The C-17 deal involves a massive 100% offset, with the vast majority of the work going to….Manitoba.

It seems that Quebec will be largely frozen out. Quebec has 60-70% of the Canadian aerospace sector, but will be lucky to receive 30% of the value of the offset.

Sadly, Quebec would have benefited more if there hadn’t been any offset deal. The offset primarily serves to creat jobs in Conservative districts, while maintaining a dangerously overvalued Canadian dolar which makes Canadian exports – and Canadian labor costs – uncompetitive. In the end, Quebec will probably loose far more jobs in the aviation sector than it will gain from the offset.

I would add the transfer is hot! So, India is off in running from the start and will gain valuble experience is a very short time. She will of course follow up with new built design shortly…………..

Don’t expect to see a new built LPD in Indian service anytime soon – unless the contract goes to a foriegn shipyard.

To alleviate these problems the Jaguar M would have necessitated extensive modifications: a new wing + new reactors + new weapon system (essentially a new plane), resulting in an expensive and risky test program ; in addition to the modulated PC that was developped and subsequently fitted to land based Jaguars. All this had to fit within the program cost for just 100 planes. And you still had to buy ~20 Jaguar E for training, that could not be embarked on carrier.

With the same money you could buy ~80 SEM or ~30-40 A7 Corsair II. If the Corsair had been selected, with attrition reserve and training aircrafts, that would have left maybe 20 airframes for equipping the carrier.

The choice was probably not difficult.

I think you are overstating the problems encountered. The fundimental truth is that the Jaguar would have been available a bit too early as an Etendard IVM replacement, and was relatively expensive for an aircraft of its size and performance. The MN could afford to wait.

You also fail to appreciate that the MN has never required conversion trainers – or even high performace flight deck trainers to replace the Fouga CM.175 Zephyr. In fact, the French never bothered to procure the two-seat variant of the F-8 and never developed a two seat Etendard.

Forget about two-seaters in MN service – this is pure fantasy.

The current political issue is that a large part of the Scottish population want to break the union with the UK and form a seperate country, by placing large government contracts with Scottish industry the UK government is saying “look what the union does for you, break the union and these contracts go to English ship yards”.

Govan is the last active shipyard in the UK capable of assembling the hull blocks of the CV-F. There is no realistic alternative site in the United Kingdom.

Here’s its twin- the Yak-130 production configuration.

Yakovlev have variants for carrier training, recce, ECM, light attack, fighter-bomber, even UCAV on the drawing board- and a supersonic (Mach 1.5) derivative too! (Yak-135)

It is easy to see where you would stow the arrestor hook for a carrier based Yak-130.

The supersonic Yak-135 does sound as if it might be similar in concept to a definitive, afterburning L-15.

This is exactly what I am trying to address. I want to take the UH-72A and see if certain measures can be done in order for it to address the requirements of the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) thus one platform performing two roles for the ARMY (hopefully saving time and money). In order for me to do that I have to address many issues including live fire/survivability since survivability is an issue for the ARH. There are other performance based aspects (required of the ARH) that I think the UH-72A is readily able to handle, but other aspects will require some modifications to the airframe of which I have extremely insufficient knowledge of.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Have you already contacted Eurocopter Germany in regard to archival information on the Bk-117M?

Have you checked the 1990-1991 edition of Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft for the last entry on the Bk-117M?

I agree that the ideal solution is a purpose designed OPV, but that will take years to get into service and will no doubt have to be funded at the expense of other programs.

Any Type 45 above and beyond the intial 4(?) will “have to be funded at the expense of other programs.”

If the UK was willing to buy and existing design from an overseas shipyard, cost and timescales could be managed. Moreover, operating costs could be decreased by retiring obsolete frigates – while maintaining the same overall number of hulls.

Buying ”bare-bones” T45’s with all gun armament is the compromise solution, it’s the easy option because it’s in production, it can be easily upgraded as necessary with off the shelf equipment and of course there would be savings from a larger production run and commonality of training, maintainance, etc.

There will never be any “off the shelf equipment” to upgrade anything. Lead times are tremendously long for complex sensor and weapon systems.

If you don’t buy a radar set, or missile system at the same time (or before) you order the hull, the odds are that it will long be out of production by the time of the midlife update.

A ”bare-bones” T45 could even be loaded with 48 cruise missiles when operating with a surface group.

This will require major re-engineering of the are forward of the superstrucuture for Tomahawk/Mk41 or Scalp Naval/Sylver A70. Currently, the Type 45 uses the Sylver A50 VLS, which is far too short for any cruise missile capability.

Transforming the T45 from a single-purpose AAW platform into a single-purpose land attack platform isn’t a cheap or effective solution.

It could also prove desirable not to give major upgrades to ”full capability” T45’s and instead upgrade the ”bare bones” T45’s to leap frog their capabilities.

That would simply shift costs further into the future, which always increases the ultimate size of the outlay.

Well, Norway & Denmark have OPVs over 3000 tons which are definitely OPVs, not frigates. They have hulls strong enough for icebreaking, for Arctic patrol, & are relatively slow, being designed for good seakeeping & long patrol range rather than speed, e.g. the Norwegian Nordkapp is based on a deep-sea trawler hull. They’re also lightly armed – but can have extra weapons fitted very quickly, expecially the Danish stanflex Thetis-class. At that point, with the extra weapons, I think they become slow frigates 😀

Doesn’t the OPV designation date from the creation of 200NM economic exclusion zones? It would seem that shipbuilders adopted the term “Offshore Patrol Vessel” as a way of marketing lightly armed patrol vessels without the political stigma of using a warship designation, like “frigate” or “corvette.”

The term OPV is meaningless to a nation that has a long tradition of purpose built patrol vessels. For instance, the USCG will continue to use the term “cutter,” which dates from an era in which the primary function of a coast guard was the collection of customs revenue. The French refer to lightly armed Floreal, LaFayette and A69 frigates as “Avisos,” the same term used in the colonial era, which better armed surface combatants like the FREMM will be called “fregates.”