Take care Growler, you are falling in love with Rafale…

Well, its a beauty…

I suspect you’re right. I didn’t want to appear to pessimistic.

The French with a mere 225-ish combat jets partially flown by poorly trained pilots will be a European superpower.

That will happen if the numbers are not cut again in the next Livre Blanc… A very real possibility.

It’ll be interesting to see fleet sizes in southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) once 4th generation aircraft reach the end of their lifespans.

If the economic situation doesnt improve dramaticaly, Portugal will be looking at one single (small) sqn of second hand airframes, that or disbandment. And the Vipers will probably be flown till the 2030´s…

The choices of f35 wasnt really my point it was whether the raf should add a set of updated hawk 200s to increase fleet numbers to deal with contingencies

The money to acquire and operate a new version of the Hawk would came from where? What program would be slashed? The T3B Typhoon is already dead, cant slash the T3A, contract already signed, deliveries soon to start, penalties clauses would be humongous, cant slash the three JCA´s already bought, the other “45” are the absolute minumum needed for the carriers, so what the MOD slashes to have this Hawk?
Well i can imagine that the RAF could find the money… axing the Type 26 :angel:

I know the Aden 30mm cannon was a stalwart of British fighters for many a long year, and I know that during the development of not only the Harrier GR5 but also Hawk 200 there was effort to establish a more modern version under the description of Aden 25.

Whilst I know the project was cancelled and Harriers flew around with the empty gunpods – Im struggling to find information that tells me what went wrong with it and why it was cancelled, was it a case that they just thought that compared to the 27mm mauser cannon fitted to the Tornado that there was just no point in competing?

Be interested to understand the reasons

1) Technicaly was a flop
2) Not needed, by 1999 when it finnaly got canned the RAF had hundreds of BK27 in the inventory

Hi All,
Sintra many thanks for the info provided,with all the expenditure on the current 5th generation fighter any Idea why talk has started about a 6th generation fighter when clearly they have not sorted the problems out with the upgrading to the 5th gen fighters ? I would of thought getting the JSF operating efficiently was more urgent than worrying what comes next let alone asking for funding when most country’s do not it to spare being tied up in the JSF programme ?

Geoff.:D

The only talk of “6º Generation” that i am aware is coming from the US Navy and they are in a very, very early stages.

The trend so far has been of lowering fly away prices per batch/LOT…The program head thinks that this would continue and we could hit the magical 85 million (or was it 75) mark by 2020.

Well, then the program head´s might just be a tad optimistic
The “magic number” (“Fly Away Unit Cost” without non recurring costs for LOT´s after 2018) according to the “Fiscal Year 2014 Air Force Budget Materials” released in late April 2013 is 101.947 million $ a piece for the F-35A (then year $).

Cheers

Short answer, no one knows, that includes Philip Hammond and George Osborne.

Hi Sintra,
Many thanks for the reply and for the site info. while I realise that the more airframes bought the cheaper each airframe becomes but is it not a case now that because the total number inc.navy having been slashed quite severely (which obviously then makes each airframe that more expensive) would it not have more cost effective by developing the Harrier/Sea Harrier further with either another engine giving one engine to each set of vector nosels or a more powerful Pegasus i.e. plenium chamber burning (development problems being cured)

You had to go back to the eighties in order to have a realistic shot at something loosely based on the Harrier developed in GB Plc, in fact if Maggie hadnt killed the P.1216 then we could have a realistic discussion about any other STVOL strike fighter not called “JSF”. The other real alternative was installing cats in the two CVFs.

With the programme costs overrunning like they have plus the software problems with the new helmet integration as (am I right in saying there is an down graded helmet offer as a sticking plaster ?) it just seems to be a black whole as far as costs go ?

Geoff.:D

I wouldnt call BAE´s offer of a HMD based on the one flying on the “Phoon” a “sticking plaster”!
The JCA is an expensive bit of kit, but hell, it´s specifications are such that anyone in 1998 should have guessed how this was going to end! Its a Tornado sized aircraft, VLO/LO/Whatever , STVOL, 7.5 G´s, mach 1.6, an AESA set, an internal LDP and IIR sensors all over the airframe. Expensive? Oh yeah…
So long has the UK MOD dont try to substitute their entire FJ fleet with it, it should be “affordable”… in small numbers.
The good part is that BAE is going to build an humongous number of “bits and pieces” of DAVE for, well, everyone, and the JCA in comparison with the Sea Harrier seems like “Starship Enterprise”. In the end its going to deliver quite a bit of highly capable “punch”, albeit expensive. The RN are going to love it, the RAF probably not so much (i am willing to bet that some RAF chaps, deeeeeeeeeeep down, wouldnt mind too much to trade the “B´s” for “A´s”).

Another recent document that you might find interesting is here:
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/carrier-strike-the-2012-reversion-decision/

We keep in mind the F-35 program is delayed and over-cost by the software development at first.

Oh really? And me thinking that they had to redesign the entire aircraft around 2004 in order to shave hundreds of kg´s of the aircraft.