Falklands’ thick fog forces two RAF Typhoons and tanker to land in Punta Arenas’

‘Two Royal Air Force Euro Typhoon fighters and their Vickers VC10 refuelling tanker had to land Wednesday afternoon in Punta Arenas, extreme south of Chile, because of adverse weather conditions in the Falkland Islands Mount Pleasant Airport.’ (The aircraft transited via Argentine airspace)

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/06/04/falklands-thick-fog-forces-two-raf-typhoons-and-tanker-to-land-in-punta-arenas

TJ

If they were traveling south from Brazil, does that mean the RAF is deploying an additional two Typhoons to the Falklands?:confused:

If I recall correctly the 2 rotating faces leave a sector uncovered for about a second. wheras the SPY has 4 faces giving continuos coverage. On the other hand those Arrays are heavy and sampson is mounted a lot higher.

I suppose you pay youre money, you takes youre choice. I personally feel the increased radar horizon with sampson is worth more than 1 second.

Plus if needed the Radar can be stopped rotating to maintain lock on a target.

Except the V-22 is faster then its Sea Cobra escorts, that can hardly be a good thing.

The US Amphibs don’t carry enough Harriers to replace the Cobra’s in the escort role.

– Still $1.3 billion seems quite good a deal if the story I read was true it suggested F-16’s would get new more powerful engines, new more up to date avioincs, include weapons for the jets, several years worth of support and extensive training from the USAF. On top of which they were getting a very good price if the wanted to by Block 50/52 F-16’s in the future.

Depends on how much fatigue life the airframes have left on whether it is a good deal or not.

As for new build F-16’s, if they arent ordered soon there wont be a production line for them.

About the only part of the F-35 programme which I am 100% convinced will be delivered is the F-35A as I think there is more chance of me marrying a super model than there is of the US restarting the F-22 production line and using the F-22 to fill the projected short fall in USAF fighters.

I dreamed up the idea of westernised S-33 as a contingency if the F-35B is cancelled as turning the QE STOBAR is lot easier than going CATOBAR (plus low RCS or not, I do find the flankers rather fetching)

Russian Aircraft have a reputation on being cheap to buy and very expensive to maintain, they also tend to have a lower number of Airframe hours allowed for in the design.

Malaysia is currently withdrawing its Mig 29’s early, they were only procured in 1995.

If it didn’t have to enter service for another 10-15 years you could probably affordably develop a tactical bomber to replace the tornado using the Avionics developed for Typhoon along with possibly UK stuff for Gripen. While the systems wont be right up there with those on the latest blocks of F-35, with the continual development of Typhoon throughout its service life they should still be very competitive with the forces of threat nations (aka. Russia and China).

Remember Development of F-35 was roughly $50 billion spent over 15-20 years, however that also includes the development of completely new avionics packages and radar’s. The prototype airframe itself was flying within three years.

However in the timeframe of CVF, the options are Basically F-35B or C, Rafale or Super Hornet. In my uneducated opinion though, F-35B is the best option from a cost point of view once you take into account the additional cost for equipment required for operating conventional aircraft as well as the additional training required.

Hawkeye is a Benefit that CTOL has over STOVL, however I wouldn’t be surprised if a UAV based solution appears within the next few years.

I think my previous post and the posts of other people have covered the benefits of SLBM’s over cruise missiles, however I’d like to say that in my opinion having SLBM’s on subs that will actively be going into harms way like the Asutes is a bad idea. The SLBM’s need to be on Submarines tasked soley to that task.

About $65 billion for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps procurement and research-and-development programs was approved late May 20 by the House Armed Services Committee: $5.1 billion to fund two SSN 774 Virginia-class submarines, $3 billion to fully fund two DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, $1.5 billion to fully fund two Littoral Combat Ships and so.

Markup OKs Most Requests for U.S. Navy, USMC

About $65 billion for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps procurement and research-and-development programs was approved late May 20 by the House Armed Services Committee – nearly 9 percent of the total $726 billion markup for the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill. The committee, with few exceptions, voted to support the Obama administration’s budget requests. Highlights of the markup include:
Full Story

Assuming a 25 year service life without refueling.
2 boats/year gives a steady state of 50 SSN’s.

Assuming 30 years gives
60LCS and 60 Destroyers

Assuming 35 years gives
70 and 70

If we assume that the Tico replacements will be folded into the Destroyer replacement program. The US Navy is not going to reach their ‘mythical’ 313 ship requirement and need to make themselves more reasonable goals.

I guess you are keen to keep Trident, but I hoped that while there would be a commitment to maintaining a nuclear deterrent that they would review if Trident was the best way to go or if we could move to nuclear cruise missiles, on the basis that it seems unlikely that we would ever use them against Russia or China who could intercept the cruise missiles and nuclear cruise missiles would be more than adequate to counter-strike North Korea, Iran (or Pakistan should the Taliban ever take over) should they ever launch a nuke at us.

Its a question of Range and Speed. SLBM’s have much higher of both then Cruise missiles. An SLBM launched from the Atlantic over the pole could his Korea, China or Russia within an hour or so. For a cruise missile to be used, the Submarine would have to be within 1000-2000 nautical miles of the target. Hard when you only have one sub at sea at a time, with a second on standby.