could the MRD take STOVL aircraft as do like the design as its seems to be built with practicality and cheapness as priority and seems like a very flexible looking design

Park HMS Ocean Down there, fill it up with Merlins and the Gunship version of lynx along with a bunch of Para’s or Royal Marine’s to back up SAS and SBS units. use UAV’s to track suspect boats, the SAS and SBS to keep an eye on the place, and then send in the cavalry via Mr Merlin with Mr Lynx taking out anything looking remotely fortified.

I prefer Apaches rather than gunship Lynx’s there are also 2 t23 as well as the US boats and the coming Russian vessels

Wait a minute – over $1 billion, for three very old airframes. Not cheap.

according to DID they will be fitted with Probs along with the Helix kit http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Death-Spiral-for-HELIX-Britain-Wants-RC-135-Rivet-Joint-Planes-05102/#more-5102

seems to make sence the deal as they can be integrated in to the E3 mant system and they share some parts so transition shouldn’t have a massive jump.

its a shame the Nimrods can’t solider on till 2025

More Contracts announced today.

sounds like MT-30 for the GT’s there’s not much left is there to order? bar F35 and AEW?

they also kept the stabilizers from PA2 [I mean they didn’t have them until the French changed the vessel]

Thought this was interesting
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3725780&c=EUR&s=SEA

DCNS Chief Blames UK for Carrier Postponement
By pierre tran
Published: 15 Sep 18:24 EDT (22:24 GMT)
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PARIS – If British industry had shown more willingness to cooperate with France on new large aircraft carriers, the French government might have found it harder to postpone its decision on whether to build a second carrier to the Charles de Gaulle, said DCNS Chairman Jean-Marie Poimboeuf.

DCNS had worked hard to find a way to cooperate with British industry over the CVF for the U.K. Royal Navy and the Porte-Avions 2 (PA2) second carrier, Poimboeuf told journalists Sept. 15 at the start of a press trip ahead of the Euronaval trade show starting Oct. 27.
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But the French company had found no such willingness to cooperate on the British side, he said. “The political decision to postpone the second carrier would have been more difficult if there had been industrial cooperation,” he said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has decided to postpone a decision on whether to build a sister ship to the Charles de Gaulle to 2011 or 2012. That leaves hopes alive in the French Navy that the service will get a second carrier, which it believes is needed when the Charles de Gaulle goes in for its next extensive refit around 2015. That will immobilize the ship for around 18 months.

Poimboeuf said the further off a launch decision is made, the harder it will be to cooperate with Britain on a common carrier program.

The French defense budget is under severe strain as programs which have been under development for years are now entering the mass production and delivery stage. The white paper on defense and national security has reset priorities toward intelligence and reconnaissance, but it still maintains that force and power projection capabilities are needed.

A second French industry official said that because Paris has not launched its carrier at the same time as London, France has not had to pay the outstanding money for French access to the British design. The last tranche of a total of 150 million pounds ($269.2 million) was payable if France used the CVF’s detailed design for the PA2. Perhaps only one-third of the total payment has been made, the second industry official said.

On the white paper’s recommendation to cut the number of FREMM multimission frigates to 11 from 17, Poimboeuf said DCNS is in contract renegotiations with the Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (DGA) over the prices agreed for the order of a first batch of eight ships. That first contract had been based on a total buy of 17.

“Discussions are on the table,” he said. “We hope to finalize by the beginning of next year.”

The unit price of FREMMs, based on the full 17-strong purchase, was 388.5 million euros ($553.1 million), totaling 8.51 billion euros.

DCNS and the DGA hope export sales of the FREMM will bring down the unit cost of the ship, which was co-developed with Italy.

Poimboeuf said, if on top of the 11 French orders, DCNS signs foreign sales contracts for four to six FREMMs, the company will get back to the original pricing of the 17.

As long as DCNS maintains a production rate of one FREMM in under 12 months, the business case was sound, he said.

A third industry official said the sale of a single FREMM to Morocco had barely made money and was mainly a political gesture after Rabat rejected the Rafale fighter from Dassault Aviation and unexpectedly bought F-16 aircraft from the United States.

