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Royal Navy to Buy F18F

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Royal Navy to Buy F18F

Old 2nd Aug 2010, 12:17
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I agree with Trim Stab.

It would be VERY interesting to see if Dassault smell blood in the water and offer a navalised Rafale. Very interesting indeed. That really would put the cat (pardon the puns) amongst the proverbial pigeons. Buying fighter aircraft from the French? Lawks a mercy...

....Or indeed wasnt there a Sea Gripen variant being touted? Arent BAe and Saab welded at the hip?


FWIW, I dont know if the F18F story will gather pace or whether its another silly season press story. I mean, its not as if we havent got a history of going goggle eyed over American platforms such as the F16 et al is it? When we're already locked into a contract to buy something else that we never really wanted? Much as the F18 may be a good idea, a proven platform and it may suit our politico-military ambitions better, I think the story will either gather pace very quickly or be chip wrappers within a week.

If Bae start squealing, then we know theres some truth in it.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 12:21
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woka,

The UK (via the Fleet Air Arm) has been responsible for all major aircraft carrier developments: the aircraft carrier itself, lifts, arrested landing, angled flight deck, steam catapult, mirror landing sight (meatball), ski-jump, vstol etc. I am struggling to think of any other nation that has done anything with aircraft carriers except the USN - who have just built big ones!

I wonder, if the UK goes for F18, whether the RAF will get any look in at all as the FAA can do all training in the US, including carrier qualification.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 12:55
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RN FA-18F Super Hornet

In my view this is a very savvy move from the RN, while the RAF are prepared to shaft everybody within their own service other than the Tyhpoon boys and wanting the Rolls Royce option for everything including the Tea Pots, this shows willing to accept a little less while keeping still a fine capability. Good enough for the USN/USMC should be good enough for us.

I am ex Royal Air Force and very proud of that fact, but the RAF are acting like tossers of the highest order.

The Eurofighter is a fantastic aircraft but trying to take Terry on or any other low tech lot is like delivering Spuds in a Porsche when you can use a transit van.

A mixture of High tech and less techy but at a fraction of the cost as got to be the way forward.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 13:21
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Pity we didn't go down the F18F route many, many years ago & then the country could have a single fast jet fleet.
Yes, yes. What a pity. What a pity we didn't end up with one inferior aeroplane, rather than having better than the Super Hornet in service today, while looking forward to JSF tomorrow.

Perhaps we should have standardised on the MiG-29 or some other outdated, outclassed heap?
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 13:36
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Mick,

Interesting to read your original text.

I think you've got it wrong.

I believe that the sudden waving of International Roadmap Super Hornet, Sea Gripen and Marinised Typhoon at Farnborough indicate that while the Royal Navy may be re-examining options to the STOVL F-35B, and while CV may be back on the table, there is, as yet, no single agreed way ahead.

Moreover, I suspect VERY strongly that all of this is political, being played out largely to try to break the continuing logjams on ITAR and technology transfer.

If one wanted to be picky, one might point out that: "The 138 aircraft Britain planned to buy to replace the Harrier" have long been 66.

One might also point out that they are not currently expected to cost £100m each - since one of the biggest problems about the beknighted JSF programme is that no-one has the faintest clue how much they'll cost, nor exactly what one will get for one's money.

Buying "no more than 50" of anything would ensure that there were only enough aircraft to fly off one of the carriers.

There is no such thing as the "Silent Hornet". One journo tried to apply that briefing at SBAC and was immediately slapped down.

The International Roadmap will, as you say, have a new internal weapons bay to reduce the radar signature of the aircraft (though this will not be reduced to anything like JSF levels of stealth) but this will not allow it to carry more bombs and missiles than JSF in 'Day One' LO configuration, nor in non-stealthy, hang everything outside it configuration.

Nor would the new conformal fuel tanks necessarily give it a longer range than JSF.

Switching away from STOVL would not be good news for the RN, and bad news for the RAF, it would be bad news for defence and the taxpayer.

