Ship 741Where is the Chinese threat to Europe? Are China a threat to Taiwan? Yes. To Japan? Potentially, as they are a potential threat to India. But Europe? Sorry, but scare mongering over China to increase the UK defence budget is crazy, it’s not our job to defend Asia (even if the Asians wanted us to which I find very hard to believe) just as Asia would hardly see as a duty of theirs to join in and defend Europe if things did ever kick off over here. On Russia, we can defend ourselves Russia now, and if the situation changes then we change our policies accordingly, but even there I don’t see much threat of war despite some hysterical over reaction to a few Bear flights over the North Sea.
But altertken speaks of “interdependence” and Sealord speaks of “the international system.” And they are correct.
I am not concerned about defense of Britain per se, but defense of western life and western values. That implies defense of our allies and those who have embraced our quasi-capitalist system: Japan, Australia, Canada, etc. Britian has to do her part like all the others.
The world is shrinking (telecomm and aviation) and cultures are clashing. I would like for the competition to be confined to the markets and universities (ideas and products for a better life), but I don’t trust that all our competitors will agree.
In the meantime we have to make economic choices. Those choices limit future options.
Edit: I just re-read my post and in it I appear to imply that I am British. I am not in fact, but rather part of the wider western group to which I refer.
Ship 741…..military procurement is irrelevant without intention as it is intention that inspires it.
Does this apply to the Chinese as well?
Ship 741Thanks for posting. This is the first video I have seen of Rafale landing on a carrier. I am amazed at the extreme nose high attitude, no doubt facilitated by the canards and the FBW flight control system. The nose is so high it appears to restrict forward visibility in the final segment of the approach.
Ship 741Sealord, it seems to me you make the classic military mistake of confusing intentions with capabilities. I don’t think anyone with any knowledge of the subject would deny that China is rapidly increasing their military capability, yet you appear to perceive no threat because they are not consistently or overtly aggressive (yet).
Similarly, Russia seems to be intent on re-generating some of their military capabilities, and their oil revenues have increased significantly.
Europe faces no military threat and there is none on the horizion? I guess it’s all roses and happiness then (sic)….lets all meet at a rock concert and toke right up!
The reality is we live in a world governed by the aggressive use of force.
And I still hope alertken will weigh in at some point.
Ship 741Very interesting alertken. You seem to have a handle on history, economics, and geo-politics.
Its kinda OT, but I would be interested to hear your assessment of A380 sales potential to Japanese air carriers, given the perception that Europeans wouldn’t (couldn’t) lift a finger to stop China should they choose to overrun all of Asia, whereas the U.S. Sixth Fleet is, in fact, based in Yokosuka.
Not to mention the severe import tariffs placed on Japanese automobile imports into mainland Europe (vis a vis the U.S.).
Ship 741Its true that the seat mile costs are impressive, the block costs are also. They should be….its a “new” airplane. The seat mile costs will get even more impressive when stretched versions are built.
But that is not the end of the story…..what about acquisition costs and other operational costs (landing fees). The empty weight of the A380 is significantly more than the 744, and the high density airports at which it can be expected to operate are reputed to have some of the highest landing fees on the planet (sorry I don’t have data to support that, but it is commonly accepted). The combination of high cost airports and higher weight are a double whammy. Airlines rarely fill their seats more than 80% consistently, but the higher weight airframe remains.
Edit: just looked up the data, the difference in empty weight between A388 and B744 is about 204,000lb, or the maximum takeoff weight of an A321, not insignificant.
Ship 741Sounds like the 787 may have a distinct market advantage due to the bleedless engines.
Also, there was a C-141 crash a long time ago due to an onboard fire causing toxic chemicals which irritated the pilot’s eyes so badly that they could not see. So, in a way, it has happened already. (side note: the C-141 crash caused smoke goggles to become standard equipment)
Ship 741Does anyone have cost information breakdown for the SH? For instance, what percentage of the total cost is avionics?
Furthermore, isn’t it cheaper to do fleet defense electronically rather than thru brute force…..ie., an AESA equipped SH shooter linked into a network that has Improved E-2C/D and Aegis data feeds versus an old F-14, operating pretty much independently, lugging 30 year old Phoenix missiles 400 nm out from the carrier?
Ship 741I guess nobody much cares about this topic, or perhaps there isn’t a lot to say. Nevertheless, I find it interesting.
