So which service had the right idea about what to base F35Bs on the Royal Navy with its CVFs or the USMC with LHA’s the RN has never said that the CVF is anything but a Strike Carrier, not a Fleet Carrier, the roles for the CVF and the LHA are about the same, so which size vessel is the more suitable for F35Bs, ski jumps, long decks for rolling landings, large decks to marshall a strike group before launch etc.

CVF, the LHA USS America is only orientated toward the Marine Airgroup, which is mainly for the Osprey, Super Sea Stallions and Sea Cobras. The Fixed wing airgroup are still only bit players thus no features specially designed to support them. Thats why the USMC Harrier pilots loved it when they had a deployment exercise on one of the CVS carriers.

Yes i am aware of the refits of both carriers, but thats what they are, refits and bit of structural mods.

Its pointless pointing out what the Baltic yards did in the cold war, as the most they do these days are Frigates & Corvettes.

Why do you think Russia is buying the Misral ?, becuase it lacks the skils to design and build their own class and need the off the shelf design to re-educate and train personel again replacing those skills lost when the money ran out at the end of the eighties !.

And the USSR built several before it fell apart. I don’t see Russia having any problems at all with the technology.

Except the shipyard responsible is now in the Ukraine, so one of the Russian yards would have to get up to speed first, possibly after they have done the licence built Mistrals ?

Just a question on the LRIP IV costs, does the lower price if the F-35B reflect that the production has been better established for the F-35B due to its original earlier expected in service dates than the other two variants ?

Thus do theses LRIP costs have any real value in judging FRP costs as they also partially fund the development of the production facilities.

AFAIK the McDD/BAE JAST was not down selected because the STOVL variant used a seperate Lift Engine and therefore didn’t meet the requirements ! :confused:
(LM’s used a fan driven by the main engine so technically its was acceptable, when the JAST was not).

Also would this open the way for joint hawkeye and carrier trainers? could BAE start producing Goshawks? would this level of usage economise a NATO COD Aircraft?or Italy and Spain buying CVF, with offsets in parts, and training facilities in the Med?the more you build the cheaper it gets for everyone. sell CdG to brazil, add one for france means 5. Dangerous Ideas:diablo:
Also you begin to wonder about the buisness case for F-35A at all. Just accepting F-35C with it tougher landing gear and emergency capabilities(wartime road strips) and the savings of having just one type around the world.

The main problem is that neither Spain or Italy have actually committed to a new carrier to replace their original STOVL carriers, Italy is in the F-35 probram for both A & B variants whilst Spain is currently an unterested party at present. Given the fragile economic situation and political reluctance for active overseas deployments its highly unlikely they would commit funding for larger conventional aircraft carriers with airgroup to replace their Harrier Carriers until economies have greatly improved.

As for buisness case, the F-35A is still to be the cheapest to buy and operate. The C only becomes viable if you have access to Conventional Aircraft Carriers.

The Islander/Defender with the large bulbous nose, ZG989 has been flying out of Waddington again last week and this week. It has spent hours orbiting the Lincoln area at around 10.000ft, must be doing some sort of AEW trial. Maybe they are going to replace Astor/Sentinals with the cheaper competitor from all those years ago afterall!

Rick

New RN AEW aircraft for the CVF now its gone CATOBAR ? :diablo:

Million to one long shot but you never know these days :D.

However they are probably testing the radar rather than the platform i would suspect.

G

I’ll take the bait.

The cracked bulkhead will have very little impact on on the F-35B. The reason for structural test programs, like all other test programs during SDD, is to find problems so corrective actions can be implemented.

If fault is to be found, it is caused by the inexperience of a management team who has not designed a new-from-scratch airplane in 35 years. The guys who designed the F-16 are long retired or dead. (And those F-16 designers knew what they were doing because they had taken their lumps and gained experience on the F-111 program 10 years earlier). Anyone with experience would have scheduled the structural tests to occur much, much earlier — before the production pipeline was full.

Erm F-22, and the F-35A & F35C appear to be OK.

Agains its parts failing on the F-35B i do wonder if the weight loss program was rushed and the changes made for the sake of weight saving are now having a negative impact on the F-35B flight test program. Modelling and specs being set on the original parts and not completely reassessed once they had been changed.

G