Liger30Actually i think the original design had it, but then it was sacrificed pretty early as cost saving measure: the effect was less safety, and the impossibility to have a plane parked and ready to launch just behind the one taking off, slowing down a bit the launch procedure.
With CATOBAR, regardless of the fact it is not mentioned or drawn in the pictures, i think it is kind of obligatory to have it.
Liger30I’m pretty confident that, even in the case that both carriers are converted, things are likely to go on these lines:
2016 – QE launched, without sky jump, and as ready as possible for possible later conversion. HMS Ocean retires shortly after. QE is used to work up expertise, train deck crew and to cover the Commando Carrier/LPH role.
2019 – Prince of Wales is launched, following conversion.
2020 – Prince of Wales hits Carrier Strike IOC with first deployment on board of 6 F35C, as said by admiral Hussain.
2022 – QE hits her first scheduled refit. Catapults and arresting wires fitted if the carriers are both retained and converted.
I always thought it would make no sense to delay and modify QE, as delaying the first of the class inexorably affects the schedule more, and thus pushes costs up a lot more than making changes to the last in the class.
Besides, since the earlier phase of work on PoW and QE overlap, delaying QE would potentially mean having to hire more workers, not just maintaining at work those already there for longer.
There was talk of converting at least a CVF to catapults ever since the crisis with F35B development troubles in 2004/5, and ALWAYS the plan was to convert PoW.
Of course i can be wrong, but the many hints have always made me think this way.
Liger30We might have claimed victory too soon:
“THERE was confusion last night over the UK government’s plans for the new aircraft carriers, as officials claimed that Defence Secretary Liam Fox “misspoke” when he said that both of them would both be prepared for use by fighter jets.
But yesterday the Ministry of Defence insisted that the minister had made a mistake and had “misspoke”.
A spokeswoman added: “As previously announced, only one of the carriers will get the cat and trap.”
However, Labour MPs, who have been pushing for both carriers to be brought into service to allow for continuous carrier capability in the Royal Navy, as well as boosting jobs on the Clyde and at Rosyth, claimed last night that they had received private assurances from Dr Fox outside the chamber following the statement.
Mr Davidson said that he had taken the Defence Secretary at his word in the Commons and that Dr Fox would need to clarify his statements to MPs if a mistake had been made.”
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Minister-39misspoke-over-fastjet-pledge.6804289.jp
I wish they could be clear and definitive for once…
Liger30“Did someone just say that we will only get 40 F35?”
Bagwell, the head of RAF’s Group 1 with responsibility for all strike jets, in late 2010 said he expected a maximum of 40 F35 by 2020, with a single large combined OCU/Frontline squadron by then. He also said there were expectations in the RAF for a long-term target still indicated literally in “around 100”.
I highly doubt they’ll ever be more than 80, but frankly with 80 i’d be more than happy. It is a realistic fleet, and with 4 squadrons it would indeed be possible to surge 3 on a carrier for a war op. It was always planned that the carrier-capable squadrons would be 4, even at the time of the 150-planes plan.
Hussain talked about 6 jets carrier-ready in 2020, to rise to 12 with time. 18 might not be the number of F35s delivered, but those in the squadron that achieve IOC and begin working up for carrier operations. With the latest F35 production plan slots reserved for the UK, and considering the 2-years time between order and delivery, by 2020 the UK should receive a total of 36 fighters, ordered starting from 2013. Due to the 2-years time for delivery, the orders that matter by 2020 are 36, spread from 2013 to 2018.
If the planned production slots are taken up to 2023, incidentally, the total fleet becomes exactly 80.
However, this will be clear only when an updated F35 production plan is released, or when the report planned in September comes out, i guess/hope.
“That only works if you have unmanned systems too surely? And we wont have those before 2020.”
The sad reality is that it might well be 2030 before a stealthy UCAV comes into service, and it is to be seen if it’ll be carrier-capable. The BAE-Dassault Telemos will be in service, if all goes well, in 2018, but so far there’s no evidence of it being carrier capable. We can hope the RN and French Navy manage to get their own ministries to back their call for the drones to be carrier-compatible: they have between 12 and 18 months, the time the MOD and French Ministry have reserved to refine, agree and issue the final list of requirements for the new drone.
At the moment, for what is know, there’s no carrier capable UCAV or UAV plan of any defined shape on the horizon. The RN is said to be trying to influence the Scavenger requirement, though, which is the RAF requirement behind the Telemos. We have to wish the admirals good luck, and the ministry good sense.
If the Apache AH1 has proven something in Libya, is that the money spent to make it ship capable was VERY well spent.
