Apparentley the whole F35 technology transfer issue has reared it’s head again, I wonder if this is partly why the program is being delayed? Now with France and PA2 it changes the whole dynamic of the argument with the fall back option of a CTOL CVF being nothing like as unlikely as when the CVF was a stand alone British program.

Thanks for the info, I’d heard it was basically a junket for the Thai King, never realised she’s hardly ever left port though. I imagine there are an infinite number of things Thailand could spend their money on.

It doesn’t even look much like the Neuron. Note the backside or the air inlet of both for example. Taranis also weighs quite a bit more. Also note that the final Neuron configuration wasn’t fixed until probably early 2005 [it was shown in June 2005 for the first time], whilst the basic Taranis layout was tested in December 2003 with the first flight of the BAE Raven. With the 9 month design and build phase of Raven the basic Taranis layout dates to early 2003. The work done already on Raven, Nightjar and Replica explains why BAE is aiming for a first flight in 2010. One or if the latest DGA statement is true perhaps two years before Neuron’s first flight.

You know that facts count for little with some people…….

Large slow speed marine engines used cross and loop scavenging with only liner ports and no valves for decades despite being super charged.

Even if missile handling is a modular system easily removed, what about the missile targetting and secure comms system? That equipment is not cheap, and it’s a lot more involved than just plugging a module into the flight deck. Given their mission the aircraft would need a good self defence suite unless you accept the system is vulnerable to minimal counter attack, again not so cheap. And this would be an orphan system, the UK would have to fund it ourselves, again not cheap. And if you’ve ever seen the missile handling systems at Faslane you’d see that the systems for handling Trident are a lot more involved than for the old 177’s and ALCM.
I’m not anti- RAF but in this case I really think the MoD got it right, there was a review of alternatives and ultimately they came back to the SSBN.

Quite, I agree, my point was aimed at the vocal lobby of mainly British critics who still claim sinking the Belgrano was a war crime and cling to the exclusion zone as vindication, when the fact they cling to the exclusion zone as proof it was a war crime proves they have never actually read the British exclusion zone terms.
In fairness, for the most part both countries did try to contain the war to the two belligerent nations and localised to the Falklands combat zone, and it is one of the features of that war that for the most part both countries acted in what by war time standards was a pretty decent manner. Certainly if you look at the amount of neutral collateral damage of most other wars, and the fact that rounding Cape Horn is still quite a busy shipping route it is quite marked how little damage was inflicted on non combatant vessels from neutral parties.

The question of the 1982 exclusion zone is one of those things that is just picked up and since few reporters bothered to cross reference the original declaration becomes an urban myth. If people read the terms of the exclusion zone it quite specifically did NOT exclude military action outside the zone, however few media outlets have ever bothered pointing that little fact out:(

Turbinia, Interested in your comments as always. Assuming a container or container RoRo is the prefered option, how do they hanger any aircraft if they don’t have lifts ? Is it a case of fabricating a ramp and winching aircraft up and down it to the lower levels or is everything done on the very top level ?

Maybe if someone could post a cutaway image of the internals of a ship like this I might be able to visualise it better.

Good question, some of the plans involve fitting regular aircraft lifts. A container or container ro-ro already has the deck openings and structural rigidity is not a problem, and since the hatches are much deeper than any aircraft carrier conversion would need then space to install a lift is also not a problem.
The main problem in all these projects is cost. Compared to a CVF, or even worse, a USN CVN, these look cheap, but to get a meaningful comparison you have to compare against the price of a new build hull along the lines of HMS Ocean, ie. a dedicated warship type built using commercial techniques and to commercial class standards in many areas. Once you do that the costs are nothing like as good for a conversion, and even in terms of time to get a ship that would be truly useful (as opposed to just a flat top for emergency ops like Atlantic Conveyor) wouldn’t be a five minute job. I’ve seen the cost/time estimates for the Maersk projects and whilst they’ve obviously got good reasons for doing the hard sell on the idea even they recognised any customer would be a bit mad to go for it instead of a new build. The “L” class boats they converted for USN MSC were a company joke, they could almost (but not quite) have bought four brand new container vessels of the same capacity and speed for the price of each conversion. Like I say Maersk did well out of the deal but whether the USN got a good buy is a moot point.
One interesting thing is that there are several drop in point defence systems already available if needed, probably the best known might be the British containerised Sea Wolf VLS developed after the 1982 war.