The whole problem IS short term

Not really. We ideally have to try and plan as well as possible for the long term as well.

In 2008 the “whole problem” was a due short term due payment of 450 million pounds. 2 years of delay solved that… And caused a 1.56 billion cost increase.

Short termism is a problem and a sentence that might be impossible to avoid, and the MOD might have no alternative but to be short-termist once more, but by no means can it ever be pictured as the right solution and way to proceed.

I meant Hawkeye and Greyhound and if I was a couple of years out on the design date I think the point is still valid. These carriers must be seen as ships that will operate in 2030-50 time frame and are we genuinely going to use 90 year old aircraft on them by that time?

As a matter of fact, regardless of how old the airframe design might be, there is simply no competitor on par to what Hawkeye 2D and Greyhound offer. And there likely won’t be serious competition for many years still, so, wasn’t for the cost, the “old” E2D would still be, unquestionably, the best solution of all.

The Hawkeye 2D is better than the E3 Sentry under a sensors and avionics point of view (from CEC to air to ground radar modes), and there’s still a long time to wait and a lot of money to spend before a drone can match Hawkeye.
As a matter of fact, there is not a single UAV at the moment carrying a big, powerful AEW radar such as that of Hawkeye. Indeed, there’s not a drone flying with even just a Searchwater 2000/Cerberus equivalent system. They are not even on the drawing boards, nor on the horizon.

The Lynx radar of a Reaper sees ground targets, and at just around 65 km of range at that.
The Global Hawk BAMS has much still to prove, and is not an AEW, but a surface search asset anyway. It also is unsuited to carrier ops.

It is not lack of optimism. It is lack of funding, at least for the moment, and realism, that shape my remarks.

We do agree on the UAVs being probably the future, though. Even if we could argue a long time about how far that future might still be.

But the UAV future really kind of goes in favor of EMALS, cables and F35C.
Once you’ve go a catapult that can regulate the power it launches with, and potentially fire in the air up to 45 tons of mass, you are more that reasonably covered for 50 or more years of development in aerospace technology.
Also because you can piggy-back on the USN money and development efforts by adopting their systems and solutions.

I admit that i might not be entirely up to date, but last i heard EMKIT was sized for a 500 kg drone and could throw perhaps a Predator MQ-1A, the old Predator that started the species.

“Lengthening” the rail, “cutting the deck” and increasing the performances envelope sounds very straightforward and easy, but other “straightforward” and “inexpensive” ideas include putting new wings on Nimrod MR2 and preparing a british EMALS with two rails instead of 4 and converting CVF.

Both have turned out being not that straightforward at all in reality.
In the extreme case of Nimrod, well… facepalm.
Sure, Nimrod is a special case, but you get the point. I’m always more than a tad skeptical about such great plans that step away so much from what is being done or even envisioned, in the UK and abroad.

Let’s face it, as of now, the UK and France are very late in the drone race, and are at ground zero in terms of navalized drone airplanes other than for the 2001 trial of Scan Eagle on a Type 23 and the current joint program of France and US to develop and test a rotary wing drone converting an helo in an unmanned machine. Both are ages away from what is being suggested now.

This is what the US Navy is doing to get an UCAV in its carrier air wings by 2020 (new timeframe, 2018 proved financially too ambitious in times of cuts), to give an idea: http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120325/DEFFEAT01/303250005/All-Hand-Movements-Deck?odyssey=mod|nextstory
To get a Mantis drone as a MASC solution will require similar steps to be moved, and unless the US help the UK sharing their magic, the UK has to start from zero, and at the moment there is no plan, no study, no funding for doing it. Sadly.

It is a fascinating idea for the future, perhaps, but it has no realistic relevance at the moment in shaping what is done with the carriers.

CVF and JCA problem these days really does come down to, essentially:

Money – F35C costs a minimum of 10 million dollars less than an F35B, in all DoD and LM data. Possibly more than that.
F35B has a maintenance penalty potentially implying as much as 25% more through life cost.
F35B, however, comes with the cheapest ship configuration and avoids sizeable short term expense. According to some, it will be easier and cheaper to train personnel for the B and keep them carrier current than doing so with the C. So much so to balance the higher acquisition and mainteinance costs, when the savings are summed to the money saved on catapults, according to a current of thought.
Personally, i think that technology is rapidly closing much of the gap, and every day that passes the training penalty for CATOBAR ops is reducing. Things have changed a lot from 2001, and are bound to change even more.
Swallowing a bit of pride and doing like France and Italy, having naval pilots trained in the UK not just for the first few years of the F35 service life but forever is also likely to remove lots of cost and issues.

Which one makes for the best choice?
Really hard to answer.

– Politics. Here the F35C/CATOBAR combination is a clear winner. It matters to the US, to France, and a further rethink would be embarrassing like hell for the government to announce and defend. Politically, it is the most effective choice.

Ever since 2005 it also been widely reported and rumored and even said by LM spokesmen that the RAF wanted F35C for Tornado replacement. At one point a mixed buy of 80 B and up to 58 C was expected.
If they still want it just as badly, it is going to have a weight in the decision.

The F35C is a political winner. History teaches that this means a lot.

Or do you think the plan is to have both CVFs but the QE will be an LPH whilst PoW will be a CV?

