Maybe CVF as a basis for a gas turbine powered Conventional Aircraft Carrier going off recent posts in the Naval Aviation subforum and the JASDF F-35 threads ?

Not necessarily. The MN commanded about 60 Rafale M because they expected to operate at term at least 2 aircraft carrier.With the plan for the second aircraft carrier falling through, they may be more than willing to “lease” a few to the RN.
The only reason why this will almost never happen is political not technical or cost.
Interim solutions have a way of becoming permanent, and the UK cannot pull out of the F-35 program, that would make the plane more expansive for the other nations that may follow the lead of Australia and RN into looking at alternative etc. The US won’t allow it. So it’s more likely the RN will get between 3 or 6 early production model F-35C/B in 2020 and will have to wait until later for anything else.

Actually Dave were only signed up for the R&D, we’ve been in from the start which means we have a very good idea on how the program is going and if it will meet our requirements. Two important elements of the UK JCA requirement is Cost and Schedule, if either exceed our acceptable margins then we are well withn our rights to review the selection. The UK is not like most customers where the F-35 is the crux of their airpower, we already have the Typhoon for the primary roles, the JCA is a carrier capable aircraft to complement the Typhoons

+1 Fedaykin

Go to agree with you there mate, that sounds more an overall review of the options rather than a switch back.

The BBC report mentions costs upto 1.2 billion to convert a CVF, but that was the figure quoted by Admiral Hussain at the select committee meeting last summer so thats not a drastic price increase and is built into the rise from 5 to 7 billion for the carriers. Its the aircraft that are providing the headaches now!

Its coming out now as they need to set the budget for decisions made next year, which is when they will have a clearer idea of the F-35C performance, issues and cost after the Arrestor hook has been tested again, Sea Trials on a CVN (If the hook fix does work and meets specifications) together with a better understanding on how the deferred USN orders will effect the bringing into service of the F-35C as a carrier aircraft and what impact that will have on the unit cost.

I see in the Military Aircraft News 2012 thread that Russia has now ordered Mig-29K carrier aircraft for its Navy

Old F-18A/C would probably not be fit to use on carriers, due to fatigue issues. AFAIK ex-carrier aircraft can carry on for a while from land bases but it’s a bad idea to subject old, well-used airframes to catapult take-offs & carrier landings.

Yeap those carrier actions would soon expose any fatigue or failures in the aircraft.

Plus the RCAF will probably need them to maintain their exisiting fleet of F-18’s untill the F-35A is able to replace them.

Is there anyway to overcome the door gunner problem short of a redesign of the helicopter?

Hind Style doors i suppose, unlike the Blackhawk the NH-90 has a rear loading ramp so not really possible to have the doors slide the other way due to the undercarriage sponsons

I muse thusly:

If UKGov says to France “….we should be in a position to think about our joint UCAV seriously by next year.”

Is that tacit acceptance that both Neuron and Taranis will run very short, very efficient flight trials before feeding into this new programme, or is it an indication that Taranis is already in the air?

Neither have flown as yet, i think you will find both are more just technology demonstrators to prove the airframes can be designed, built and flown. Their initial data will then feed back into the joint UCAV program so they can determine a viable specification whilst the testing continues through the course of the next year.

I suspect the general idea is to determine a specification, set a requirement and have the joint BAE/Dassault team design a solution ready to be ordered after the 2015 SDSR as they should have a clear indication of capabilities, cost and timeline