Here gang, be proud! It’s a beast, our Grizzly : see attachment,
and for LOLz:

Good night all, Tay.

The a400m would be a very nice fit for the three naval services. They could reduce the reliance on the air force for both lift and tanking.

They do require their own landing and takeoff configurations so in addition to the reduced range and payload, they disrupt the flow of flight operations, but they are not going to send an air wing out with only three squadrons.

That being said, with the recent problems and 2-3 year delay for the B version, I don’t think its going to ever see service. To cut costs, the B will be cancelled in favor of the C and there will be an additional super hornet buy to cover delays

One that could be very dangerous.

You greatly discount how often a ship will go into the yard.

Which may be why, on top of economics,
France suddenly seems like a good idea.

The ones who dropped out of eurofighter because the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy didn’t agree to the do French demand that the French design and build the plane?

Boeing design

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/05/boeing-plots-return-to-next-ge.html
I have a lot of questions about this program.

1. Is there any political will or even the money for a from the ground up project?

2. Do we have off the shelf solutions Like Upgraded or nasalized F-22, F-35 air optimized, Upgraded F-18G, ect. anything that can minimize development time?

3. if you fulfill the requirements with a stealthy UCAS fighter will it cost significantly less than the above?

1. From the Navy there is

2. You could use EOTS and technology derived from the APG-77 and 81 Radar, but that’s about it. The Raptor, well lets just say that navalizing an air force design is never a good idea. Just look at what they had to do to make the cobra into the Hornet. They have to modify flight profiles, it just becomes a mess. Takes almost as much time and money as a new aircraft.

A two seat F-35D might be a poor man’s solution.

3. Three problems with UCAS

A) If there’s a data link it can be hacked. A pilot is much harder to corrupt.
B) If its autonomous, it can’t anticipate and adapt like a human. If it can, I’m finding out where John Connor is.
C) Also if there’s a data link, the pilot doesn’t have the same situational awareness.

Well we have switched from the F-35B to F-35C as the selection for JCA. Its putting the carrier strike program back 4 years or so and will cost a minimum of £500 million for the pair (gets a bit confusing on that last bit, as Fox said thats the estimated price for both, but a junior minister said they had not yet decided if they will convert the 2nd carrier at this time ?:confused:).

Given the UKs level of access to the F-35 program it would be interesting to see what prompted the switch. Sure there is performance increasewith the C variant, and Catobar does allow greater inter-operation amongst carrier users but does it justify the costs in delay and conversion time.

It does make you wonder if the F-35B has further hurdles to overcome as yet be they structural, performance or politcal in nature which may have steered the British decision ?

The switch didn’t push the programme back 4 years, they’re also slowing down construction.

What prompted the switch:
1) A misguided thought that somehow we and the French are going to take our planes off of our ships and put them onto yours which would save money.
2) An idea that landing on a carrier takes little training and practice (which would have gone way up anyway because of SVRL)
3) Lastly they had the devil (RAF) and Angel (FAA) telling them they both would have preferred F-35C, granted for much different reasons. The FAA wants longer range and payload, the RAF also wants that as a Tornado replacement but really doesn’t care if two 65000 ton ships sit at port.