It’s quite fascinating. I was going thru EF2000 numbers today for different reasons, and came across RAF planning. Britain ordered 232 aircraft, sold 40+ to the Arabs, hoping to sell more, and will have an active force of under 100 aircraft. And hide away the rest in OCUs, training units, reserve units, and hangars as attrition reserve. Now that’s wasteful!
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Distiller

The RAF didn´t sold 40+ Tiffies to the Arabs…
Untill now, there´s not one single confirmation that from the entire British 232 Typhoon force, part will be disposed/sold/traded “to the Arabs”. And yes i am aware of the several Oman/Saudi stories that are current in the International press. Quite recently the “offloading Saudi scenario” (count the first 24 Saudi Phoons has part of the RAF order) was being discarded with some very strong words in… Madrid. Something like “these rules (contractual clauses) were imposed BY THE BRITISH, so dont even think of it…”
The British might, or might not come to sell/offload part of their Typhoon fleet to “the Arabs”, but for now, the original plan, 138 front line fighters on seven active sqns, a OCU and the Falklands detach, still stands.

48 Production F-4Ks were built, plus a couple of prototypes. this was to provide enough for two frontline sqns (for Eagle and Ark Royal) plus a training sqn (767NAS) and some attrition spares. In 1968 20 of these were diverted to the RAF to equip 43sqn when Eagle’s upgrade was cancelled, but six were loaned back to the Navy (in RAF camo still) for 767NAS which was to trian the crews for both 43sqn and 892NAS.

You are indeed correct, two prototypes and 48 production “K´s”, my mistake was that only 29 of them were delivered to the Royal Navy.

This is still a significant outlay for the Navy, as it is widely accepted the cost of anglcising the Phantoms with RR Speys and other changes meant two F-4Ks cost the same as three F-4Js ‘off the shelf’. Indeed had the total RN/RAF buy of F-4Ks/F-4Ms had been F-4Js, the cost saving alone would have paid for CVA-01, which could operate the J model without difficulty due to longer and more powerful catapults (250ft stroke BS6s, Ark and Eagle had BS5s, the waist cat was 199ft and the bow cat was 151ft). The carrier often costs a lot less than the air group. Certainly today the cost of two CVFs is a small fraction of the cost of the F-35Bs which will equip them.

If you are going to massively improve the Sea Vixen then the “cost savings” of the J/K conversion are out, at least a good part of them. Just the introduction of the AWG-11/12 means a complete electrical re-wiring of what are relatively old airframes, in the end to make those Sea Vixens live that long each one of them must be re built. Expensive.

So if we drop the Phantom altogether and keep the Sea Vixen until around 1980 we save enough money to replace the existing carrier fleet with at least three conventional flat tops.

Nope, not by a very wide mile. First the RAF wont acept flying the Hawker Hunter untill 1992! 😀
Even if the “crabs” accept such a “deal” there´s a much bigger problem in recruiting and training the complement for three CVA´s, that´s ten thousand people at any given time!
There was never money in the 70´s/80´s to operate three conventional aircraft carriers (unless we scrap the rest of the RN, or one third of the RAF, or bouth).

CVA-01 was quoted as being about £100milion per unit in 1960s prices, Invincible was quoted in the early 70s (prior to the oil crisis and the following massive inflation) as about £60Million. In 1980 Invincible was delivered for about £175million and the third unit Ark Royal was delivered for about £220million. In 1998 the cost of CVF was estimated at about £750million, before the cost of restructuring the British shipbuilding industry was added to the overall price.

The great problem in acquiring conventional carriers wasnt the initial buy, it was operating them.
One single CVA had a bigger complement than the entire “Invincible Class”!

The Force is strong with you! Hornets to jointly replace the Vixens and Buccaneers, Hawkeyes to replace the Gannets and we’d already have plenty of Sea Kings. Air groups sorted then!;):D

Mr Jedi 😀

The force may be with hawkdriver05, but if that plan went forward there would be blood all over the MOD (again)…
In the 80´s, where would come the money to field conventional carriers, hornets and Hawkeyes?
Slash the entire MRCA Tornado program?
It would be the RAF “bomber” versus RN “carrier” all over again!

Cheers 😉

I’m interested in what the estimated costs are for some modern missiles, can anyone provide some numbers for:

AIM-120C
MICA
ASRAAM = $200,000 USD?
IRIS-T = $400,000 USD?
AIM-9X
R-77
R-73
Exocet
Harpoon
Derby
Python 5

Hotdog

Everything that you want to know about the cost of USAF missiles in here:
http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080204-085.pdf

ps- Sintra, NOT (Frank) SINATRA 😉

Sintra

There is clearly an anti-pineapple element running through this forum.

That depends, if it´s a VSTOL, a CTOL or a conventional Pineapple.
I can quite clearly remember when Roy Braybrook (circa 1986/87) claimed that anyone who believed that the American Pineapple industry could produce a decent VSTOL version was a “Banana head”…

Am i mixing things? 😮

Yep

Cheers 😉

for a man who went to Iraq, spat at saddam right in the eye, danced with Ariel Sharon’s wife, and survived being shot down over Kosovo.. I’m surprised you want to debate pineapples!
they are being grown but it is very limited. in my many years of wandering this earth for the best mcdonalds, hawaii has grown urbanized and the plantation culture has been reduced to a limited scale. dole, del monte, and dell computers have long outsourced their pineapple production.. ironically back to where it started. south America!

Sweet Jesus!!!

Pineapples!

Sintra, do you believe OGMA will be participate on the program?

A bit too early to know.

The FAP needs a replacement for the Hercules somewhere around 2015/2018, the biggest shareholder of OGMA (the ONLY military aerospace industry in the entire country) his EMBRAER, the Portuguese Air Force Comander when asked about this question, mentions one single aircraft, the C-390…

On the other hand the FAP has a wonderful history with the C-130, it´s highly regarded by it´s pilots, is present in every major NATO air force, it´s a proven design, the logistics network his very robust, etc, etc.

Throw a pair of bones to OGMA and there´s a decent chance that the first export costumer his a NATO country.

1º Bone – Industrial participation in the entire project, manufacture parts of the aircraft in Portugal for the entire fleet.
2º Bone – Centralise logistics and suport operations in Alverca for every single C-390 sold “East of America”.

Add a decent unit cost, a solid logistic “backbone” (in Alverca) and a good airframe and i can see four to six of these with the “Cross of christ” cockard.

Cheers

I apreciate where you are coming from, but sometimes I just think we get over optimistic and forget that we are still being sold knocked down spec equipment.

Knocked down equipment?!

When the Indian Air Force bought the Jag, it was an evolved version of the RAF version and a vastly superior beast in comparison to the French Adla “Cats”. It´s main competitors were evolved versions of the Mirage F1 and the Swedish Viggen, both of them were at the cuting edge of military aviation in the mid seventies when the competition took place.
The same can be said of the Sea Harrier and Mirage 2000 buy´s. Or the Sea Eagle, the MAGIC´s, Super 530, ATLIS, etc, etc, etc.

History shows that with the sole exception of nuclear devices, India has been offered, again, and again, and again, the very finest of what Western Europe had in their armed forces.