So no one outside of the US, Russia and France have ever produced any good fighters? Good to know.

Can we leave this stupid debate please, neither of you will get the other to see your point of view. NOR does it have anything to do with CVF.

The only thing that needs to be said is that no one here believes the funds for CVF (or the rest of our defence budget) should be cut and given to the poor Africans.

Does CVF have a “cooled” deck to compensate for F35B ops? Any links?

Nope, but has it been proved that its even needed yet?

I’m afraid I can’t agree with this bleeding heart stuff. The Royal Navy actually ended the slave trade two hundred years ago, and these states have been independent for fifty years. They are not the responsibility of the British state and the British taxpayer. If any private citizens wish to make charitable donations to African education then good for them, it’s their decision how to use their own money.

Certain nations actively made the choice after independence to ignore our arrogant colonial advice and severely break with economic systems we put in place. Those also happen to be some of the worst off nations now. We’d tried to help since we gave them independence and those that rejected it often ended up worse off, that’s their own damn fault. We’ve shown that we’re willing to help to improve a bad situation.

I know perfectly well of the latest firings of the PAAMS system. But i’ll feel better when the Daring itself fires its first Sea Viper and validates the concepts into practice.

And you are wrong. HMS Conqueror WAS NOT the only SSN down around the Falklands. Even a few of the last diesel-electric subs were deployed south back then, and until the General Belgrano was sunk, the Argies hadn’t exactly been waiting in their ports. An ari attack from their carrier, the Venticinquo de Mayo, was erased merely because of adverse weather.
After HMS Conqueror’s victory, the carrier was called back altogether, but that was an (arguable) choice of the Argies.

If the First Sea Lord almost cried to get at least 8 Astutes, he evidently sees a need for them. Shame that, at the most, 7 will come in line. At the worst, 6.
And to have 1-2 subs to deploy to a crisis zone swiftly, you need to have a minimum fleet: with the SSNs being in months long cruises, you may have several of them very far away, and others unavailable for refit or other reasons.

Just as 2 aircraft carriers are the least number required to have one always available (the combined availability of the two CVFs was stated in 550-some days a year, i think), the rest of the fleet has its needs.

In ten years of labour, over 60 ships left the RN. Only 15 were ordered in the same time. But i see that no one is worried about the shrinking of the fleet.
I don’t like it, personally. Some shrinking was evidently due… but so much…? In ten years the RN grew far smaller. Next thing we see is the replacement of Type 23 and 22 and of the minesweepers. How much smaller will it get…?

I didn’t mean that only one SSN went south, I meant it only took one to send the Argentinians back to port.

But I do agree the fleet is too small, I just meant that if it came to one short conflict against Argentina we would be able to bring enough to bear to win still.

Again this stupidity..
Could you please share your knowledge, how to elaborate the RCS of an aircraft for all wave lengths from a picture ????????????

Ummm what? I asked a question, I didn’t once claim to know the RCS, i’d hoped someone could provide a little more knowledge on the T50’s stealth abilities for me. I just remember hearing that whilst there was some stealth shaping it didn’t appear to be as complete as the rival F22.

Is or will be? In its current prototype form it is probably not that stealthy at all, since it lacks pretty much any signature reduction measures other than its basic shape (no RAM, no canopy coating, no inlet blocker, some non-aligned panels, conventional nozzles). Potentially, I could see it matching the F-35 in production form, depending on how well the problem areas identified above are addressed.

Taranis probably has even more potential, but that would be a function of its role (more modest performance requirements to balance against LO) rather than superior engineering.

Interesting. I did mean the production version and based mainly on shaping since the other areas are much harder for us to get information on.

they say it will fly at woomera flight-test range in 2011 but if you include someone posted that they saw taranis undated pics in 2008 with ‘woomera like’ background, it gets even more interesting
its possible that next year may just be the public release

a little know fact and worth googling is that UK was the leader in VLO when it shared its tech with usa who had the R&D money
i wont mention that the atomic bomb was the same story and the aussie mark oliphant involvement

Raven (the sub-scale demonstrator of similar shape and predecessor to Taranis) flew at Woomera, perhaps the person got confused. As someone else said, there were also CGI mockups – although admittedly it is quite hard to tell a CGI airframe on a real background from a real plane with Taranis thanks to its shape and colouring.