There was a related article in Av. Week this week, talking about the competitor to Leap56, the P&W GTF, (Geared Turbo Fan), “winning” a competition to be on a new Mitsubishi RJ.
In the article, P&W states the advantages they see regarding the GTF over conventional power, and state that they have been investing about $100 million/year for some time on this technology.
Pratt is quoting only about a 12% improvement in burn, with another 5-7% to come by 2020 with further development. It seems as if neither competitor has an advantage, with GE talking the same ballpark figures, ie., 10-15%.
It’s long term stuff, but someone is going to emerge in the next few years as the engine maker of choice for the A320/737NG replacement aircraft, which in and of themselves are interesting.
Ship 741Pratt has been sliding downward versus the competition for some time now IMHO.
I can’t figure how they keep getting USAF contracts, other than, how can we say, possibly shady deals?
Perhaps Senator McCain should have spent some time looking into the USAF/P&W relationship instead of focusing solely on Boeing when he started digging into the bogus 767 lease deal. IIRC, USAF has announced that P&W will get the engines for that deal too, if the 767 ends up getting selected. Kinda strange to get selected for the engine when the frame hasn’t even been selected yet, and when the CF-6-80C2 is a better engine anyway (IMHO).
Ship 741Hey INO, it is great to benefit from you knowledge. I have a couple of questions, hope the answers are not classified!
How does the Navy utilize the different variants? For instance, what missions are the 1 seater used for versus the 2 seater? I can see advantages/disadvantages to most scenarios. For instance, what pilot doesn’t want more gas (1 seater). On the other hand, that WSO is worth his/her weight in gold when the task load gets high. Of course, if you run out of jets, I suppose you could swap them pretty much interchangeably. Is this done? I’ve looked on the internet for this kind of operational information and can’t find much discussion about how the different subvariants are actually used.
Are the AESA and upgraded software scheduled to be backfitted onto early SH? I thought when they first came out there was a lot of talk about COTS technology that was easily up-gradeable.
Are legacy Hornets ever used for tanking with the buddy pods? If technically possible, it would seem to make more sense than tying up a SH as a tanker.
Finally, so much has been said about the low apch spds and safety aspect in and around the carrier, and also the reliability. Now that the SH has been in the fleet a couple of years, have these safety and reliability hopes been shown to be real? I seem to remember that something like 25% of the Tomcats that were built were lost.
Ship 741But wouldn’t the Growler be more capable in any event because it has EASA and the AN/ALQ-99 pods.
I’m not sure, but I think the pods have received updates also, so they are more capable than previous versions also.
Also, won’t all future SH aircraft be “Growler capable?” IE., every airplane will have all the software and hardware to do the EW mission, it’s just a matter of putting the pods on and getting an appropriately trained crew.
Ship 741Does anyone know if QANTAS has Dispatchers? If so, do the have licenses/certificates and joint responsibility?
Schorsch, which safety regulation are you referring to?
Ship 741You forgot an important fact. One that I suspect will always follow it throughout its life, however long that will be.
The A380 has replaced the Lockheed L1011 Tristar and the most delayed Commercial jet in history, with almost 800 days between first flight and delivery of first unit to a customer.
The L1011 may have been late, and it’s service history was plagued by reliability problems, but it set new standards for safety. Let’s hope the A380 will be as safe.
Let’s also hope AI can pick up some more sales soon, so the taxpayers don’t end up bailing out the whole project ala the $500 toilet seats on the C-5 program.
Ship 741I know I said I wasn’t worried about the generators themselves, but lets go down that road a little bit…..IIRC the 787 will used variable speed constant frequency generators. These VSCF gens have caused horrendous reliability problems on the MD-90, though they have been relatively trouble free as the 777 backup 20kva generator. Once again, if Boeing does their homework right it should be ok.
Continuing down the general avionics concern track I would say I also have major concerns about dirty power (caused probs on 757/767) and software. No doubt there will be a lot of software…how well will it be hashed out?
Air Conditioning and Pneumatics were a major cause of service disruptions on the 767. I’m thinking the total redesign/bleedless system is as much about reliability as fuel savings. I hope they get it right…those fans are supposed to turn around 40,000 rpm and suck enough air out of the thin atmosphere at 40,000 feet to pressurize the fuselage for thousands of hours on end.
Keeping in mind these concerns are over and above all the primary stuff, like engine IFSD rate.
At any rate, I’m off my original point an rambling now….I apologize.
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