Perhaps we shouldn’t continue in this thread, I will post in the Japanese one.

Every cell in my being cries out not to get drawn into a 2002 style discussion on this, but the fact is that Typhoon will be taking over the Storm Shadow launch role in a matter of months when Tornado bows out.

If the RAF want it to carry two missiles underwing then it will carry two and use the tankers they have. If they decide this is too much like had work (they are very proud of their tanking capability though, its almost like they enjoy it), then CFTs may appear. At this stage CFTs dont seem to be that important.

I can’t get enough images of the F35 at sea.

Not long till the UK gets its turn.

ooookay….

I wasn’t being fallacious. I assume it takes a significant number of man-hours to build and train these units which then are potentially exposed to a counter strike when they launch. Are you saying that this was their first shot based on the fact that they have filmed it?!

I only talk about this incident by the way. I’m not talking about Turkish/Syrian/Russian attack aircraft at low level.

Is there any reason why that report is credible? I can’t read Russian and don’t think much of the images used, but you might be able to add some context?

I would say that the potential shared ground for the UK and Japan is fairly obvious- timelines, operational need and technical abilities dovetail quite nicely. I don’t think the UK will repeat the Eurofighter experience with France/Germany etc, the Turkish fighter is not what the UK will want or need and that leaves us with a joint project with the US.

The latter is undesirable because it is likely that we will be involved in producing F35s for over a generation and the chance of any sovereign design work is slim on a future US led F22/Typhoon replacement project.

As to Japan not wanting to upset the US with a UK/Japanese project: the F22 was denied them, so they bought the F35 (and will likely do so again) without any resistance. That is an established procurement route that will be ongoing for decades. Why should they buy more US equipment than that? Is Japan a US colony?