Liger30I think – hope…? – that there will be short of 40 planes by 2020, but that the F35C will go up to around 80, which should allow 4 squadrons to be formed, 2 Navy-badged and 2 RAF Badged.
They might be based in Marham, i dare speculating. After all, Lossie now is, and will be for the next 30 or more years, the Typhoon and North QRA base, while Marham will be empty when the Tornado GR4 is retired. I already said in several posts why i dare hoping in a 4-squadrons, 80-strong fleet.
By the way, the MOD is negotiating to swap one of the 3 test F35s: the first 2 will be STOVL (too late to remedy), but the third one should be a F35C, with the UK F35B going to the US Marines.
The USMC is quite happy with the move (they need to speed up F35B testing and iron out all problems within 2 years or the B variant will be cancelled) while the US Navy should have no real problems with the change.
It will need the Congress to approve a 10 million USD variation in the 2012 budget, but it should not be much of a problem. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=7128837&c=AME&s=AIR
“If FRES-SV is cancelled in favour of spending a much smaller amount upgrading Warriors, & buying proper off the shelf (i.e. not ‘off the shelf’ so heavily modified it’s really a new type, tailored so closely to a British army requirement that nobody else will ever buy it, & which cost as much to develop as starting from scratch) new AFVs when needed, it can only be a good thing. FRES-SV is a continuation of the slow-motion train crash that has been British AFV procurement for the last 20 years. With the cutbacks to Warrior upgrades because of lack of money, it’s lost its logic.”
I don’t think FRES SV will be cancelled, nor i’m confident that, at this stage, it would be wise to do so. But the Warrior will have a part in downsizing the FRES SV requirement: there will be less new vehicles in exchange for conversions of retired Warriors with the reduction from 9 to 5 Armoured Infantry Battalions.
There’s even a working prototype of a Warrior bridgelayer being trialed and considered, along probably with plans for a Mortar carrier (a Warrior with a breech-loading turret-mounted under-armor mortar was around already a few years ago) and other variants probably under consideration.
We’ll see, i guess.
Liger30ATTENTION EVERYONE:
“Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op): Will the Secretary of State confirm the exact details of the announcement he made in his statement when he said, “I can therefore now give the go-ahead for the procurement of” a list of things, including “the cat and traps for the Queen Elizabeth class carriers”. Does that mean that both carriers will receive cat and traps?
Dr Fox: That is our plan, and I have agreed to my officials now getting involved in contract negotiations. They were not previously able to do so because we were not guaranteed that we would have the budget. When we make decisions of this nature we must ensure that we have the wherewithal to pay for them. Otherwise, as I have said, they are simply a wish list. ”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/c_06.htm
YAY! Confirmation that both are to be fitted, it seems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Liger30We’ll have to wait until September to know more and better, when the 10 years Equipment Plan is announced.
Some programmes, included FRES, reportedly still hang in the balance: something might not fit. The SDSR2015 instead will end up deciding the total number of F35s that are acquired.
Overall, the announcements of yesterday weren’t bad, but i now wait anxiously to see the Equipment Plan in September, hoping that it is not an un-detailed bunch of promises and nice words but a serious assessment of what will be acquired, in which numbers, and when and, even more importantly, under which budget. http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-of-announcements.html
Geoff, can you provide me a link to the Hansard? I’d love to get to hear the whole thing.
Liger30I wish it was so simple… but even if he said carrierS, i suspect we should better keep the optimism real low. I still believe only one will be CATOBAR, at least for the time being.
Liger30“Anybody else who read the NAO audit report and seen the subsequent select commitee meeting video want to slap the moron who created the report for not being able to understand what is meant by 2 rail and 4 rail systems.”
Worst thing is, there’s an army of such morons.
Liger30I also do find the 950 million figure for one ship quite incredible, but then again, that’s what they are saying.
I really don’t know how it can be THAT high, however…
Liger30@90inFIRST
That image is real sweet…! A pity it is so small.
The two larger bays under the massive sponson are likely to be bays for the ship’s boat. It would be very interesting if the new focus on “Carrier Enabled Power Projection” (essentially, using the Carrier as LHA during amphibious ops…) meant that the new angled-deck sponson was exploited to fit a couple of davits capable to take not just boats but LCVP MK5s.
This old image seems to show three “ship’s boat” bays, in which i think i see RHIBs. If these bays were big enough to fit LCVPs, it would help with the Commando Carrier role. The LCAC(L) could still be carried on deck, as happens essentially also with Ocean.
