It is sad, because the fastest route to energy security is to approach the problem from multiple angles. Ethanol production will not be able to replace oil dependency. Synthetic fuels will not be able to either. Bio fuels (e.g. bio-diesel) will not be able to. Fuel economy certainly will not. However, if all these measures are applied, together they can make a massive difference. Bio fuels could be developed to replace around 20% of the use, synthetic fuels could replace another 20% or so, and fuel economy could effectively reduce use by as much as 10%. The result could be as much as a halving of overall oil-reliance. Since only 50% of oil needs to be imported from outside the US, Canada and Mexico, this could potentially eliminate dependence on overseas oil sources.

The problem with the Lightning was endurance – it was practically at bingo by the time it passed the end of the runway! :diablo:

Basically, it had good raw performance, but the same can be said of types like the Mig-21 and F-104. The fact is that older types were designed for raw performance, being able to reach high altitude and speed as quickly as possible, without manouvreability or range being major considerations. The newer generation types were built to have good performance in all areas, being much more ‘balanced’ types. The Lightning may have been the only type able to (barely) tail chase a Concorde, but put up against other fighters, it would not last long.

Put the Lightning against any modern type, and unless you’ve given it a better radar in it than its competitor, and better missiles, then it will lose. Its only chance for survival would be a BVR shot, because otherwise it would lose, very quickly.

As for altitude performance, it certainly could fly high, but so could other types, like the F-8s and F-104s, and even Phantoms!

If you really want a high performance classic (albeit an unbuilt variant), then look no further than the F-4X, which was to be capable of Mach 3!

April 1st seems to be very late this year! :diablo:

The plan would be for Saudi to buy 7&8, not 5&6, those ones are relatively safe for the UK. The hope was, if I remember correctly, to have the Saudis buy them at a suitably high price, allowing the RN breathing room before deciding on whether more are needed. The ultimate hope was that the RN could finish its batch of 8 (i.e. ten total, two sold to Saudi), and then replace the T22s and T23s with a T45 derivative, without the expensive radars. All of this is currently unaffordable, but this is largely because they are buying the CVFs at the moment. Once the carriers are built, then the RN would try hard to push for more ships – and accept that the T22s and 23s are going to be very long in the tooth by the time replacements arrive!

Yeah, though I wonder about the AGM-86A, which was a bit smaller, and it was said to be compatible as an SRAM replacement. It is far from ideal, but it would at least allow fielding of a conventional cruise missile with long range capabilities. For shorter range use, the cheapest and fastest option would (don’t kill me for saying it! :diablo: ) be to buy the Storm Shadow, possibly also using SLAM-ER as a cheap alternative.

How about trying to do a quad-pack Meteor for the Sylver launcher? If the Sylver launcher could quad pack Meteor, then it would make a massive difference. As for the extra cells, I would generally favour Tomahawk over the unknown Naval Scalp (Naval Storm Shadow :diablo: ), but I am open to being swayed! If the T-45 could carry 16 Naval Storm Shadows, 32 Aster 30s, and 64 Meteors, plus eight Harpoon or similar, it would be an excellent capability.

I still feel the Mk41 is more flexible, even though the Sylver may be lighter, though I would need to see a like-for-like comparison. I would not be surprised if the Tac-length Mk41 came in relatively close to the Sylver!

Personally, I like the idea of going after the harder targets by dropping eight of the 2000lb penetrator bombs first, then the MOP. This could be done by one single aircraft (eight 2000lb JDAMs in one bay, the MOP in the other), and would help ‘dig’ the MOP in further. The alternative might of course be to go after really hard targets by dropping two MOPs, one after the other! :diablo:

Looks good! The only thing I would say is that I still think the Mk41 VLS would have made more sense, especially if they could have had a good number of cells. I have nothing against the Aster 30 at all, though I do have a problem with the A15, I just feel that the Mk41 would have been much more flexible.

As for the numbers, lets just hope that sense prevails, and they order another six to replace the final T42s and the extant Block 3 T22s. Add in a follow on order for a further twelve, without the expensive radar fitout, to replace the T23s in a few years time, and the fleet would be doing very well! All they need to do then is to replace the existing minehunter fleet with something along the lines of the GD LCS design, and the RN would be back to actually having a proper size fleet (i.e. 36 warships).