pjhydroNimrod, I hope so! Though ships and aircraft are different we mustn’t forget TSR-2 was cancelled with hardware in the air.
Swerve, you patrick o’brian was stretching reality when he had HMS Suprise in constant service for 30 odd years? :p
To pick up on my earlier comments about LHD type for UK needs, there is a nice article in AFM this month about USMC harriers in 2003 with some great pictures of USS Bataan and Bon Homme Richard harriered up to the nines.
pjhydroForgot the B29 conversions! But i think the point still stands.
All that said the B767 is a fine aircraft and will make a perfectly good 135 replacement.
pjhydroAll of which underlines my point…. (calm down everyone)
Points i’d like to add…
A330 is not a “French” Aircraft. The really important bits that make it fly are built in Wales (next to england if your looking on a map). But its made all over europe and the world. Just like Boeings.
Boeing have only ever supplied two tanker types to the USAF (KC97 and KC135) and they have not been built for many many years and i doubt anyone at boeing remembers designing them and building them, so saying Boeing have a proven track record is stretching reality a little too far. Don’t forget the KC767 has not been a roaring success so far as the Italians and Japanese would atest to.
Surely NOT having a competition is anti-capitalist and a wee bit anti-american? Surely commercial arguements are the essence of the USA? or has the Industrial Military complex finally created the one source communism?
AND! Why is “liberal” such a dirty word in a country that is founded on “liberty”?? I never understand that. To be called a liberal in Europe is considered a complement and an honour.
pjhydroEd, jeez…is it armoured??
Can you imagine the Admiralty walking into No10 and asking for a battleship? 😀
pjhydroAh! The issue of only having two major large airframe producers in the whole world and then having them in two continents that have great underlying animosity towards each other. (How does NATO stay together???)
What would have been the situation had MCD and Lockheed still been in the game I wonder? Trouble is both sides have put all their ailrliner/large airframe capacity into one basket which automatically makes it a matter of national/continent prestige and honour.
People forget both companies are totally international with components made all over the place. Every Boeing made contains parts from Europe and Asia and every Airbus put out has a large chunk of the US in it. But when senators/congressman/MPs/MEPs etc are looking for votes its amazing how totally home grown these products become.
If only we could end the Boeing/Airbus monopoly….Anyone got any spare cash to restart Vickers or Handley Page?
Or maybe the USAF should turn to Ilyushin and Antonov as a snub to both protagonists 😀
pjhydroDistiller, I did say post age of sail, wind powered vessels made of wood travelling at an average of 5 knots in mainly littorial water is a bit different….
Frosty, I saw Hermes in the flesh 4 years ago. Barely clinging to life, she spends most of her time tied up. Shes still in service by necessity.
Grim, just a quick scan of Enterprise’s commisioning record gives at least 6 years in dry dock, thats without time just tied up in port. I would guess shes spent at least ten years not moving in her 48. The RN coulld never do that with a CVF.
Stevo, exactly! No one has mentioned a 50 year life span in relation to CVF in an official source for ages. It was just a marketing gimmick to sell it to the proles and the treasury.
I would hate to speculate on what defence would be like in 2070 (CVF in service by 2020) , but as an indication I am sure Jackie Fisher could not have guessed in 1909 what the RN would look like in 1970, anymore than Harold Wilson could have predicted that we would be building strike Carriers now in 1966….
pjhydroThink about the US fleet. The USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1961 so will be 50 in 2 years and I’d take that over many more modern ones in a war today.
I knew someone would say the Enterprise! How many carriers do the spams have to cycle through? Spreading life cycles, wear and fatigue. thats how the spams keep much of their kit foing longer than us, they have more of it. There will be two (we hope) CVF, they will be worked hard and ridden to death. The RN to my knowledge has never had a frontline vessel serve 50 years post the age of sail. How many vessels are in the current frontline that were launched in 1959?
This 50 year life span is more government flannel. Yes the design would last that long if we built more of them to share the sea time between. As a point of interest 30ish years is the standard life time of most modern British kit from the humble rifle to SSNs. We buy too few and work them to death, take a look its a pretty good rule of thumb and I am sure it will apply to CVF.
pjhydroNo the planned carrier life span is 50 years. Ships of this type can easily last that long. I suggest you look more into CVF and the Carrier strike project if you don’t know basic information like that.