If we must have carrier aviation then STOVL imposes the smallest training burden, and allows aircraft to be used more flexibly. If we go back to conventional cat and trap operations, the training burden will be such that the squadrons will never be used for anything else.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 13:58
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If the Super Hornet is good enough for the USN and RAAF then it should be for us! Either that aircraft or Navy Rafales! Lets forget this one engined wonder the F-35B! Who knows if it will even survive! Even the US Navy seems to have concerns about the F-35C!
I know Typhoon is better than Super Hornet at air to air but what about air to ground?
Could we not do most of our training with the US Navy? Sure many of you guys would enjoy that, saves us money and maybe makes the idea one which will work!
Imagine the pride of seeing 2 Royal Navy Carriers entering service. Each equiped with Super Hornet or Rafale! We do really need the two and not just one.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 14:12
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I am told by 'senior' Navy Harrier mate that the Royal Navy has been sending young pilots off to America for a while now on a 'ghost' F18 Sqn in order to train them up, as the Harrier OCU has not had enough seats for the Navy to train many of their pilots- second hand info but he is out there on exchange as i type so may be quite a reasonable source.

Apparently the Navy had wanted to buy the F18 for their carriers 10 years ago but politically it was not acceptable at that time. His comment on the latest rumour being' nice aircraft but will be out of date in 10 years time'
Short term fix but if we are looking ahead then perhaps not the solution -

Just imagine if one of our senior politicians could 'undercover' boss our military organisations at shop floor level and see what really goes on and where cost savings could easily be made.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 14:36
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Justanopinon

How many Naval Strike Wing pilots past SeaJet and current GR7/9 jockeys have had F-18 experience? I can think of a couple of past 800/899/801 COs in recent years havign experience on exchange to VX-9 at NSAWC China Lake but they also flew other a/c there such as AH-1W and predominantly AV-8B.
Or to the USMC to fly F-18? There's quite a few RAF FJ crews that have gone on exchange to fly the USMC F/A-18s back then and now.

So say 3 in the last 5 to 10 years, for the FAA how many prior to that?
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 14:36
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(Have cross posted this from my ARRSE post)
The more I look into this, the more I think the RN is potentially playing an absolute blinder of a hand.
The buy of 50 airframes means that the RN is looking at pretty much the same sort of structure as in SHAR days – 899 with the OCU of 10-15 frames, 2 x front lines sqns (800 / 801) with 12 frames and the remainder in storage / trials etc. This is not far short of the original SHAR replacement figure of 60 airframes back in the mid 90s (I recall reading one of the first issues of AFM I bought on this subject). The result is that the RN will be able to deliver a maximum of 1 CVF with two sqns on board.
This has some interesting follow on implications. Firstly, a buy of 50 aircraft kills dead the concept that the RN is seeking to surge 2 airwings to sea at any one time. This means we can look to reduce supporting buys, such as MASC and maybe even MARS, potentially realizing savings. Additionally we effectively gain a carrier hull to do with as we want. Either we offer to cancel it – saving some (but not much) money, or we instead use its helo capability and declare the non strike carrier to be the replacement for HMS OCEAN – meaning we can kill the LPH(R) project too.
At the same time, the near term presents some savings options as well. The RN could offer to pay off a carrier (possibly Ocean, given her many problems and the fact she’s nearly life expired) and use the two remaining hulls purely in an LPH mode for the next couple of years, and allow the staff onboard to practice carrier strike with foreign airframes. At the same time, the RN puts forward a ‘delete Harrier’ option, bringing GR9 OSD forward to now. Some of the resultant savings get used as an enhancement option, and the RN spends the money in the US training on the existing F18 for the next few years. In other words, we use USN assets (I believe they still have a carrier dedicated purely for training) to regenerate the skills required for CTOL carrier aviation. Meanwhile the maintenance chaps go and learn how to fix the plane, and in 5-6 years time, the RN can stand up at least an OCU worth of carrier qualified pilots, and hopefully a squadron as well. This means that the CVF is an effective asset from day 1, and not an expensive bath toy floating round waiting for the JSF to be worked up.
We end up with the RAF looking clear losers from this – if the RN goes down the road of F18, then a Delete GR4 and GR9 option looks dangerously close to reality. The RAF is left with the Typhoon for everything, and the RN meanwhile has F18. A two aircraft FJ fleet, with roughly 200 airframes – if the funding is found to do some integration so we can use them properly, then this is a roadmap for the future. At the same time the UK can look to a future JSF buy, either as an attrition cum replacement for F18, or as the eventual DPOC / Typhoon A2A replacement.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 15:22
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F18F+

So lets say we do get some (Updated with new motors etc), from a maint point of view a carrier aircraft is built to last (Brick outhouse comes to mind). If flown from land that gives you years of fatique life.

If we do then both the Light and Dark blue could use the same airframes even if the light blue do not fly from the decks.

We used to have a simulated angled deck at at least one airfield so would not be impossible to do again.

