Dear Gawd, that dreamlifter is Fugly.

We need a national aviation museum based in London, comprising of the Science Museum’s collection of aircraft, add one aircraft from each aviation museum from around the UK, and aircraft that might end up being scrapped if they don’t otherwise find a home inside. Add Concorde (Heathrow), Britannia (Cosford), Comet and Trident (Wroughton) and we’d end up with a museum to rival thre NASM in Washington DC. Will it happen? Yer right. Firstly the RAF Museum would kick up a fuss, because it would take custom away from Hendon. Land prices in London would be horrific. The Dome might have worked as would one of the arenas at the Olympic village …. Some may argue that AirSpace does the trick. I have my doubts. A national museum on aviation has to be in London to attract the visitor numbers in order to prove we were once brilliant at designing and building aircraft.

That concept sounds great but I don’t agree that it should be in London. Such a site should be somewhere in the middle of the UK as this would reflect the fact that Britain’s aviation heritage covers the whole country.

Quite a surprise for me:
AS365N-3 Dauphin II of Malaysian Coast Guard

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1294726/L/

I wonder when the Malaysians got those

They apparently now have 3, the first 2 in August with the third delivered in the last week or so. The article is from a link dated 27/11/07
http://www.eurocopter.com/publications/FO/scripts/newsFO_complet.php?lang=EN&news_id=520

Field commanders are funny guys. They would rather have pinpoint fire support available right now than have a promise it will arrive in a few minutes. Close-in targets are handled with Javelin and SMAW. A battery of mortars or HIMARS deployed with and under the direct command of the MAGTF is preferable to a dozen squadrons of F-35s floating at sea a couple hundred miles away. If your F-35 support has to fly hundreds of miles to support your Marines’ fighting position, you don’t care if the flew from a CVN or LHD, but you do care if the ammo, food and water your Marines need to continue the fight arrives on time via Vertrep.

As far as CAS goes, a B-1 with a belly full of JDAMs and active datalink provides great CAS, and it doesn’t have nearby basing issues.

Hang on a second, in a previous post you put forward that the USMC is moving towards a littoral operations with it’s new AAAV.
Well 2 minutes with Google and the AAAV has a range of about 25 miles, therefore the LHD/LHAs would be that distance away not hundreds of miles.
So F35Bs flying from them would not only have a short launch to target time but also a huge loiter time in the area, something the commander of the MAGTF would be thankful for. Rather than as you say the F35C having to travel hundreds of miles for one pass and Bingo fuel.

As for a B-1 doing CAS, a position would be overrun by the time a sortie was organised and flow into the area. And even then a JDAM might be a hammer to crack a nut.

Sure the USMC will play peacetime games with F-35Bs flying from LHD/LHAs, but with bullets flying and a limited number of flight decks available, the 1st priority has to be Vertrep of marines on the ground. Let CAS come from HIMARS firing GMLRS (deployed with the Marine invaders) and CVN-based F-35Cs or USAF(as a last resort).

CAS…Close Air Support, can’t by it’s very description be provided by a self deployable missile artillery system, not least because it would require an established beach-head/controlled area. Also and I could be wrong I doubt it would be much use when the distance is to the enemy is measured in metres/yards rather than kms/miles.
As for the CVN, I suspect that the Navy and Marine F35C models would be busy doing their own thing such as “deep strike” and CAP to launch specific CAS missions.
The USAF might be out of reach for CAS too.

It would be folly not to operate B-Models from the LDH/LDAs in a combat scenario.

RAF Spadeadam is listed twice…Cumbria correctly

Without going off in the way some of the previous posters have, doesn’t the phrase

The purpose of the Delta SDD is to develop a version of the JSF Air System that meets U.S. National Disclosure Policy, but remains common to the U.S. Air System, where possible.

A possible interpretation of this remembering that it refers to the “Air system” not just the aircraft, would be that Foreign models won’t be for example…

wired for a new (currently black listed) missile.
have the plumbing for a new (currently black listed) sensor pod that would hang from a hard point on most aircraft could be internally carried on a JSF.

Items that are developed outwith the JSF program that the USAF want’s integrated ASAP to their aircraft but may become available later in upgrades to foreign aircraft.

So the Pumas have to wait another 7 or 8 months for someone to decide that yes they can be upgraded or no it’ll be cheaper to buy new.

Then there will be several months of political debate before a contract is actually signed either for new or rebuilds

Then there is the lead time before work starts on the first helicopter, with the final one being several more years down the line.

Why wasn’t this process started years ago !!!

Oh yeah and for the upgrading process to be cost effective, 4 or 5 Pumas need to be withdrawn from active service and worked on at the same time….all this without any sign of replacement/fill in helicopters.