Could a deal be done with the US Marines/Spanish or Italians to put 6-12 F35Bs or Harriers on QE2 for a few years to start building up RN deck handling etc experience.
All you have to do is move the QE to Norfolk and we’ll gladly use it for training purposes. Fora lot of general deck handling purposes, there’s not much of a difference between jets and helicopters. Those crew that need specialized training will be sent to appropriate schools in Pensacola and assigned to Navy and Marine Corps units for experience.
I must admit I thought it was a considerable number, but the figure did not change when they were pressed.
Incidentally and I know it’s been discussed before, but one naval officer expressed his, ahem ‘distinct dislike’ of the two island design and that now CATOBAR is going to be included, the for’ad island location has meant that the second CAT is located to the left of the flight deck instead of being located at the bow ‘alongside’ the first CAT.
In actual real world operations, the starboard bow cat is used the least often in USN service. Most of the time, jets are parked over it with the port and waist cats used for launching jets.
I thought it relevant to post on this thread, if not then apologies, but I recently and provocatively pressed an RAF officer, (who informed me he had been well involved in the project), about the status of the trio of F-35’s that have been ordered for MOD, where he confirmed that the first two will be B’s (STOVL), but that attempts to have the third constructed as a C model instead of the supposedly ordered B, are in progress.
Does anybody have any more hard info on this?
At this point in time, it doesn’t much matter. These aircraft are not for operational service and Neither the RN nor RAF or BAE has any relevant CATOBAR testing experience. They have STOVL and conventional testing experience.
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