The Avon was the pre-eminent engine of its generation – eventually! Trials and tribulations (eg in the Hunter F1 and F4, and in the Swift) resulted in many improvements and in the engine’s further refinement and development.

The Atar was a bloody good engine, too, and compared well with most contemporary engines. But the Avon was even better.

And it’s not just about thrust and sfc – it’s about throttle handling, surge resistance, battle damage tolerance, and it’s about Rolls Royce’s then-peerless support.

With Avon-engined Canberras and experience of the Avon in the CA-32 Sabre, it’s no wonder that the Aussies looked at an Avon-engined Mirage. For a brief snapshot in time, you might have said that such an aircraft would have been the world’s best fighter engine in the world’s best fighter airframe.

Bung Aden cannon in it and you’d really have been cooking with gas….

Block 8 could be upgraded later, but there are no plans to do so, nor is there any contract for industry to rehost the Austere A-G software on Tranche 2.

If the RAF take any Block 8s, they ought logically to be T.Mk 5s and F.Mk 6s, with Block 10s being T.Mk 7s and FGR.Mk 8s.

“The french did it the right way. Taking experts from different fields (Recce, AA & AG) put them in one squadron and you have a multirole unit with specialists for all tasks.”

That’s what the RAF have done, too. 3 and 11 have blokes from a wide variety of backgrounds – teen series on exchange, F3, Jaguar and Harrier, even a handful of GR4 blokes.

That’s not enough. It makes a multi-role capable unit, but the individual pilot won’t be as competent across all disciplines as a specialised single role guy will be.

And what the French have done is manage the individual careers of particular pilots to give those individuals cross-role experience. Posting a Mirage 2000C pilot onto the 2000N or D for a year or two before posting him to the Rafale for example.

Some RAF pilots do have AD and OS/GA experience, but there hasn’t been the same organised and structured programme to deliberately give individuals this sort of ‘mixed background’.

Scorps.

Using an FGR designation for the Block 8s would be a bit odd. They won’t have the Austere A-G capability and will effectively be AD only.

One can only hope that all of the RAF Block 8s are given to the Saudis.

And like the RAF, I believe that there will be a loss of capability resulting from having all-MR squadrons – in that, even in the Typhoon, it’s not possible to train people to the same pitch in all roles as it is to train dedicated role-specific pilots. Is that a significant loss, though, and is MR capability worth more than having the absolute ultimate capability in a single role? That’s harder to judge…..

If you’d spoken to a senior officer with Typhoon in his job title eighteen months ago, chances are you’d have come away with the idea that Leeming was dead, insofar as the Typhoon was concerned, and that the force would be divided between Coningsby and Leuchars – perhaps with OEU activity at Waddington. That would, of course, have meant a four squadron wing and a three squadron wing. Or you might have divined that squadron six and squadron seven might find themselves at Cottesmore or Marham. But not Leeming.

Talking to a senior officer in October, I was surprised to hear him quite deliberately not rule Leeming out as a base for No.6 Squadron (the next to form) when it does become operational.

Personally, I think that it’s academic, as I see little realistic prospect of a seven squadron Typhoon force.

(Thanks Ken)

Anyone who tells you a definitive answer doesn’t know.

Anyone who knows won’t tell you.

Not least because plans are still fluid, and in the air, and depend on what happens with Tranche 3.

Even Leeming, once written off as a Typhoon base, may still re-enter the equation.

All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that No.6 Squadron is going to be the next unit to stand up, but that won’t happen until at least twelve months after the Tranche 2 jet enters service (and perhaps MUCH longer than that), which won’t happen until the tail end of next year.

Early on, when the RAF was fully expecting to get the full three Tranche buy, according to the original schedule, the 232 aircraft were to support a 137 aircraft fleet. 24 with the OCU, eight with the OEU, and 15 with each of seven squadrons, IIRC.

That was two squadrons each at Coningsby and Leeming and three at Leuchars.

1) The ‘sources’ I’m referring to know a whole lot more than you or I about the content of the original agreement and the recent ‘solution’. I take their concerns seriously, certainly more than I take notice of bland reassurances from politicians, which rarely count as ‘tangible factual information’ in my experience.

2) The main practical objections to the invasion of Iraq were that it failed to remove an immediate WMD threat (there was no such immediate threat), it has cost us dear in lives and cash, it has resulted in massive casualties among innocent civilians, it has destabilised the region, it has diminished the USA’s international standing and reputation and it has only exacerbated the Islamist threat to US/UK interests.

Apart from that…..

3) Putting aside the tired and barely concealed anti-British sniping that I’m coming to expect (is it the Irish American in you, Sean?) I fail to see any evidence of any ‘reneging’ on undertakings by the British in Basra.

In any case, as I said, even if the UK Government were to renege on an agreement, that would not excuse the USA doing so. The USA should surely be able to set its own moral compass, which should be absolute, not relative.

Sferrin,

“What? Surely the UK is it’s own country and can decide for itself if it wants to signup or not.”

The UK was invited to become the only other Level One participant because of the technology that it could bring to the party. The UK signed up to the programme on the basis of undertakings given – and the problem is that the US has reneged on those undertakings.

SOC,

“Well, then I guess you’d have to insist that the currently elected UK government supports those initiatives that the ousted Blair regime supported, such as the efforts in Iraq, correct? Or are new US governments the only regimes in this transatlantic quagmire that are expected to abide by the agreements made by their predecessors?”

1) The ‘Blair regime’ has not been ‘ousted’. Blair himself has gone, replaced by his own No.2, but the Government is still drawn from the same party that won the last election, and continues to follow the same broad policy approach.

2) Though I personally didn’t support the invasion of Iraq (on legal and practical grounds), like most Brits, I did support the US/UK presence in Iraq and Afghanistan once the initial mistake had been made. Having invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam we had a responsibility to put things right. Naturally, one has reservations about some of the ‘detail’ (short-sighted and wrong-headed policies that don’t work, prisoner abuse scandals, some of the placing of contracts, blue on blues, collateral damage and civilian casualties, etc.) but that doesn’t mean that one doesn’t support the broad aim of maintaining order while restoring peace and stability to Iraq.

I see no evidence of HMG reneging on ANY commitment made to the USA with regard to Iraq. I see absolutely no evidence of the UK failing to abide by any such agreement. I do believe that complete disengagement from Iraq, leaving the problem to the USA, would be in the UK’s narrow national self interest, but having given undertakings that we would fulfill particular missions, and take responsibility for particular areas, we are obviously obligated to see the mission through. You don’t leave an ally in the lurch.

But even if the UK Government were to renege on an agreement, that would not excuse the USA doing so. Right is right, after all, and we do not run our Governments according to the ‘lowest common denominator’ example. And we expect so much more from the leader of the free world, and the world’s most powerful democracy.

SoC/sferrin

The USA made particular undertakings to the UK when the JSF programme started.

As the only Level 1 partner in the programme, and having received promises on ITAR from Clinton, we had a right to expect the USA to keep its word and to treat its most loyal ally properly.

All we ask is that the USA abides by its word and treats us with respect.

The USA has failed to do so. And pointing out this piece of dishonourable chicanery is not “whining”.

SOC

You really should apologise for the line:

“Why should the US go out of its way to make political decisions favorable to a nation next in line to leave Iraq?”

Because it diminishes and disrespects those who have stuck by the USA, as loyal allies, even in the face of evidence that the war was illegal, and even against their own national interests. It’s beneath contempt to be quite so dismissive of Britain, which has uncomplainingly lost servicemen in blue on blue incidents caused directly by US incompetence, and which has paid a proportionally higher price in Iraq and Afghanistan than the USA has.