I was lucky enough to attend a lecture he gave once, publicising his book ‘Tommy’, and I would always watch the documentaries he made when they were on. He will be missed.

The PLA claims to be working a HE homing warhead for the DF21, so it comes down to the SM-3s needing a perfect intercept record. If only one DF21 slips through, the CVN could be mission killed.

And the CAP will be too busy dodging PL-12s fired by shore-based J-20s or J-15s launched from the Varyag, who will be in front clearing the way for the H-6s.

I guess it’s good that the UK isn’t planning on invading China then :rolleyes:

Interesting news, could this fill the JAGM requirement?

Where are Brimstones manufactured btw?

Good news, but it still worries me how expensive the whole deal is going to be 🙁

14 aircraft seems too few as well.

Sounds like a good idea, especially if Sentinel etc are going to be retired, but I would have thought it cheaper to just keep the smaller jets? They must be cheaper to run than an A330, and we wouldn’t have to purchase the equipment again.

Is a 14 aircraft fleet enough for tanking and ISR while keeping up training and maintenance?

RAF Typhoon jets ‘grounded owing to spares shortages’

It does rather seem that the chickens are coming home to roost, with regard to the government defense policy of cut, cut, cut.

The Libyan crisis has required ships that were due for scrapping, delaying the retirement of Nimrod R1, the use of the Sentinel (for which there is ‘no requirement’ after Afghanistan), the usefulness that JFH and Ark Royal could have played (had they not been scrapped), the use of the Tornado fleet that is about to have two squadrons cut, the use of instructors to fly Typhoons because there aren’t enough pilots (and subsequently delay/stopped training), and now a lack of spares!!

I realise these happenings have been discussed on this forum before, but just looking at the ever growing list of shortcoming this unforeseen event is revealing is frankly astonishing.

Two that are in Leicester:
The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal

and

The Last Plantagenet

Both are Wetherspoons, but I do like the way they try to give some local personality in the names and decor of their establishments. They do a good fry up too 😀

I actually quite like Aldi and Lidl, but different stores are better for different things.

When I lived in Leicester I found the market and other independent retailers were able to provide fresh produce of good quality as cheap as anywhere else.