I must also note that R08 (Queen Elizabeth) is now pictured carrying Merlin and Chinook:
While you might have noticed that in the previous image, above, the Carrier Strike is astutely bare of the Pennant number.
Is it a case, or is it thought out…?
Liger30this should please Liger. Spotted in Hansard…
It does please me, but it is not a surprise. It was already planned before SDSR, SDSR confirmed it. The last fear was that there would be a gap between Sea King retirement and Merlin arrival. This should now NOT happen, luckily.
I still expect Sea King MK7 to be cut soon, though, unfortunately, with MASC unlikely to come anytime sooner than 2020 or later.
By the way: discussion in Committee on the NAO report: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=8859
And finally, upgrades appearing on the ACA website: the homepage is still the same, but the section “The Ships” now features a prominent image of a CATOBAR CVF. The “Carrier Strike” section is also probably being worked, on, since at the moment clicking on it brings me to “Careers” page instead…!
Upgrades are probably still ongoing. Keep your eyes open for changes in the next days. There is also a new edition of the Carrier Waves journal on the site, with the latest construction progresses. http://www.aircraftcarrieralliance.co.uk/the-ships.aspx
Given the complexities of working a CVF up from scratch i’m pretty sure now that HMS QE will launch without cats, PoW will get them instead and QE will be used to train on/trials until PoW is launched.
What i’ve been arguing on here and elsewhere in FOREVER, being looked at like i was an alien coming from Mars.
Elements continue to emerge, suggesting that i was probably right from the very first moment, but we’ll see. I definitely think it is the most likely scenario. Also, if HMS Ocean bows out in 2016 as told to the Defence Committee, it means QE enters service in the same years and takes over as LPH too.
If she was the one getting the cats (and thus the delay in ISD), HMS Ocean would still be planned to retire in 2018, i’m guessing.
Liger30@Geoff B
I’m far from annoyed. My only desire is to see CVF operative and loaded with planes, with both ships staying in the Royal Navy. At the same time, i’m firm in expecting that it’ll be PoW that gets converted.
If i’ll be wrong, i’ll be wrong. If i’m right, you’ll have to pay me a beer when i come to the UK to be in Rosyth when QE is launched!
CVNs being nuclear powered means that their top speed is also their cruising speed.
Just for the record, I don’t think the cruise speed is 33 knots for american battlegroups, as that would mean that the escorts should have to cruise at 33 knots themselves or faster, and i don’t think they can.
33 knots is the maximum speed, and the CV might even be able to sustain it for a long time, but i really don’t think it is the speed at which a carrier group cruises.
And while CVF will never reach the performaces of a US carrier, i believe that the carrier will be perfectly able to work, in the RN, as Fleet and Strike carrier and indeed Commando Carrier to answer to the needs of the moment.
Typhoon should stay, 6 frontline squadrons (2 for QRA, 4 for deployments) plus OE, OCU and Falklands flight
Forget it. The Squadrons will only be 5, and we are actually lucky if the number does not drop further.
Liger30No my solution is to cover all needs with limited resources with a large pool of aircraft to cover all needs as and when they arrive. And in my opinion you would have to put that force under the RAF otherwise you would undermine the whole point of the service and make it a token air defence force. Unfortunately if you had a FAA they would still have to spend a large amount of time preforming task that the RAF currently does with its fleet simply because the numbers will not be there for the RAF to do it themselves. If you have FAA aircraft doing coin in Afghan people would question why we need air force at all and in my opinion that is wrong! Again i don’t think we can afford a suitable FAA and a viable RAF.
Perhaps it is not SO wrong.
Also:
Unfortunately if you had a FAA they would still have to spend a large amount of time preforming task that the RAF currently does with its fleet simply because the numbers will not be there for the RAF to do it themselves.
Since air defence is Typhoon’s work, in peacetime the work of the F35 is, simply put, training for war.
In war, its role will be RECCE/ISTAR/Strike with secondary AA role. It will do it from land bases when possible/necessary/efficient, or from the carriers.
I honestly don’t see where the problem is. 800 NAS did it for years in Afghanistan with the Harrier GR9.
Indeed, it is easier for carrier-trained pilots to work ashore than it is for land pilots to operate on the carrier.
Move from a 270 meters runway to a 3 miles one is obviously a whole different world from the opposite.
If the RAF can’t justify its existence just because the FAA does its job, there’s evidently a problem within the RAF.
I don’t see it as a tragedy to have the FAA do her work while the RAF flies the Typhoon, the AWACS, air tankers, cargo and stuff.
