for the Phantom/Buccaneer with a massive gap in true capability that has been part filled by versions of the Harrier.

There is also a misunderstanding about the position of the RN/RM and other services in the UK. I think the best way to describe it to our revolutionary cousins is that you should view the wholeof the UK armed forces (RN/Army/RAF/RM) as analogous with the USMC. There is no scenario where the RN/RM would ‘fight alone’. The USMC/USN do, but they have the full range of capabilities they need.

There maybe times when the UK does go it alone but that doesn’t effect the answer! For us using a couple of airframes for buddy refueling to extend the strike range, maintain longer CAPs and help save aircraft low on fuel far out weighs the ‘loss’ of those airframes. A Queen Elizabeth Class Carrier is not a LPA/LHD, and its not a “Harrier Carrier” either, they are full on ‘strike carriers’ it just happens that for various reasons, both historic, accidental and deliberate policy the RN now prefers to operate VSTOL aircraft at sea.