John KThe Nimrod MRA4 programme was almost complete. The only saving was the £2 billion of running costs over the next decade. The capability has gone, even though the aircraft have been bought and paid for (and now smashed to pieces). Why on earth does anyone think this anti-defence government would possibly buy a new aircraft to fulfil a role that they deem surplus to requirements? The Chancellor of the Exchequer could only bring himself to call the carriers “those things”, and would undoubtedly have cancelled them but for their watertight contracts. Do not expect anything on defence from this government. The only plan they seem to have is to pull out of Afghanistan in 2015, come hell or high water.
John KWhilst the Nimrod airfarmes are being destroyed, I would hope that they are first stripped of the radar, computers and other kit inside them. Surely even this government would not be mad enough to wreck these items?
I wonder if one day they could be retrofitted into another suitable airframe?
John KGiven that JCBs are already smashing the Nimrods to pieces, it won’t happen. The £4 billion spent on these aircraft has simply been pissed up a wall. This is worse even than TSR2, and a shocking indictment of a government which is illiterate on defence.
John KThe original South Atlantic guard ship was HMS Protector, a converted netlayer, followed by the first Endurance, so the name is traditional.
John KI would keep Ark Royal and Illustrious in service, together with their Harriers and AEW Sea Kings, keep the four Type 22s, keep all four Bay class landing ships, and allow BAE to finish the Nimrod MRA4 programme, which was near to completion anyway. I’m sure that would come to a lot less than £5bn. The most expensive component would be the Nimrods, but again, most of the money has been spent.
John K“Dust off”? That assumes the existence of enough in storage, still flyable, & that ain’t the case.
If you really think that the USMC should operate what is by modern standards a light attack aircraft, it’d be immeasurably easier & cheaper to adopt one which is in production, rather than trying to recreate something which hasn’t been built for 60 years, & for which you’d have to re-establish production of just about every part.
Obviously I was joking about the Corsair, but I happen to think that an aircraft like the Tucano would be a very useful thing to have in Afghanistan. As it is, we have eight Tornados which are there at great cost, and cost about £40,000 an hour to fly. That’s not what you need in a COIN war. I think the RAF Tornado mafia made sure the Tornados went to Afghanistan as a ruse to make sure they were kept and the Harriers scrapped.
John KIn case they need some air support if the F35B gets canned. A few squadrons of Corsairs would come in very handy in Afghanistan.
John KJohn,
You are aware the the boeing x32 was direct vectored thrust and lost out, quite badly, to the lift fan layout?.
Getting half your lift thrust from a cold stage is massively efficient as you have the rotation in the turbine to tap inherently. Its also far safer having the hot nozzle as far aft as possible to minimise the risks of hot gas ingestion.
The lift fan occupies space in the air frame but its performance figures still equate to those of non stovl legacy types like Hornet and Fulcrum so its hardly a significant issue is it?
Well, we will have to wait and see, but purely from the point of view of simplicity of design I don’t much like lift fans, they use up space and weight, not to mention the various gearing mechanisms they need. There is a lot to go wrong, and a lot to get damaged. I still think the Marines should dust off a few Corsairs just in case.
John KActually, the F-35 is even more risky and complex than the osprey. With the Harrier, they built the aircraft around the Pegasus engine which was designed specifically for STOVL. With the F-35, they had to use a conventional fifth generation design and adapt both the airframe and a conventional turbofan engine for STOVL operation. Its been tried many times before and hasn’t exactly worked. In fact, the only STOVL design (and there have been tons of them since the 60s) to have satisfactory service is still the purpose designed harrier.
I agree, the Pegasus engine was a most elegant design, and the system of ducted thrust was comparatively simple, avoiding most of the awkward and complicated lift fans used by other VSTOL designs, including the F35B.
I’m afraid the F35B is just a rather complex and clunky design, having to carry around a huge and useless ducted fan which is of no use in level flight, just taking up space and weight. Can it be made to work? We’ll find out in due course, but for my money the Marines might well be better served by a few rocket firing F4U Corsairs!
John KLord Jim:
The decision to axe the Harrier fleet was apparently taken just days before the SDSR was finalised, at the behest of Sir Jock Strap, who wanted to save his beloved Tornados. The decision to axe the almost completed Nimrod MRA4 fleet makes even less sense. I have no confidence at all that questions such as sortie rates or surge capacity will have been seriously considered. The coalition has displayed a dillettante and frivolous attitude twoards vital areas of national defence, and I look upon it with the contempt it richly deserves.
