Right,
Where to start?
1. An excellent paper by AVM Roberts that clearly lays out why the UK needs an indigenous MPA. It is slightly out of date now when it mentions the Chinese 'developing' a blue water capability. They are now there.
2. AVM Roberts (Rtd) is indeed the man in the photo provided by Biggus.
3. No nation or defence company are going down the road of developing or even thinking about a wide area search, long range ASW capable UAV at this moment in time. Of course, to do so would not be insurmountable but the costs are prohibitively expensive in the short to medium term. The UK could also design and launch a space station in theory if money was no object but we all know it is and therefore, forget the ASW UAV argument till at least 2030. BAEs might argue that they could do the whole thing in 5 years but having seen them take 15 years to try and re-wing Nimrods with total failure, that is probably a good indicator of them as a whole.
4. Back to the paper above. The argument and need for a UK long range, manned MPA/MMA is fairly easy to substantiate and lots of work and recent operational experience is starting to build up as supporting evidence. The RN are far stronger supporters by the way than the light blue. The requirement has not gone away. It was just the MRA4 that was scrapped.
5. Finally the money question - which is the real issue. I think we're all equal in our own views and thoughts on this one and who knows how the MOD will prioritise it's requirements from 2015 onwards. I do think SDSR 15 will be critical for the whole Seedcorn project though. We will either re-engage with a new aircraft off the shelf or park the whole thing for at least a decade before starting again from scratch. I wouldn't even like to guess on the odds at this stage?