pppBut if the need were to arise would it really stop the RN from using a CVF as a fleet carrier? Granted it may not be able to move about quite as quickly but it would certainly be able to offer everything else depending on the aircraft. Could this lack of speed while manoeuvring not is countered with cleaver tactics?
Nobody is saying it can’t use speed to evade submarines, it can, just that it won’t have as high a cruise speed. How important cruise speed is today is really down to opinion.
pppI think the point of that post was that the French were demanding a huge and disproportionate work share and design authority to stay in the Eurofighter programme which would have essentially killed off the British aerospace industry.
So even in hindsight we may have ended up with a carrier capable aircraft (but we would have had no carriers). Although we would also have lost a generation of aircraft design and manufacture skills. Which simply would not have been acceptable?
Besides within ten years we will have an aircraft carrier capability that will outstrip anything the French could field anyway. So in hindsight we made the right choices.
I also cannot imagine that the British fast jet fleet will be allowed to deteriorate down to a fleet of just 140. I fully expect there to be at least 100 F-35C/A purchased. After all the con dems won’t be in power for more than five years. If we end up with a fleet of 140 fast jet we truly will a global middleweight.
Sure, more may well be ordered, I’ve stated numerous times this is a big advantage of going F35 instead of Rafale. However there is nothing to say it will happen, which is why I’m not claiming the future fleet will consist of a second order for sure!
The French might have been demanding all sorts, it doesn’t mean they would have got all they wanted. At the end of the day it may not have been possible to have kept them in the Eurofighter consortium, I’m saying it would have been good if it had been possible, and if a naval Eurofighter had been built from the start.
But there was no call for a naval Eurofighter. The naval requirement only comes into it if France is involved as they were the ones with the naval requirement. If the French didn’t get what they wanted, they would have (and did) leave the programme.
pppNo.
Until a public statement otherwise is made, it is still the policy of the United Kingdom that they will purchase 138 F-35’s.
Oh, and for a nation the size of the United Kingdom, 138 Jets should be more then achievable.
Even Australia @ 1/3rd the population and ~1/3 the economy is getting 100.
And if you read the SDSR you would see the future force is intended to be around 140 fast jets. So 138 F35 and 2 Eurofighter is what you are suggesting then? Funny guy 😀
Sure, the UK can buy lots more stuff, but the governments have no idea, so don’t be too hopeful.
You can’t deny that the French seem to have more foresight in these matters. They wanted the Eurofighter to be navalised from the start, and I feel it would have been better to have kept them in the programmme and developed a navalised Eurofighter from the start. The limitations of STOVL operation were apparent, and there was no reason why the Royal Navy should not have been planning for CTOL carrier replacements for the Invincible class in thr period 2000-2010. The idea of operating STOVL F35Bs from a 65,000 ton carrier never made much sense to me, the only reason the compromises inherent in STOVL operation made sense was to get fixed wing aircraft at sea on a 20,000 ton Invincible.
No, they did not have more foresight. Things could have gone differently, we could have paid for the development of naval TyphoonRafaleFighter and then scrapped our carrier programme, and then would have been subsidising the French Navy’s fighter fleet with no gain to ourselves, killing off our own aviation industry by taking their workshare offer (BAE and RR become a Dassault and SNECMA subcontractor), and end up with a compromised fighter.
pppActually its not Lockheed’s opinion technically its still fact, the UK had previously announced its intention to procure 150 JSF which was then adjusted down to 138 aircraft.
Yes we know the govt is unliklely to keep that requirement at that number, but as yet they haven’t declared what the total but intention will be. They have said 40-50 aircraft but thats also been indicated at being the first batch of production aircraft towards a larger over all figure.
Nobody will really know till the later half of the decade when they should know how many we require and more importantly how many we can afford.:confused:
I know where the figure is from, but it doesn’t make it any less an opinion. It is their opinion that 138 is realistic for the final number.
pppNot a fan of the procurement, way too expensive.
ppphi
just read on the lockheed martin website that we (uk) will still bebuying 138 f35,its got a bit about the 2011 paris airshow so must be up to date??? also in navynews magazine they have a we bit on the construction of hms queeny,interesting that they say she will be ready in 2016 & that pow a couple of years later,dont know if this is just pre SDSR dates or what,queeny as a LPH or cats n traps? if its cats n traps who would land on her first? better be british preferably royal navy! :rolleyes:
Lockheed can’t know that, it’s just their opinion. Even the British government doesn’t know how many will be bought as the decisions will be taken in future governments. It’s certainly not in Lockheed’s interest to give the impression that the UK is cutting it’s order!
pppI don’t mean to be rude, but only one of them seemed to be even half decent. You’ve also got to wonder how many from countries like Saudi just get through based on diplomatic relations. Hopefully those UK guys will have to go through a LOT more training and exercise before they are allowed to command for real. There is limited availability for exercise, and the submarine fleet is ever shrinking, so it’s understandable that it is hard to keep the standards and skills up.
pppWell, they have got a carrier with modern jets flying off it, we have nothing. Who’s the clever one?