John KIf Britain had got involved in Vietnam, then I think the Buccaneers would have been the plane that was needed. I could easily see Hermes and Victorious operating in an attack heavy mode, with a full squadron of 12 Buccaneers, sacrificing Sea Vixens as necessary.
I am sure the Americans would have appreciated the Buccaneers, but the V bombers would also have been very welcome. Vulcans could drop 21,000 lbs, Victors 35,000 lbs, which is quite a payload, second only to the B52, and in my opinion the two V bombers were better aircraft. With the Polaris force taking over the deterrent role in 1967/8, these planes could have been put to very good use.
On the ground, Britain had a lot of jungle fighting experience from Malaya and the Indonesian Confrontation, and I’m sure the Gurkhas would have been used to good effect. As it was, Britain preferred to retreat back to Europe, join the EEC and hope that the rest of the world would leave us alone. Some hope!
John KA Harrier 3 is starting to look like it would have been an even more sensible idea.
I agree. A simple VSTOL bomb truck is one thing, a supersonic stealthy VSTOL aircraft is quite another. If it’s even possible, it will be fabulously expensive. I really do think the uSMC has been guilty of hubris over this. The Harrier should have been developed and kept in production. Too late now of course.
John KOK… I’ll bite.
So, which 70%+ of the US land area do you think the US will lose?
I mean… all 3 of your examples only happened after those Empires gave up huge amounts of territory (which generated the majority of their yearly national wealth):
Rome suffered massive internal disruption and strife, leading to withdrawal from Britain, Gaul, Palestine, Greece, Spain, and so on… resulting in the loss of everything but the Italian peninsula itself.
Spain lost Mexico, Central America, and almost half of South America to revolutions. Then the US took the two remaining remnants of their empire… Cuba & the Philippines.
Britain slowly gave up half of Africa, all of India, Burma, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
So, what do you see the US losing to cause that massive loss in income comparable to your examples?
You are comparing 3 widespread empires composed mostly of conquered peoples & territory to a unified, integrated nation of citizens.
I am sure you really undertand the point I’m making. The USA has gone from being the world’s biggest creditor to its biggest debtor. It was the world’s only military superpower, but you can only maintain that if you have the economic strength, which, increasingly, the USA does not have any more. In that context, the US will have to start cutting its coat according to its cloth, there’s only so much it can afford.
John KScooter I do feel that the plane that the USMC wanted was a modern Harrier, that could land vertically on the new LHAs and possibly deploy to a rough location, as was RAF practice in West Germany. Sadly it would seem to me that the F35B is not that aircraft, it cannot take off with a large load from an LHA, as is demonstrated by the RN requiring a far bigger vessel CVF to achieve the same result, it has problems returning to small vessels with much of a load and is not yet shall one say signed off as structually sound. Yes as someone put it is the closest plane to the requirement of the USMC, trouble is that there is acountry mile between what the USMC as i percieve it want and what the aircraft can do, is this not one of the reasons that the F35B project has just slipped another 2 years? The USMC and its paymasters the Department of the Navy and the DoD I would have thought need to look hard at if it is feasible at all to have F35Bs on LHAs with their present performance envelope.
I think you have a very good point. The problem with VSTOL is that it is quite “do-able”, until you want a supersonic capability, at which point it becomes very expensive. The Marines could have had a Super Harrier with no trouble, but the F35B is a very different animal. Do the Marines really need a stealthy, supersonic $100 million bomb truck? I’m sure it will get built, but is it the best use of funds? It’s a similar question to the Osprey, nice to have, no doubt, but was it the best use of scarce resources? How many Sea Stallions could you have bought for a tenth the cost of the Osprey programme?
It does seem clear that what the Marines would like (not what they can afford) is their own dedicated carrier force, akin to WWII CVEs, which will stay with them during a landing, whatever the fleet carriers may be up to. But do a handful of F35Bs on an LHA really constitute that? The LHA will have to juggle the roles of a commando carrier with a mini aircraft carrier. God luck with that.
I’m not saying that items like the F35B or the Osprey aren’t nice to have, but the USA is in a financial black hole, something which I don’t think many Americans appreciate. There comes a time when great empires can no longer afford the costs of defending their influence, it happened to Rome, Spain, and to Britain only 60 years ago. The way America is going, it will happen to them sooner rather than later.
John KIf you want an LPH, it has to make sense to keep the LPH, not the CVL. Not that any of this makes any sense to me.
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