If it goes up against anyone with a plausable air force, or air defence system, it could provide some realistic target practice. Against barefoot tribesmen with nothing more than AK-47’s it could be very effective.

Care to elaborate? Are the silly British trying to play aircraft again and only making things for killing savages with sharpened fruit?

Seems to be an awful lot of petty nationalism flying around in this thread… For those debating at what level UK VLO is at the UKs first VLO airframe was “Replica” and that project ran in the mid 90s. see picture below(via spyflight)

Seems to me that BAE for once has come up trumps and has developed a cracking piece of kit on what is essentially a shoe string budget, especailly when its compared to the X-45 project, for what seems to be a heavier larger aircraft

Very interested in the various sources, including todays minister talking about “intercontinental” range. It is fitted with a very efficient engine and appears to be a volumous airframe, but I do wonder what “intercontinental” actually means. Is the RAF about to get back into the bomber game?

I really was hoping for intercontinental range. It’d provide so many possibilities that we lost since our last V bombers went. Anyone know if BAE has done any work on AAR for UCAVs?

It’s good to see that Britain has all the knowledge and industrial capability to make an indigenous UAV from A to Z. That’s something precious for us Europeans.

Kudos to them!

I’m sure the French could do the same as well. They just seem to have been bogged down in yet another Euro project which as we all know slows things a bit. But I have to say it is nice to see the UK leading industry for once.

I like How the entire concept of VLO is only marketing UNTIL the board members nation developes its own VLo platform. I wonder If 5th generation will begin to exist if the french ever roll out a fighter?

Since that quoted my post i’ll assume that was directed at me? But i’ve never once said that VLO wasn’t useful or that its just marketing. The Generation question I do think is stupid though, and France rolling out a fighter wouldn’t change that.

Russia (T-50). Many countries are working at various stages on VLO technology, but that includes the likes of Iran 😉

Fair enough, but how stealthy is the T50? I’m not saying it isn’t LO but on a scale of LO platforms we currently know about roughly where would it place?

And 3rd out of about 10-15 isn’t that bad. And neither would be a 2018-2020 ISD.

You mean second? Out of how many? 😛

And £140 million spent and only ONE aircraft in the air! Oh noes, most expensive aircraft EVER. 😛

Nice to finally see the real thing though. I hope flight testing goes well. Do people think that the 2018-2020 date would be for the model basically as it is now or would they want to effectively use this as the demonstrator for a bigger (eg 2 engine) airframe?

Just been watching the last “How to build…” program on Iplayer. It looks like Qinetiq are working on using a GR4 for UCAV control.

They also seem to make a big deal about wind turbines messing with air traffic radars and the need to make wind turbines “stealthy”. I’m sure I read somewhere a month or 2 back that the UK had just purchased a new radar for the MOD that can work despite the turbines. But it does look like Qinetiq has quite a wealth of knowledge on stealth materials.

As I suggested in my earlier post, I’m talking about a single point removable palletised solution running over the ramp much the same as was done with the RAF C130 CMK1(K).

Use components from buddy store pods to keep the weight down.

That means they can double up in the COD role if necessary.

The key point is how much fuel could it offer but I am certain it would be far better then any buddy pod on the F35b.

Its main role would be to stay close to the carrier and top off any launching strike package and the AEW Merlin.

Oh and good on there Vince Cable if he is looking at the tanker deal. (Don’t be surprised if Marshalls dig up their Tristar offer again as a stop gap!)

Finally what would the navy call the Osprey? I was thinking Osprey HCOD Mark 1(K)

Osprey Helicopter Cargo On Board Delivery Mark 1 (Tanker)

I think it’d only really make sense to use an Osprey for COD and AAR aboard our carriers (and maybe on land for helo refuelling – i’m sure the Specials would love that capability) if they were also being used as our AEW assets. Otherwise we are introducing a totally new aircraft type (a tiltrotor no less) for a very tiny pool of airframes. At least when they came up with our other bespoke carrier aircraft (Sea King ASAC) it was based on a current in service helo with lots of commonality.