The fear of being sidelined because the carrier and its airwing arrive and operate first in a crisis is understandable, but not a good reason at all to argue for the RAF taking it all over. It is, indeed, a lesson: next time, follow the example of the Apache AH1, a land/naval asset that can work from bases and ships alike.
Liger30There are very serious issues with the RAF taking over carrier aviation.
RAF personnel enjoys the nicer Harmony Guidelines of the three services. The Navy’s got the worst ones.
In terms of operational deployments, Navy personnel is expected to spend up to 60% of a 36 months period deployed on operations. This means roughly 660 days of operations over 1100-some days.
In terms of peacetime service, Navy personnel is expected to spend up to 660 days over 36 months at sea, away from home, with each deployment split roughly 60% in open sea and 40% spent for port visits and rest ashore.
The RAF deployment guidelines call for 4 months-long tours of duty, followed by 16 months of break before deploying again, with only 2.5% of the personnel allowed/requested to do more as of government approved guidelines.
In terms of peacetime Separated service, on a 12 months period RAF personnel can be away from the home base for just 140 days maximum.
RAF personnel mostly operates from always the same base, close to the family, to home, to their comforts.
Navy personnel make tours as long as 6, 9 or 10 months in the case of submariners.
In practice, we might have a carrier at sea for 285 days a year, and pilots of its airwing supposed to spend at sea no more than 140 days, and all sort of other problems.
Life in the Navy is a lot less comfortable than life in an airbase ashore, and the personnel is aware of it when they join. I don’t think that asking RAF personnel to live as Navy personnel will have much success in the ranks, sincerely.
There are tons of issues.
UK is expected to buy roughly twice that number of F-35, even by a conservative estimate, around 120 at least.
I fear no. Even if officially the figure for the UK is still 138 planes, there’s no way in hell that it will happen.
In december 2010, post SDSR, Bagwell, RAF’s Group 1 commander, said that there will be around 40 F35C and a single squadron operative come 2020, and that the maximum number of planes acquired will be “around 100”.
The MOD’s Business Plan 2010 and 2011, however, report the end-date of the acquisition effort for the F35 in 2023. At the time of the 150/138 JSF order, the UK acquisition was to stretch as far as 2027.
The last Lockheed Martin-released F35 Production Slots schedule, released in late 2009 and shown in the 2010 JSF report, provides an idea of what the UK could buy within the 2023 date.
The first 2 UK Test F35Bs have been ordered in 2009: LM specifies that between order and delivery, a couple of years pass. These first two planes might arrive late this year or early next one, i don’t yet know what the exact expected delivery date is. The MOD tried to change these to F35Cs after the switch, but LM said it was impossible at the stage reached.
The third and for now last was ordered in 2010, and this one is being negotiated as we speak: LM is opposing resistance, but the MOD wants at least this one, being in early stage, to be swapped for an F35C.
The first orders of production planes for the UK are expected in 2013: the UK has 7 production slots reserved for itself as of November 2009.
0 in 2014.
9 in 2015.
11 in 2016.
3 in 2017.
6 in 2018.
Considering the two years time before delivery, these are the planes that will eventually be around in 2020. The total is 36 (+ 3 test), roughly compatible with the “40” figure. The slots aren’t totally definitive, especially as the other countries will probably change the schedules of their own orders: Israel wants early slots, the US will likely take a bit less slots than once planned, and other countries will also delay/reduce. Indicatively, however, this is what (as of now) we should be expecting.
14 in 2019
10 in 2020
2 in 2021
Here comes the problem: 2023 must be intended as “last delivery” or last order placed…? It is not clear. If it is last delivery, orders would conclude in 2021, and with the current slots allocation would give 62 F35C, absolutely insufficient for 4 Squadrons.
If 2023 is the last order placed,
4 in 2022
14 in 2023
We reach the 80 planes figure, which is the number of planes deemed necessary to replace the Joint Force Harrier and form 4 squadrons (even if someone expressed worry that the 4 squadrons, with just 80 planes to draw from, would not be able to line more than 9 planes each, instead of 12. I hope/believe it is not the case).
I will be the happiest man in the universe if the UK slots are augmented and the 100 figure is reached… but i’m not overly confident on it, to say the least. Then again, with 80 in 4 Squadrons i’d be happy.
800° and 801° NAS, 617° and IV RAF, and i’m all too happy with it, it would already be a good force, and it would be possible, at a stretch, to fill the carrier up when necessary.
The production slots table is part of the 2010 JSF MOU: http://www.jsf.mil/downloads/documents/JSF_PSFD_MOU_-_Update_4_2010.PDF page 88.
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