Originally posted by Victor
1983, that’s sooner than I had thought. Learn something new everyday.

Speaking of the IN’s carrier ops, the IN has been operating carriers for 40+ years and has experience operating CATOBAR, STOVL, & will be operating STOBAR aircraft in the future.

But at the moment India is STOVL and STOBAR in the future. Russia was VTOL and is now STOBAR. China has no experience in carrier operations and Brazil is CATOBAR.

I ski jump is good for STOVL and STOBAR, but a no go for CATOBAR. Even a mix of both is highly difficult.

I can´t imagine one design fitting for those 4 customers. Especially as operating CATOBAR and STOBAR aircraft from one carrier would be very problematic when it comes to deck handling.

A STOBAR carrier with a cat would imo always be limited to use the cat rarely, which means for AWCS only. Or can you design a carrier that could operate STOBAR and CATOBAR fighters with out huge disadvantages to a full CATOBAR carrier ??

I´m just no friend of a one size fits all carrier design. Imo a new built carrier is so expensive that is it always worth to invest the extra money and buy a tailor made design.

Originally posted by Victor
Not neccesarily, there are such wonderful things as ordnance elevators in ships which keep the weapon system and its ordnance separated, sometimes by multiple decks.

But powder cats are a big liability wrt having yet another large magazine inside the ship.

Think about it. You would want to store it near the catapults. And you would want to make sure that you still can use your catapults even if one elevator fails.

So you would either need at least two elevators (or worse at least 1 per catapult) or you could store the poweder closer to the catapults.

Those elevators on the other hand would have a direct impact on the generl layout of the lower decks. Hangar decks, ammunition storage all things would have to be considered,

But I think that would be the smallest problem. The fact is that the carrier would always be limited to a certain numbers of launches before having to recieve more powder from a support vessel.

So if an enemy just kills that vessel, the carrier would be useless. All other solutions can generate pracitcal unlimited launches from the ships machinery.

Oh what a wonderfull thought. 4 nations at least 4 different planes, 4 different heritages (CTOL Brazil , VSTOL India, STOBAR Russia, none China) will be built one common carrier design.

What a glorious porposal for FAILURE !!

Brazil should rather join the british and the french in their new carrier design. At least they have some experience with it, although the CdG is far from perfect. But at least they have a proven cat technology.

The funny thing is that the US is regularly flying mission that are much longer then 5 hours, guees the Raptor can´t do that. 😀

Jokinh aside, the F/A-22 is a must for US Forces. Those 257 planes are not even enough. Don´t forget the times is near in which the F/A-22 will be the only real fighter left in the whole US iventory. They will also have to do CAP for the Navies SH when it comes to a real fight.

With 257 planes they would be stretched to the limit.

And you could propably with draw the F-117, the F-15A-D for say 300 raptors.

That would save a lot of money in the long term.

Clearly the MiG-29. It is service already and it is cheap.

Originally posted by Phil Foster
Yes so did we but the Germans kept changing it. Point your finger elsewhere, if you are going to benefit from the work help pay for it and stop complaining.

Are we going to benefit from the work.

Let me see the Italians want an air to air fighter, the spanish are upgrading their F-18S to be a better air to ground strike aircraft so that EF becomes their main air to air plane, the Germans want the F-4F replaced.

So in how far are we are going to benefit from a faster air to ground integration ??

You mean those 20 planes Singapore might buy ??

I know that the german government is to blame for most of the delays of the project, but because of that the contract was made in a way that any changes will be very costly.
And that is a good thing, because otherwise the Germans would have dropped out of the project long ago.

But that is no reason, why all other partners should pay, so that the UK gets a perfect aircraft (for their needs) asap.

Originally posted by Phil Foster
What the Germans complaining about unfair workshare and subsidising other peoples efforts :rolleyes: .

So let me get this straight. You want the benefit of weapons integration and the advantages it would bring in the export market right? But you don’t want to pay for it? Well I suppose thats been the German policy the whole time so why change the habit of a lifetime?

BS, we just want to follow the agreed plan. If the UK wants to speed up development, then they must pay it – period.

If they want to scrap the program, that would be just fine.

I´m can´t wait for German MiG-29 with Ej-200 engines. That would suit me fine.