JackonickoTrimble’s very switched on, and a good writer.
JackonickoIf this UCAV reaches full production there will be carrier variants for the Royal Navy (on the 2 proposed new Royal navy Aircraft Carriers) and the British Army could be interested too for advanced stealth reconnaisance, therefore it’s not the just the RAF but all British Armed forces that will have vested interests in this all British development succeeding
There is no intention for
this UCAV (to) reach full production
. It’s a technology demonstrator. Nothing more.
JackonickoYou mean second? Out of how many? 😛
And £140 million spent and only ONE aircraft in the air! Oh noes, most expensive aircraft EVER. 😛
Nice to finally see the real thing though. I hope flight testing goes well. Do people think that the 2018-2020 date would be for the model basically as it is now or would they want to effectively use this as the demonstrator for a bigger (eg 2 engine) airframe?
Simon Bryant, C-in-C Air Command made it clear that there is, as yet, no formal requirement for a UCAV for the RAF. The whole point of Taranis is to allow a low observable, managed signature UAV to be fully assessed and evaluated.
If a requirement flows from this, there is no guarantee that a production BAE UCAV would necessarily look anything like Taranis.
JackonickoWelcome to the VLO club. Better late than never. 😀
Ignoring, for a moment, the vital UK work on RAM (Canberra testbed), and on low RCS internal structures, it’s plain that the UK was working in VLO long before Taranis.
Britain has had
“all the knowledge and industrial capability to make an indigenous UAV from A to Z”
for many years, as Corax, Raven and Herti showed.
And Mantis, too.
Whitehead gave Taranis’ dimensions as 12 metres long, 10 metres span.
JackonickoU2 – see what I did there?
JackonickoThe single seat Rafale looks great. It’s probably the prettiest of the modern fast jets.
The basic F-16A/C looks nice, clean.
The Gripen’s very nice from some aspects.
B-2.
Hawk T1.
JackonickoBack in 2006, any talk of Rivet Joint as an R1 replacement was bol.locks. The plan was still for R1 to continue (with Helix) until 2025.
They did then start looking at alternatives to R1, and MRA4 based solutions gained favour.
It was not until much later that RC-135 became a realistic alternative.
I’m sorry, I must wash my mouth out, I used the words RC-135 and realistic alternative in the same phrase. Now I’m guilty of talking bol’locks, as any fool knows that the Rivet Joint is an inferior and shoddy replacement for the mighty Nimrod R……
JackonickoNot really. In 2006 it was bol.locks.
Sadly, what was then a ‘stalking horse’ and the least favoured R1 replacement option has become the actual plan, largely due to an accident that took place after this thread was written.
JackonickoGood use of the word ‘porkies’, Kovy! Well done.
For full cockney effect you could have said:
“I reckon Eurofighter are ‘avin’ a bleedin’ Giraffe, telling Porkies like that!”
(I believe that EF GmbH are having a laugh (joking), telling tall stories like that).
JackonickoNot bad for ten seconds, DJ, but in five seconds I spotted many that were not in any sense contiguous potential states, and three where Britain has resolutely defended self determination.
In Northern Ireland, first of all, the majority of Ulster remains Unionist, and Britain remains committed to the Union for as long as the majority support it.
In Wales, the first democratic referendum on the question of devolution returned a majority against, and there is simply no appetite for independence. Following the most recent referendum (for a devolved Welsh assembly) a devolved parliament was established following the 50.3/49.7% vote.
In Scotland, self determination has similarly been given the greatest possible say, with the establishment of a Scottish Parliament with tax raising powers. There is, thus far, a small but significant majority in support of the status quo in Scotland – supporting devolution but not outright independence.
The Falklands are a much easier case than any of those that you listed, as there is simply no significant minority contesting the Islanders’ expressed wishes to retain their British status, while the geographic boundary of the area concerned are clear and obvious, it has not been created by ethnic cleansing, and it cannot easily be dismissed as an artificial construct.
JackonickoWsoul2K,
You make bold claims that the UN does not recognise that the soil of the Falklands is not British. That’s not entirely accurate. The UN merely recognises that there is a dispute as to sovereignty, and while saluting Argentina’s commitment to a peaceful resolution (as we all do!) has signally failed to rule in Argentina’s favour.
In any case, the principal of national self determination is one of the founding principles of the UN, and is enshrined in the UN charter.
Self-determination is the free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion. It allows that people of a given territory or national grouping may determine their own political status and how they will be governed without undue influence from any other country.
The Falkland Islanders are entitled to exercise self determination.
