OldNotBoldon a slight tangent
i found this story quite impressive. it makes the concept of getting anything but the f35 even less plausible to me…
Will make no difference at all to UK. UK does not have, nor intend to have an anti B missile defence system and could not afford one if it did.
OldNotBoldMy prefered outcome, eventually, would be two QE Class Aircraft Carriers with either Super Hornet or a mixture of Super Hornet and F35C and Hawkeye AEW.
What I think we might actually get, initially, is one operational QE with Super Hornet and Merlin Helicopter AEW, manned by two FAA Squadrons of about 12 aircraft each, backed by a slightly larger OCU, that could, in emergency, be used operationally. Something not unlike the set up in the days of the Shar.
MoD were apparently talking to Boeing about a Lease to Buy deal on Super Hornet, not a pure lease.
OldNotBoldUK MoD is skint. Many RAF chickens are about to come home to roost. STOVL F35B, still does not work -and is about to be put back yet again- it might well still be cancelled.
The head of Boeing Defence Europe has already been approched by UK MoD on a lease to buy deal for Super Hornet. Boeing think they stand a very good chance given the continuing problems with very expensive, not yet working,, yet less capable, STOVL F35B.
OldNotBoldCan you not see the irony in how deeply you are contradicting yourself here?
You are eulogising on the record of the fleet air arm, denigrating stovl, when it was a compromised stovl design that gave the fleet air arm their finest hour in recent decades!.
F-35B is still a low observable, supersonic, BVR capable fighter with advanced sensor fusion. Its scarcely comparable, relatively, to a fighter obsolete at the start of ww2 like the Roc!.
In reply to your comment about proper AEW. Its easier to field a few battery’s of double digit SAM’s than it is to field the capability to search and target a naval group at sea. Consequently we will need the ability to face advanced air defences more than we need hawkeye.
STOVL came about because the RAF did not think their Airfields would last very long in the face of a Soviet attack. The RN only got into STOVL, after the CVA Carriers were cancelled -with the help of the RAF ‘moving’ Australia.
The RN did not get into STOVL by choice. Had it had a large conventional Aircraft Carrier in 1982 there probably would have been no Falklands war, but a Carrier full of Phantoms and Buccaneers -not to mention AEW aircraft- would have made mincemeat of the Argentine threat. Yes the FAA did very well with the little that had been left them.
My point about the Roc was that the FAA had it because, as is always the case, the RAF does not care at all about aircraft at sea. The RAF had ‘owned all the RN’s aircraft in the 1920’s to late 30’s.
http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/397/
and while I’m at it
OldNotBoldI am absolutely sure that the poor sods who had to fly Rocs and Barracudas in WW2 would recognise that attitude 😉
Well since they ended up with very poor aircraft largely as a legacy of RAF control of FAA aircraft in the 1920’s and 30’s, I think they might get the current debate rather too well actually.
And of course the SHAR was a Fleet Air Arm Aircraft, that was prematurely retired -leaving the RN with no Fleet Air Defence Fighter- with the formation of the joint Harrier force…
OldNotBold“I dont know how many times people have to be told this but CVF isnt a fleet carrier and isnt meant to be a fleet carrier, despite its size, so it doesnt NEED a blue water relevant AEW platform like Hawkeye. The Charles de Gaulle could have undertaken every mission that its steamed on, in its operational history, without E-2’s aboard….I see no reason why our deployments would be any different. There is no blue-water threat and none on the horizon that SSN’s cant deal with as well.”
I suggest you read the statements of the First Sea Lord, in which he made it very clear that the key abilty of the QE Class Aircraft Carriers is to carry 36 Strike Aircraft.
Problem is, if you face any serious Aircraft and/or missile threat, Helicopter bourne AEW struggles to get up threat fast enough and far enough for safety, it also has serious issues with altitude and loiter time.
I really wonder how it is possible to argue that you need F35 because of a need to penetrate very dense air defences, but RNCarriers don’t need proper AEW? (And thats leaving aside the huge advantages to your strike force of proper AEW) Double standards perhaps?
OldNotBoldForgive me the last confirmed RAF kill was 62 years ago not 65 years ago.
OldNotBoldThe FAA are very viable. Since WWII they have a superb record in providing CAS to the Royal Marines and British Army. They have also scored every single air to air victory UK has had since WWII.
STOVL F35B, even if it works as advertised, is a high operational and financial risk for UK, and is the most expensive, yet in many respects least capable, version of a very expensive aircraft. And by the way UK is committed to buying 3 (three) F35, beyond that no decision has yet been made.
Super Hornet is very low financial and operational risk.
In addition CATOBAR – which the QE Class have always been designed to take- offers the eventual possibility of Hawkeye AEW, and that alone would make CATOBAR worth doing.
STOVL F35B might allow the RAF to kill off the RN’s Fleet Air Arm, but offers very few other possible ‘advantages’ to UK.
OldNotBoldI think most people accept, that at least to begin with you are only going to have one operational Aircraft Carrier. The second ship is most likely going to be used mainly in a helicopter role, at least for some time. So one ship might be completed without CATOBAR equipment in any case (although the QE design allows Cats and Traps to be retro-fitted at a refit).
Most people now believe that whatever aircraft UK buys it will be down from over 130 to, at best 80, and more likely only 50-60. Since other nations, and even the US themselves might also reduce or cancel F35 orders, the unit F35 price is going to rise substantially, and, as I said, STOVL F35B is already much the most expensive version.
OldNotBoldSTOVL F35B will have much less range than other F35 versions.
STOVL F35B can only carry (in stealth mode) half the weapons load of other F35 versions.