The two crew thing. Chap/Chapess in front does that pilot thing which another set of hands 'N' eyes to fight with. Yes in pure A2A single seat is as good(Possibly), but in todays CAS role talking to ground troops watching the pod feed and looking out for the ground at the same time. Now do that at night i think two seat wins. I seem to remember a two seat Fairchild A10- for bad weather night time. Only 1 was made, makes sense though.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 15:30
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Perhaps we should sell off all our Typhoon & go for a ingle fleet of just F18F?
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 15:44
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We are discussing the F model here are we not? Which, forgive me if I'm wrong, is a two-seater. If the RN believe they can take this aircraft on without RAF 'jointery' where exactly are they going to get/train their WSO's from? If they say they can retrain current RW observers then they are admitting that they are over manned in that department - if the F18F bid fails then guess what? Some sharp eyed Air RP or Army RP chap is going to notice the RN-admission of over manning in Navy RW observer manning and raise an option to delete said posts. If they say then can train them from scratch at Culdrose over the next 5-6 years the Financial Officer on whichever company has won the MFTS contract there will be rubbing his hands together with glee as he prepares to add several 'noughts' to the end of the cost of the re-negotiated contract (and to add on Jimlad1's view - an OCU of 10-15 aircraft and two 12 strong squadrons requires approximately 60 crews minimum (using a lowish crewing ratio and non availability factor) and including an allowance for OEU etc. Thats a lot of back seaters to train up from scratch (and then hope the USN will keep current until our aircraft / carriers are available)).

The alternative, and better option, is to follow the jointery route. The RAF could offer up JFH and some of the GR4 fleet in return for an equal (as was agreed for F35) share of the F18F manning. RN observers (and pilots) could be fed through the GR4 route now thus making the transition smoother in the long term. And forget 800/801/899/1(F)/IV(AC)/20(R) numberplates - be brave and just call it the Carrier Air Group (or something suitable that our Allies will understand!), commanded alternatively by a Wg Cdr and a Cdr (with an EXO of the opposite colour cloth) and have 3 squadrons underneath (let's call them A, B and C Sqn (where A and B are the operational outfits commanded by sqn ldr / lt cdr and C Sqn is the Conversion Unit (again alternatively commanded by sqn ldr / lt cdr) - stop the rank creep now!)

The problem with these options is both the heads of the Air Force and the Navy want total control (and I suspect part of this is being badly briefed by over-zealous staff officers at OF4/OF5 rank trying to make a name for themselves....) - neither wishes to lose face or not on my watch etc etc. Hopefully General Richards will knock some heads together (he may need to stand on a box to do it ) and everyone will come out of SDSR "winners" (or at least not total losers). Except the Army - who can only win!

Sadly I fear that as it requires compromise from both sides it will never be allowed to work
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 16:12
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Andyy No problem what so ever !!! The Emcat system stands alone and has no EM effect on aircraft, Just like the EM Loop system for flight deck Comms many moons ago
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 16:53
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Jacko
You may well be right that all CV options are on the table - though the MoD certainly asked Boeing if they could make the necessary changes to the Super Hornet and since they can, it must be in the driving seat.

But as for this being a negotiating ploy, I cant see it. It would have zero effect on the UK getting JSF earlier or getting technology transfer.

This is all about money now, any of the cheaper CV rivals beat JSF on that basis.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 17:23
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MONEY

Mick, Totally agree with last sentence. MONEY!!!

A lot of projects that "In the long" term could be cheaper are now undo-able.

SARH, DTR for example. We can not afford the start up costs!

If this idea of F18F has any future it can only be good. An aircraft that is still good for carrier ops and yet is less compromised for land use, if you have runways.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 18:18
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Chopper2004

One Royal Navy exchange pilot on F18 Super Hornet in USN now. Should be ship qual soon.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 18:26
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Is there an FAA fixed-wing echange post with French Marine on Rafale's?
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 18:53
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Cessnapete...... Thats O/K ,what about the most important guys !!! Chockheads and Badgers????
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 19:05
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Mick, Totally agree with last sentence. MONEY!!!

A lot of projects that "In the long" term could be cheaper are now undo-able.

SARH, DTR for example. We can not afford the start up costs!

If this idea of F18F has any future it can only be good. An aircraft that is still good for carrier ops and yet is less compromised for land use, if you have runways.
Very true but we may find that the MODs commitment to SARH could be withdrawn and that Soteria may have to go it alone.
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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 19:35
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F18F

If we do go the F18F route then we could also go for the F18G, The EMCAT would also be able to get the E2/COD airborne which to me makes a shed load more sense than the JSF route.
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