Jan Cheek, a member of the Falklands legislative assembly, summed up the issue when she said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Argentina does regularly take this issue to the UN but it has very little effect on us, mainly because what they are seeking is to make us a colony of Argentina while we have freely chosen, through self-determination, to be an overseas territory of the UK.”
Remember that this is about their wishes, and not those of the UK, and not about British self interest. If the Islanders were to choose independence, or if they chose to be part of Argentina, you would not find anyone in the UK willing to oppose those wishes.
Setting foot on an island does not, in itself, confer ownership. If it did, ownership might be Britain’s in any case, as Strong landed in 1690, and made the first properly recorded landing. Many suspect that one of the Portugese had landed earlier, though there is no evidence of that. The islands had been visited for decades, perhaps even hundreds of years by the time France established a settlement at Port Louis.
Nor does establishing a settlement confer ownership.
The French did establish a settlement and de Bougaineville claimed the islands for King Louis XV, but though they asserted sovereignty it’s not simply a matter of ‘first to claim wins’. Some would insist that the Falklands should have been included in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and were thus already Spanish – though the French and the British clearly and self evidently did not accept this. The British claimed sovereignty in 1767, meaning that there were competing claims.
The waters were muddied further when the French negotiated to cede their claim to the Spanish (in return for a substantial personal compensation package for de Bougainville) and a ceremony was held at Port Louis in 1767.
The competing claims were now between Spain and the UK.
It could be suggested that the UK claims to the Falklands lapsed in 1790 with the Nootka Sound agreement, though it is by no means clear that this covered islands 300 miles from the South American coast. South Georgia certainly wasn’t included.
The Spanish claim to the islands lapsed with the South American Wars for Independence at the start of the nineteenth century. The Spanish removed their formal representative and settlers from the island from 1811. The islands were left uninhabited and unclaimed until 1820 when the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata would send a frigate to the islands to assert their control as the post-colonial legacy of previous Spanish claims to authority. This was legally problematic.
When the USS Lexington dissolved the settlement, her Captain declared that the islands belonged to no country and that therefore the Americans could not be prevented from whaling or sealing there.
In 1833 the Brits despatched HMS Tyne and Clio under the command of Captain Onslow, who took and held the islands for British. He ordered an Argentine frigate to lower its flag and leave the islands, and claimed the islands on behalf of Britain. This claim was not challenged by Argentina at the time.
No-one cared about these barren lumps of rock, apart from the settlers who gradually made them their home.
History is of some interest and importance, but competing claims back in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries are of little relevance today, in the 21st century, and have been effectively superseded by 177 years of continuous settlement, and by the result of the 1982 Falklands War, when illegal aggression finally put paid to any legitimate claim by Argentina.
JackonickoSantiagorivas
You should not be insulted by statements of fact.
While Argentina has asserted a claim to sovereignty over the Falklands, that claim has never been recognized as legitimate, and has never been the only such claim.
And while there may have been a brief five year period of Argentine occupation and settlement, Argentina has certainly never ‘owned’ the islands.
The surrender by Mario Menéndez, was to all intents and purposes an unconditional surrender, though the word unconditional was scribbled out after negotiation as a face saving compromise. This was because the surrender was in conflict with the Argentine Army code which dictated that a surrender was illegal unless more than 50% of the men were casualties and 75% of the ammunition had been spent.
The point about the name of the islands is interesting – Argentinian attempts to use the name in the surrender document were rejected.
But the point is that we only need to respect the name chosen by the inhabitants, who absolutely reject the Malvinas title. We don’t go around referring to Ceylon, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and the like.
There are no ‘aboriginal inhabitants’ which makes the claims of the indigenous Falkland islanders pre-eminent under international law.
You are factually incorrect in claiming that the British occupied the islands by force, as detailed above.
You are also factually incorrect in claiming that the British recognized Argentine sovereignty over the islands on three occasions. Throughout the period in question (1823-1833) Britain continued to assert sovereignty.
You should recognize that your own refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the islanders to democratic self determination is extremist (bordering on the fascist) and that your refusal to acknowledge that right is far more ‘infantile’ and ‘insulting’ than anything I have written.
Grim,
Perhaps we should not expect Argentinians to have a mature understanding of democracy. It’s very new to most of them, since the country was a two-bit dictatorship until relatively recently. Perhaps we should not be blinded by recent progress, which has been impressive.
And after the dirty war, perhaps human rights are a bit of a mystery, too.
