Sea Jet disposals

[Buc Driver]

Sorry if this has already been covered in the Sea Jet thread, but with 60 odd pages I could`nt be bothered scrolling through them.
Does anyone know what is going to happen to the SHAR airframes after retirement from service. Will they be available to museums etc to buy?

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Probably scraped so that if it all does go wrong, it can't be corrected.

[Beeayeate]

A few have already been moved into museums. Midland Aviation Museum at Coventry has one, as has the Newark Aviation Museum at . . er. . . Newark. And, I think, East Fortune in Scotland.

I think there are a couple of others ready to be shipped as well after "spares recovery". Although, if the FAA is getting rid of them why they need to recover spares is a mystery. :hmm:

.

[Washington_Irving]

Flog the spares to the Indians and Thais?

[Maple 01]

Some for sale on one of the disposal web-sites

[Pontius Navigator]

At least putting it in a museum is not final :D

After the Nott cuts we had to 'rob' the Shackleton at the Manchester Science museum after our groundcrew managed to pull the tail off one of the 5 remaining kites.

At first we were elated until the museum agreed to the rob.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

We'd have to rob the entire aircraft........

Why does a farce of buying the aircraft back from museums and buying/borrowing engines from the Indian Navy come to mind?

New Labour: You couldn't make it up.

[Black 'n Yellar]

I Think that there is one in a pub beer garden somewhere, seen sporting 899 NAS colours.

[Archimedes]

There is - it's the pub belonging to the chap who bought the Vulcan and then discovered that he couldn't move it and ended up paying a ridiculous amount of rent on top of the e-bay price. Seems the SHAR was a little easier to put fit in the beer garden.

[pr00ne]

WEBF,

It's you that's making it up NOT NOO Labour!!!

It may come to your mind but it won't to anybody elses.

It was the Tories who had to resort to robbing Vulcan AAR probes from museum aircraft in 1982.

The SHAR is about to become history, it won't be needed, it won't be coming back and it won't be missed.

Get used to it and move on.

[Grob Driver]

If you’re looking for a SHAR, try witham specialist vehicles… They have one for sale at the moment… Airframe looks largely complete but it’s missing the engine and seat… I don’t know what else has gone from the cockpit.

http://www.witham-sv.com/

I can see it on their web site so give them a call… It was defiantly there a week or so ago!

GD

[Navaleye]

The SHAR is about to become history, it won't be needed, it won't be coming back and it won't be missed.

Speak for yourself Pr00ne! You are certainly not speaking for Jack who knows that the RAF is incapable of protecting them with less than 3 weeks notice.

[Pontius Navigator]

Navaleye,

Without getting into the "Oh yes we can" "Oh no you can't" argument, there are several instances where the RAF deployed rather faster than the RN could.

In recent times, 29 Sqn F4s deployed to Gibraltar in hours after the US strike on Libya. Then in Aug 90 F3s deployed to the Gulf in hours when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Obviously RN in theatre forces are at greater state of availability but in the 2 cases I have cited, both home based sqns had not been warned for deployment. They were certainly the 'ready' sqns but there was no thoughts of deployment to where they actually went. 29 sqn's role was to reinforce AFNorth!

[TEEEJ]

The Indians were interested in the FA.2 airframes.
The following from 2002:


"Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received from the Indian Government about the purchase of Fleet Air Arm Sea Harriers. [49761]



Dr. Moonie: Officials within the Ministry of Defence have received inquiries from representatives of the Government of India regarding the future availability of surplus Fleet Air Arm Sea Harriers. As part of its marketing strategy for the sale of these aircraft, the Disposal Services Agency will follow up all expressions of interests accordingly, subject, of course, to the normal export controls."

[WE Branch Fanatic]

But.........

The Indians were interested in the FA.2 airframes.

Surely they cannot operate in a hot climate? After all that's part of the reason were losing them.

Oh, maybe they can. You're not suggesting that the Government were lying?

[Epsilon minus]

Prone wrote:
It was the Tories who had to resort to robbing Vulcan AAR probes from museum aircraft in 1982.

I had no idea that the tories fixed aircraft as well as run a political party I wonder if they do cars as well. My Mondeo needs a service.

[FB11]

WEBF,

You tell 'em, after all those thousands of hours flying the aircraft give you such firm ground to state the performance case on.

Or when you said the government did you mean those of us who don't tow your myopic and intransigent line?