It is a possible outcome, but i’m hoping to avoid that. The idea is to use the CVF as a Landing Helicopter Aviation ship, with both able to carry a fixed wing complement, along with Marines and helicopters.
One carrier/LHA and one LPH won’t work too well, as there will be ample periods of time in which the task group goes out without fixed wing aviation. It could happen, but it would be stupidity at its best, and i hope to have both carriers aviation capable.

They might stay with the F35C… but that means getting only ONE carrier, end of the story. And i don’t like it. I prefer two with F35B than one with the C.

Sidewinder 9X won’t be integrated for internal use on the F35, no. The US are not bothering to find a solution to fit a rail inside the bay for it to work.
Acquisition of target would not be a problem because, like ASRAAM, the Sidewinder X can lock-on after launch, but physically you’d have to modify the missile for drop-launch, or find a way to fit a rail to the weapon bay door, which is what is probably being done with ASRAAM.

The happy ones will be the Australians, who also use ASRAAM, and thanks to the UK money will have the F35 ready for it.

As to Meteor, i hope it will be integrated, eventually. MBDA is making sure that the missile is ready.
My fear is that the RAF will hesitate more than a fair bit about spending money on the requirement, especially as they might perceive a “do it all” F35 carrier-based as a threat to Typhoon and to their own expeditionary warfare capabilities.

They are used to be able to tell government that the embarked RN planes can’t fire this or that and that they are needed for doing the job.
My worry is that they might be tempted to make sure that the situation continues even when the F35 arrives.

I hope i’m being paranoid, but i can’t help being worried.

However that info wont be available till both variants have had extensive sea trials in a few years time

True, and unfortunately a choice is needed now, since the first few UK F35s should be part of next year’s LRIP, and a commitment to long lead orders in that case is to be made within this year.

By the way, chasing material for my article in the works i’ve found this article, which draws a picture which clashes very hard with all what we’ve heard this far.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=493978&version=1&template_id=38&parent_id=20

Meanwhile, the official position of the MOD and of government has come out:

There were a number of articles in the papers over the weekend which claim that the MOD is preparing to make an announcement about its purchase of Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

The MOD is currently finalising the 2012-13 budget and balancing the Equipment Plan. This means reviewing all programmes, including elements of the carrier strike programme, to validate costs and ensure risks are properly managed.

The Defence Secretary expects to announce the outcome of this process to Parliament before Easter.

The intention to move to a ‘cats and traps’ based carrier strike capability, which was announced in the Strategic Defence and Security Review, was always subject to a detailed piece of work to assess the costs and risks involved in converting a Queen Elizabeth Class carrier. That work is ongoing.

I think the government are more interested in getting the carriers in service before 2020

No chance of them entering service BEFORE 2020.
The government would already be happy if the 2020 date was effectively met: there are worries that it might not be met. This, at most, could be the concern.

Meanwhile, i’m trying to get an idea of costs of the B and C. I’m writing an article on the F35 issue for my blog right now, and here are some of the considerations i’m dealing with:

The problem with the B is the engine: judging from LRIP 5 contract, a single STOVL propulsion plant comes at 129 million dollars or more against 27 for the engine of a C.

The airframe of the C costs more.

However:

– these contracts are confusing like hell
– the contract includes unspecified instrumentation peculiar to test and development
– LRIP 5 includes just 3 B engines to spread costs upon, distorting the data

The 3 F35B the UK has already ordered cost 389 million pounds, some 129.6 million pounds each all inclusive, in 2010. That made for 632 million USD at the time.

LRIP 5 costs are estimated at 235.8 USD million for a C and 291.7 USD millions, with the engine of the B being the main cause of the difference in cost, but both figures are heavy with the costs typical of pre-production aircrafts.
The A in LRIP 5 costs 172 millions, but LM has promised to Japan that in 2015 they will pay 126 USD million for their own F35A.
That’s a very substantial difference, and the other two variants should also see their cost dropping significantly.

The problems are:

– I fear no one has a clear idea of which variant will cost more to run through life. Probably the C, looking at the current balance of cost between CATOBAR, the naval aviation of who’s got money, and STOVL operations at sea. But by how much will the C eventually overcome the B’s cost?
Technology is probably going to make CATOBAR ops much easier, but then again, technology could also further reduce STOVL training needs. And STOVL has a big headstart advantage in this regard, so it will probably stay cheaper in the long term as well.

– With the current diffence in cost, assuming equal through life running costs, going B makes little sense as a buy of 50 airframes of B as of now would cost as 50 C plust a 1.8 billion conversion.
That would condemn the second CVF hull though: no money, no conversion.

– Additional problem: even assuming the C really costs that much less, the MOD has not enough funds available and the government will not do the sensible thing, which would be providing the conversion cost for the carrier from the Treasury reserve and claw it back later with savings on the aircraft purchase.
So, either the MOD finds one billion in cuts in the forces to pay for conversion from the budget it has (and one billion is roughly the cost of running the whole RN surface fleet, to give idea of the proportions), or there is no alternative to going STOVL, avoiding the unaffordable short term expense, even if it means ordering less airplanes later because they undoubtedly won’t get a bigger F35 budget either.

It really is a difficult choice to make, and even the MOD does not have all the info it needs to decide, because so much of the possible future financial implications are, at the moment, nearly impossible to guess.

The step back to the B variant, to me, looks more of an attempt to secure both carriers for service than a purely financial decision, because the factors at play balance the financial aspect: both planes are expensive.
But with CATOBAR, the chances of having two fit for service carriers are next to none, and i think this is having an impact as well. Which is, by all means, a good thing, because i definitely think that both hulls are needed.