JackonickoJonesy,
Good post, except: “No the island belonged to Spain…not Argentina.” – actually ownership was disputed, as Britain had not relinquished its claims, and continued to assert sovereignty.
JackonickoYou’re labouring under a bunch of misapprehensions, wsoul2k.
Discovery
Prior to 1833 there were competing claims on the islands – which were probably discovered by Magellan (Portugese), Vespucci (Florence), or Piri Reis (Turkish). Davis (English) discovered and named them again in 1592, and Hawkins did the same in 1594, while Strong applied the Falkland name in 1690…..
It’s not a simple matter, and certainly neither Spain nor Argentina can claim to have ‘discovered’ the Falklands.
Settlement
The French founded a settlement at Port Louis in 1764, and the Brits at Port Egmont in 1766. Byron, leader of that expedition, claimed the islands for King George III that year. Spain acquired the French settlement in 1767, and placed the islands under the Buenos Aires colonial administration. The British were expelled in 1770, but returned in 1771. Neither side relinquished sovereignty.
The British withdrew their settlement again in 1776 (being a tad busy elsewhere) but asserted their claims.
The Spanish similarly left in 1820, and similarly asserted their claims.
Note that when the Congress of Tucumán formally announced a formal Declaration of Independence from Spain on 9 July 1816 the Falkland Islands were not handed over by Spain nor were they claimed by the new Argentine state, and indeed sovereignty over the islands were still claimed by both Spain and the UK.
A US privateer did claim the islands for the newly independent United Provinces of the River Plate (Argentina) in 1820, but this claim was just one of the three competing claims, and it had no greater status or justification than the other claims. No Argentinian settlement was founded until 1828, when Argentina founded a penal colony. With no settlement in 1820, the islands were not administered by Argentina. The Americans destroyed the Argentine settlement three years later. Only escaped prisoners and pirates were left behind.
The British returned and settled in earnest in 1833, restoring law and order and reasserting British sovereignty. The British were not resisted and did not take the islands by force, and they were returning to a territory over which they already asserted sovereignty. Their return was not challenged by Argentina.
At best, ownership of the islands before 1833 was disputed, and it is certainly inaccurate to claim that the islands “belonged to Spain” (or Argentina) before that date. Britain has asserted sovereignty continuously since 1767 (243 years!) – before Argentina even existed!
The Falklands have been British since 1833, and only under British sovereignty has there been any significant or meaningful settlement of the islands. And British settlement there has lasted for 177 years continuously, compared to the five years (maximum) that Argentina’s settlement lasted. It can’t even be claimed that Argentina was there first – there had been earlier British settlement from 1766-1770 and from 1771-1776.
If Argentina attempts to assert its sovereignty over the islands, it will be overriding the fundamental rights of the islanders to self determination – and they do not wish their home to be Argentinian soil, nor to submit to Argentinian dominion over them.
Again: Argentina has no legitimate claim to the Falklands.
Again: The overriding principal must be the right of the Islands’ population to self determination.
JackonickoWell said, Grim.
The colonialism here comes from Argentina, who wish to subjugate the wishes of the settled indigenous population of islands which lie far from their borders and territorial waters to their economic self interest.
santiagorivas,
It’s not that I don’t have an argument. it’s because of you lack of knowledge about history and because this thread is not about who has more rights about the islands, that I will not keep discussing with you, because it’s a waste of time. And this is my last opinion, so don’t waste your time replying.
I have an honours degree in History, thanks, chum.
I suggest that you look back to my post 195.
Which part of my ‘knowledge’ and ‘history’ do you dispute?
Argentina has NO legitimate claim over the Falklands, whose population are:
61.3% Falkland Islander
29.0% British
2.6% Spaniard
0.6% Japanese
6.5% Chilean & Other
You can just imagine how the principal of self determination impacts. In fact, not only do the majority of the population not want to be Argentinian, or under Argentine sovereignty – they don’t even want to talk about it. Moreover, Argentine behaviour during the 1982 occupation torpedoed any chance of the islanders EVER trusting the Argentinians again.
Occupation/control of the Islands has been shared between:
France 1764-66
Britain 1775-1770, 1771-1776, 1833-date
Spain 1766-1811
Argentina 1828-1833
Sovereignty
Spain 1811-1820
Argentina 1820-1833
Britain 1833-date
You plainly have no answer to the substantive question which is this:
By what right does Argentina have a claim to the Falklands which ‘trumps’ that of the indigenous population to their right of self determination?
By failing to answer this you demonstrate that you have no answer. And that demonstrably you have no honour.
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