Do you think it's just possible that a nation (India) might maintain a capability just to show the other nations in the vicinity how cool they are? Or could it be that the Indian Navy has a really strong air arm lobby that, unlike the UK, listens to whatever they say? (No matter how ineffective?) Maybe the Indian Navy wants to keep some kind of fixed wing at sea until (if ever) they get CTOL aircraft to sea?

But you could be right. It could be a conspiracy that you, and only you, are smart enough to see.

[tucumseh]

-re India

Would they be allowed Blue Vixen??

[RileyDove]

I think the Indian's will be laughing all the way to the bank! They can buy our 'ineffective' Sea Harrier F/A.2's for peanuts. Slap in a generic radar and have some incredibly cheap fleet air defence that can be land based if needed and be used to look 'cool' next time the border flares up with Pakistan.
I would love to know how much many of these F/A.2's cost to build for the FAA as 'new builds' - must have been incredibly costly - to think you can buy one sans the fun bits for 6k ish!

[Mike51]

One's been bought by an American who intends to operate it on the airshow circuit inthe US.

[FB11]

RileyDove,

Now now, don't do a WEBF on me and get all defensive by twisting the text.

Ineffective was a word you associated with the aircraft, I associated it with a decision in relation to embarked ops.

Your suggestion that FA2, with BV or any other modern radar bolted on, would be used as a land based fighter shows an ignorance of both the engineering challenge keeping Sea Harrier working and of how the Indian forces are set up.

Report to staff college immediately.

[RileyDove]

FB11 - actually 'ineffective' is the word you imply for the aircraft if deployed on Vikrant. How 'ineffective' the Vikrant is with either a fixed wing element or with no fixed wing element remains to be seen. The Indian's have bought the former Admiral Gorshkov from the Russian's and have 16 Mig-29K's on order so maybe they feel the need for naval airpower is important.
As for the engineering challenges of keeping Sea Harrier in the air - the Indian's have managed for the last twenty or so years with FRS.1 and whilst the radar technology is a undoubtedly in a different league - the rest of the airframe still works pretty much as it did when concieved in the late 1970's.
Whether they receive BV equipped aircraft remains to be
seen - I cannot imagine that the possibility of keeping some in the air would be an amazingly difficult challenge for them - and of course there is BAe Systems that can do it for a price. India is very much on the up in terms of aircraft and engine building - suffice to say that Rolls-Royce has set up it's own sub contracting
operation over there and I should imagine in a few years we will be in thier shadow in terms of aircraft built.

[FB11]

RileyDove,

The Indian's have bought the former Admiral Gorshkov from the Russian's and have 16 Mig-29K's on order so maybe they feel the need for naval airpower is important.

Strangely enough, with 19 years and still counting of naval aviation under my belt, I am quite in favour of it as well.
But what, because I lay it on the line that Sea Harrier has come to the end of a very positive 25 year life makes me an anti-carrier advocate?

Like WEBFs comments, I don't see your point.

Operating FRS 51 vice FA2 is a difference of over 1500lbs in basic weight. This is why an FA2 can launch (in the average heat of the Indian ocean for example) with a reasonable loadout (but still too little fuel) but not be able to recover with it.

Do a Google search and try and find a picture of an FRS 51 (all 15 of them assuming no more have crashed) with anything other than 100 gallon drop tanks, strakes and either blisters on the outboard or an empty pylon. Fearsome. But good for air displays.

But as for it being a snip? A cheap and when serviceable, effective short range land based fighter (assuming you accept all of the limitations of an old subsonic airframe with too little fuel) I absolutely agree.

And the best thing the Indian Navy can do is keep BAE as far away as possible from the mid life upgrade and keep the Israelis onside with the Elta/Derby combo.

[RileyDove]

What interests me especially is the cost Vs usage of the modified
FRS.1's and new build F/A.2's. Faced with the performance degradation which you mention - why wasn't serious thought given to binning the idea at birth? Admittedly the ability to use BVR weapons must have been a good selling point but surely hover performance must have been a sticking point !
I am sure the Indian's can get some use out of the Sea Harrier F/A.2's if they can do a deal - certainly there was an interest in GR.3's from that area of the world in the mid nineties
but by then most were gate guards - indeed an RAF team had a look at most GR.3's and found them past it. Undoubtedly India's neighbours are being supplied with some fairly good kit now by the U.S but I am sure that with a bit of Indian ingenuity and foreign assistance they could get a bargain basement interceptor which admittedly is short on range and speed but probably capable in the right hands of having half a chance .