Adm. Jacques Launay, assistant chief of naval operations, said the mission of the French Navy extends to coast guard and maritime security rather than just military operations. That means maintaining a permanent naval presence around the globe, but planners are also thinking about a new generation of ships, perhaps a lighter patrol frigate, other than first-rank frigates such as the FREMM.

The white paper has recommended the Navy maintain a fleet of 18 first-rank frigates, composed of FREMM, two Horizon and five La Fayette ships.

Jacques Lajugie, the DGA’s director for international development, said defense exports are a top priority of the French government, a view expressed by Sarkozy himself.

“It’s very important for the trade balance and French industry,” Lajugie said.

France hopes to sell the FREMM to Greece, which has bought German-built U 214 conventional diesel-electric submarines from HDW.

Just add something the Italian 767 won’t arrive till 2009
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3711809&c=FEA&s=CVS

Delivery of Italy’s Tankers Slips to ’09
Boeing Planes Are Now Four Years Late
By tom kington
Published: 8 September 2008
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ROME – Boeing has confirmed what Italian Air Force officials predicted in July: Italy will take final delivery of its first 767 tanker in early 2009, four years after the planned initial delivery date of 2005.
Boeing will deliver all four of the 767 tankers to Italy in 2009. (Boeing)

“Flight testing and FAA certification will be concluded by year end, at which point the Italian Air Force will start the tender for acceptance process, which takes about three months,” said John Williamson, communications director for Global Mobility Systems at Boeing.

Last November, Boeing officials said they had fixed an airflow problem on the wing and promised first delivery to Italy in the second quarter of 2008. Italian officials were skeptical at the time, and the date has steadily been pushed back.

In July, the head of the Italian Air Force, Gen. Daniele Tei, hinted that delivery could slip into 2009.

This week, a senior Italian defense official confirmed it.

“Boeing is now reaching the specifications and the revised schedule, which is for a delivery early next year,” the official said. “This means the delivery of the last aircraft will now be closer to the first, since the first and second of the four aircraft were the problems.”

Boeing’s Williamson said the second of Italy’s four tankers, which joined the flight testing program at Boeing’s Wichita site in July, would start the tender for acceptance process in January, the third in March and the fourth in August, meaning all four would be handed over to the Italians during 2009.

The fix to the wing pylons tested in 2007 was sound, Williamson said. “We have no issues with the wing air-refueling pod; no changes have been made this year and we do not anticipate making changes.”

Despite that, the delivery date has slipped six months since the fix was first touted in 2007, which Williamson attributed to “design changes and FAA certification factors.”

An internal Boeing memo, seen by Defense News, charts some of the issues that were being tackled in April this year. They include an Italian request to reduce the possibility of smoke from electrical equipment entering the cockpit, flight testing scheduled to continue as late as November, and a recommendation made to the Italians to relax their standards to align with slightly less stringent FAA regulations.

Boeing was also working on obtaining the right temperature settings for passengers.

Italian officials took issue with cockpit noise, which reached 79 decibels at the pilot’s right ear while cruising at 0.8 Mach at 35,000 feet. The Italians had specified that noise be no louder than 75 decibels.

Boeing officials responded that reducing the noise would also reduce the capability of the aircraft, and recommended the Italians change their specs.

The memo also highlights a persistent weight issue, listing the plane’s operating empty weight (OEW) in cargo configuration at 200,804 pounds, 3 tons over the “maximum allowable OEW to meet mission” of 194,340 pounds.

In passenger configuration, the current weight is 220,258 pounds, almost 4 tons over the maximum allowable 212,510 pounds.

“The defects addressed early this year are now being taken care of,” the senior Italian defense official said. “We are pushing Boeing every day and we will pursue all options, but we want to stick to the contract.”

The April memo sheds light on why Boeing delayed the flight testing of its revised wing pod pylon for so long, a decision that slowed the entire program.

Boeing first identified the air flow problem at high speeds on the pylon holding the wing refueling pods in July 2005, before redesigning it for test flights in August 2006.

But the memo says that “boom refueling development and major modification” took precedence in test flights for a whole year, until August 2007, with wing-pod flight testing restarting only in October 2007.

Boeing has admitted that it struggled to keep up the pace of flight testing with just one aircraft to use.

“People remain upset over the fact that Boeing did not invest sufficiently in the program,” the Italian defense official said. ■

another go is the 5th the North Korean Najin class of destroyer