STOVL F35B has a reduced internal fire fighting system -that make it vulnerable to 30mm hits- compared to other F35 versions.
Yet, STOVL F35B will be considerably more expensive even than other versions of the very expensive F35.
STOVL F35B for UK contains huge operational and financial risks.
Britain is building two 65,000 ton Aircraft Carriers, designed so they can be fitted for CATOBAR (which, btw, eventually opens up the possibilty of Hawkeye AEW, over limited Helicopter bourne AEW, which is all STOVL allows). The Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers are the largest warships ever built in UK, with four acre flight decks. With Carriers of that size, as someone else said, STOVL is a solution looking for a problem. Again read this article…
http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/397/
OldNotBoldhttp://www.defpro.com/daily/details/397/
Challenging the STOVL Myth is an excellent article. I fail to see how having the FAA destroyed is a good deal for the Royal Navy, or indeed the British Army?
STOVL F35B has had serious weight problems. The ‘solution’ is that it has much less range than other F35 versions and has internal weapons bays that are about half the size of other F35 versions (thus in stealth mode it can carry only half the weapons load, much less distance than other versions of F35). Another compromise in the STOVL F35B is a reduced internal fire fighting system that Senior US officers have said makes it especially vulnerable to hits from anti aircraft weapons of about 30mm, exactly the most common size found. The bloody great lift fan -that for most of the time the aircraft is operating is just dead weight it is carting about- is also still having both vibration and excessive heat problems.
So all in all STOVL F35B is a less capable aircraft than other F35 versions, but will be considerably more expensive than other F35 versions (friends of the F35 programme say roughly 30% more money) The British MoD is broke and STOVL F35B is a luxery they cannot afford, the financial, and operational risks associated with F35B are huge. And that is if the US does not cancel F35B themselves on cost grounds, which could happen. LM recently annouced that the STOVL F35B programme will be put back, yet again, in November.
OldNotBold“To jump the debate back a bit – there have been several comments that the F-35B is the RAF’s choice and other comments that suggest the FAA will get whatever plane the RAF backs.”
Unless they do go CATOBAR and then RAF is stuffed, everyone else is happy and the FAA will do the great job they have always done since 1945 for CAS, Air to Air, etc
OldNotBoldSince the QE Class Aircraft Carriers have always been designed so as to be able to have a CATOBAR system, such as EMALS, fitted. It is actually not that big a job to do so.
As a Tier one partner, who put in about 10% of the developement costs on F35 (for what was about 4% of the aircraft buy and would now be, at best/worst less than 2%) UK will still get F35 work, even if, as appears more and more likley, they do not initially buy any F35 B’s but, perhaps, eventually (2020+) do buy F35 C.
The latest STOVL F35 B delays just increase the case for a S Hornet buy.
OldNotBoldI copied this from Pprune:
“Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens expects a “rephasing” of flight testing for the F-35B short take-off, vertical landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter to emerge from a comprehensive review of the program, due to report in November.
(In this context, “rephasing” carries the same kind of meaning as when your cable company “adjusts” its prices – you know which way the change is going.)
Weeks after explaining that the F-35B tests were being delayed by problems with components “that you would not consider major systems” and that work was in-hand to fix the problems and get flight-testing back on track, Stevens said yesterday in a Morgan Stanley investor call (around the 55 minute mark) that although “the early corrective actions … are showing some beneficial outcomes, my sense is that it is not going to be enough.”
One root cause may be that suppliers, squeezed on schedule and cost, have failed to design and deliver components that can withstand the heat, noise and vibration generated by the F-35B powered lift system.
Stevens said that “the quality of parts in the supply chain” has been an issue. Lockheed Martin, he said, is putting pressure on suppliers in terms of “quality, performance and cost, and some of that pressure is manifesting itself in the F-35B program.”
“I’m quite sure we’ll see a rephasing” of F-35B testing, Stevens said, explaining that it will be part of a comprehensive technical baseline review that has followed the program’s Nunn-McCurdy recertification earlier this year.
Today, the F-35B program is only six months away from the scheduled start of at-sea STOVL tests on the USS Wasp (set for March 2011). However, so far the reported progress with STOVL envelope expansion has been slow.
Of course, this may not be the time to remind the JSF program office of some of its earlier statements:
According to Brig. Gen. C.R. Davis, F-35 program executive officer “early flight test results show we are on a path to largely validate the design and aircraft systems — we are not entering a period of discovery.
Or even:
The test program, [Maj Gen David Heinz] said, is about “validation, not discovery.” (Air Force Magazine Daily Report, June 4 2009)
Somehow I don’t think we’re going to hear that line again for a while.”
F35B is now two years behind where we were told it would be in 2007, so you could say they have made about one years progress in over three years…
OldNotBold“Since, most people seem to agree that you are only looking at a buy of about 50 aircraft now, you are only going to have about 24 jets, in peacetime, on the one operational Aircraft Carrier, no matter what aircraft UK buys. Except if they buy F35B the jets will, almost certainly be, RAF, not FAA, and you really will see an empty Carrier much of the time.
STOVL F35B may or may not work as advertised and may or may not get cancelled and may or may not be affordable, by UK. It is impossible to know these things now.
The fact is UK could go for about 50 Super Hornet and, UK would know, for a fact, A) they will actually do what its says on the tin. B) they will be delivered when UK wants them. C) they will cost more or less exactly what UK is told they will cost.
None of that is true of STOVL F35B.
Super Hornet is, relatively low cost and very low operational risk. F35B is high risk and might very well be very high cost. One is a certainty and the other a gamble. “
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