So you are telling us therefore that it would be better for Britain to allow France to become the centre for aerospace in Europe with Britain being a subcontractor to SNECMA and Dassault, but would in exchange have gained a carrier capable aircraft. However the presence of a carrier capable aircraft would still not have ensured the presence of an aircraft carrier. Of course following your industrial strategy the carrier would be an import from France with a name plaque made in England right? :rolleyes:
Oh, and as to who is the clever one? The UK clearly since Eurofighter has exports and Rafale does not.
pppMany things have changed since the original commitment to the F-35 project was made. The financial crisis, for example, which means that affordability has become a much higher priority; the STOVL requirement is gone now; the F-35 has become a troubled development programme, with many unresolved technical issues and costs that are seemingly out of control. And last, but not least, a few months they signed the UK-France Defence Co-operation Treaty, which specifically mentioned “building primarily on maritime task group co-operation around the French carrier Charles de Gaulle – the UK and France will aim to have, by the early 2020s, the ability to deploy a UK-French integrated carrier strike group incorporating assets owned by both countries…”
If you look at it in light of those factors, the idea of Rafales for the Royal Navy makes a lot more sense now than it might have a few years back.
It doesn’t make any sense to me, nor does it to the British government it seems. But, if you want, you can always send them a letter 😀
One decent aspect of the Rafale is that it has two engines. I don’t like the idea of too many £100 million F35s being lost to engine failure. In retrospect it would have been so much better if France had stayed in the Eurofighter consortium, and the Eurofighter had been configured for carrier ops from the start. I believe that was one of the reasons the French decided to go their own way.
The French went their own way because they felt that as they had a strong fighter offering in the Mirage, and a larger share of the fighter market, that they deserved control of the programme and majority of the workshare. They felt that it was no loss to go alone as they would easily beat us in th export market. They were wrong, big mistake on their part.
pppYour forgetting that the UK has two Albion and three Bay class that all have a significant troop and vehicle offload capability. Throw in RFA Argus with its big helicopter deck as well.
RFA Argus will be gone soon though.
There is also the 6 or 8 Point class RoRo.
Maybe the French would be happy to do a similar offset deal on the Rafales.
We aren’t going Rafale.
I was trying to come from the direction of IF the F35C is indeed too expensive for the UK to a) purchase and b) operate, it does not seem to be turning out to be the low cost of purchase, low cost of ownership plane that it was meant to be, there is a possibility that the UK could do a deal with France to put into service a not 100% top of the line aircraft when compared to what an F35 is meant to do but +/- a Typhoon with air to ground capability and carrier capability for a much lower up front and I think continuing cost.
The argument about BAE getting money from each F35 is spurious as they still will.
Personally I am amazed that LM managed to make an overweight F35B and not realise it at the time, with the cost base if one believes what one reads slightly out of control, see comments from the US Congress and slipping on the timescale, where is their Prince 2 project management? I hate to say it but is the F35 the USA’s MRA4?
Does the UK need a first day of war (5th generation) fighter bomber or should I say omni role aircraft? When is the UK likely to want to invade China or possibly Russia, not any time soon as I see it.
They are going with F35C, not Rafale. You can tell them not to, and that they should go Rafale, but I don’t think they will be interested.
pppThanks everyone for their answers. It is just what I needed. I shall be leaving my idea of South Georgia AFB and using the accelerated QE build. Still, is it realistic that QE, even if in 2012 argentina magically successfully invaded the islands, would be fully ready for service and packed with f35c by 2016?
Completing a carrier would be realistic. No chance of F35Cs. Could get some USAF F18c though. The biggest issue would be the cats.
ppphe seems particularly interested in the UK’s ability to defend the Falklands from the air though…
It would be cheaper to add some extra hardening to the existing shelter and build a few more empty ones as decoys. The biggest threat would be paras from Argentinas newly acquired transports, so the best low cost defence would probably be more heavy weapons like machine guns and starstreaks.
Or if you prefer a more offensive defence, then perhaps a few TLAMs in box launchers for some of their ports or other useful facilities?
pppSo you believe in a hypothetical situation where UK is left without hms illustrious and hms ocean lph, and somehow, magically, argentina took the falklands, the UK decision would be that is is more cost effective to wait 5 years and finish hms QE and some extra landing ships than to invest in such a base, even if it meant a base for just one war?
Or just improve the existing base, much cheaper and more effective than trying to keep 2 bases open, which would end up as being 2 poorly defended bases!
Trident :diablo:
No need to go straight to Trident. If there is a few weeks we can get AWE to make a batch of a few WE.177 air dropped nukes.
pppThe MoD is completely negligent, everyone knows this, just a complete money pit.
pppIn terms of program complexity, Concorde was on a whole other level than any Neuron/Taranis-follow up.
Yes, Concorde didn’t end up getting ordered in large numbers, but it was certainly a flagship program, with final assembly lines in both countries.
Sure, but this is with reference to protectionism, programme domination, and workshare allocation, not sales figures or how good the aircraft is.
Jaguar, Transall C-160, Airbus A-400M, Eurocopter Tiger, Eurocopter NH-90, Alpha Jet, etc, etc, etc… Airbus, MBDA, Eurocopter, UMS, EADS, etc, etc, etc… Do i really need to go on?
Again, none of these are suitable examples, and as I keep saying, there are no examples as the most recent example is Eurofighter/Rafale. Take Jaguar for example, it didn’t interfere with France’s Mirage series. In any case, Jaguar predates the Typhoon/Rafale projects. It’s useless you trying to guess what will happen, as only time can tell if the French are ready to move on from their ridiculous demands during the Eurofighter/Rafale programme leadup, or not.
Sign In