No need to be arsey! 😀 If CVF lasts 50 years i’ll be a monkeys uncle. Who would want it to? the world or war and defence would have changed so much by then.
pjhydroJonesy, I think I was being slightly facetious. :p
That said a lot of praise is heaped on an un-built ship that with hindsight had many design flaws. The main three being
1) “Alaskan Highway” which would have been unusable in anything resembling heavy weather.
2) The open ended hanger which would have been a fire-risk bonanza- glad it never went to Corporate and had a bomb put through it.
3) Fitting GWS 30 at the rear of the ship under the approach (always beggars belief that one).
If its contemporary the Type 82 is anything to go by…ouch!
As for Nott he was wrong about so much (being a Tory under Thatcher being his first mistake…:p ), but his observation of SHAR was correct, no other aircraft could have kept flying in the weather that was encountered.
Frosty, CVF will be up for replacement 30 years after launch, at least i’d hope so. Thats still in the expected life time of JSF. As for UCAVs- why not make them STOVL? That would make them so much easier to recover and allow them to be deployed on a range of platforms.
pjhydroAs for CVA-01 by the time it got south half its aircraft complement would have been washed off that stupid “alaskan highway” (the solution to a problem that didn’t exsist) and then the wind over deck would have been so high most of the time as to ground everything but the SAR Wessex for most of the Operation. As John Nott said at the time Harrier was “the one reason why”.
pjhydroAt the end of the day CVF will be built as currently designed, if (as we hope) it is built.
As an academic arguement about what the UK needs and can afford he discussion is still worth having. Two points I would add though are that 1) future LHP is unlikely to be afforded and 2) a CVF is unlikely to ever go to sea with enough F35s to take advantage of those amazing sortie rates.
Why would I suggest an LHD type is best for the UK?
A) Most of our independent ops since 1945 have been amphibious in nature.
B) The majority of the time its helicopter aviation that is required at sea, be it transport, ASAC or ASW.
C) LHDs are more useful in peace support and disaster relief.
D) In 2003 the USS Bataan and USS Bonhomme Richard embarked 46 Harriers. Thats more Harriers than we took south in 1982.
As for Pheonix Squadron, I think it is a great book, well written, very exciting but is a lot of Hyperbole and the impact of a couple of bucaneers while useful was not the only reason Gutamala did not invade. The announcement of large numbers of reinforcements on the way from the UK probably did more than anything to convince them the UK would fight. To say it was Ark alone is to overstate the case a little and if Gutamala had invaded she could have done little to prevent it by herself (now had she been an LHD with large RM contingent….:p). Good book though.
pjhydroJonesy, when I said LPH, I meant combining the roles with a carrier capability. If the treasury said “look CVF will have to be cancelled or we can combine it with the planned LPH programme” which in turn would be cancelled as a seperate programme, would you honestly say no given the state of finances? If CVF melded into something more akin to Wasp would that be so bad? It would still have a strike carrier function…
I agree with you about the backing up of military force, but its more about the willingness to use it than its actual size, state, equipment. I would never want 82 to be repeated certainly. The SF capability of Britain is very small but its credible threat and diplomatic leverage has been in HMGs willingness to use it (and not talk about it after!).
pjhydroI know that CVF has lived a precarious life thus far, which UK procurement project hasn’t of late? But the sounds (or lack there of) coming from whitehall have been far less encouraging of late.
If it comes to pass then I would suggest the most secure way of getting a decent aviation capability would be to combine the future LPH project and aim for something of multirole ship. This may be palatable to the treasury and still fit many of the UKs key requirements.
pjhydro….when I see Brown fall on his own bagpipes!
We live in hope…:D
pjhydroPJ,
CVF is win-win all round. It provides the capability the RN need where no alternate exists. It is an inherently economical hull to run in year-on-year costs terms. It is now a mature and frozen, yet flexible, design and it is supporting thousands of jobs in the UK the salaries from which are feeding back their taxes into the UK exchequer. What grounds are their to be critical of this….honestly?
Your not wrong. I hope CVF goes ahead, but what concerns me is that the RN maintains a carrier capability. At the moment all the signals are that CVF may be on the chopping block, HMG has not countered the paper released this week which is standard whitehall practice for softening the blow. Alternatives need to be considered and the case for them put robustly.
I would argue though that our current world role and obligations mean that a direct CVS equivilant may be adequate.
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