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No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?

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No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?

Old 28th Apr 2012, 16:05
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Navalised Typhoon - some zombies just won't die, will they?
My thoughts exactly, though in the event of serious F35 trouble, I wouldn't put it past the MoD to take this route instead of the F18.

If it's good for BAE, it's good for the military
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Old 28th Apr 2012, 19:10
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As i reacall SRVL trials were done, very successfully, on the Charles De Gaul with the VAAC.
All of that work then went into the F35B flying control software.

Hopefully Hammond is actually getting his information by reading the reports of the guys at Patuxent River who are flying the B and the C side by side 6 days a week. We have had RN and RAF engineers maintaining these jets since they left the factory who can tell Hammond exactly which is more reliable and serviceable from day to day.

However, unlike Panetta, he has not visited to get the truth straight from the horses mouth. As such he is relying on senior military people who may, or may not, have an agenda one way or the other.
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Old 29th Apr 2012, 16:48
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There are clearly valid arguments at the technical and operational level for both the B and the C.

However, let's look at the level up from that. Even the JSF's best friends cannot argue that the program has shown any signs of stability in terms of IOT&E completion, which, while it may not determine IOC, is a very big component of it.

As for production schedules, rates and costs, the program of record rests on some big assumptions about partner willingness to pay pre-full-rate prices (for more than a few training jets) and about the ability of US budgets beyond the current FYDP to pay the bills.

Now add the upcoming election (House, Senate, White House) and the resulting sequestration deal.

Can anyone, anywhere, guarantee that F-35B/C will survive, or stay on their current schedule? What are the odds of a divergence from the current program?

Conversely, there are two proven CATOBAR jets available/under upgrade today, and there will be two in 2020 (unless MMRCA falls apart and Saab snags Brazil).

You've got to ask yourself one question. Mr Hammond: Do I feel lucky?

PS Engines: "Three wheels on my wagon" was a staple of BBC's Saturday morning kids' radio show for many years. A saga of unquenchable optimism in the face of rapidly worsening reality, it joins "Wreck of the Ol'97" in my list of great defense-procurement-related lyrics.
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Old 29th Apr 2012, 19:44
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However, unlike Panetta, he has not visited to get the truth straight from the horses mouth. As such he is relying on senior military people who may, or may not, have an agenda one way or the other.
To be fair, those on the ground flying the aircraft are not dispassionate and objective.
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Old 29th Apr 2012, 21:34
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LO,

I'm on your page, the sequester looks more and more likely to swing into action, especially if Obama wins; in which case, the B is history and the C will, in my opinion, be lucky to enter service within the next decade. I just don't get the impression that 8 weeks will be enough for the US government to come to an agreement that doesn't involve further defence cuts - the democrats don't seem to be all that bothered by the prospect of deeper defence cuts and the republicans are completely rigid in their opposition to any tax rises.

The F35 is an almighty target.

I wonder, if the sequester does take effect, will the US compensate a B/C unavailability with a rock-bottom deal for one of their chopped carrier air wing's aircraft...like a harrier deal in reverse?
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 12:08
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see the Indians are starting to practice deck landings with Mig-29's.....
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 13:06
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Bastardeux - I believe some senior defense type was quoted the other week as saying: "We know sequester won't happen. We don't know how it won't happen".

That is, it will take a budget deal but that will depend on who wins what in November.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 14:30
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Sharkey Ward vents his opinion on the JSF and more specifically the Bae role
in all this according to this blogger.

http://snafu-solomon.********.com/20...-anti-jsf.html

Reference the F 35 programme as a whole, you say, " If we pull out, British industry (mainly but far from exclusively BAE's) will cease to be a tier one partner. At present we get 15% of the entire JSF business. Its value is around £40 billion.” If we don't place an order for the F 35 this year, we shall no longer be a Tier 1 partner. I think you will agree that ANY ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT DECISION on procurement of this aircraft should not be made until risks, timescales and procurement costs are clearly known. Or do you wished to be tarred by the same brush with which you attack Gordon Brown's administration?
I think you should take the blinkers off and have the Chairman of British Aerospace Systems and his associates removed from all teams that privately advise the Prime Minister and other Ministers. BAE is a major corporation with much of its business and employees overseas (particularly in the USA). To say that, " We could in theory still bid for small ad hoc bits of the project, but it would in practice be THE DEATH KNELL of the (large scale) aerospace industry in the UK." is a complete exaggeration - and a misguided one at that! Are not the 175,000 personnel actively serving in our armed forces more important to the defence and security of this nation than an aerospace company that over charges on every project and underperforms on every project? (What say you to the insider information that the Eurofighter radomes are now cracking up and falling off in the air during manoeuvre? Another real design problem that you can blame on BAE - not to mention many others including the Tornado F3 weapons system, Nimrod’s total lack of airworthiness and maintainability, the huge cost of maintaining Tornado GR4 in service, the inability of the Storm Shadow missile to guide properly to its target or for its warhead to work correctly, etc.)
“But the F35 problems – though real – are being exaggerated, and no one anywhere in their political or military set up has shown us the slightest doubt that it will come about.” Where on earth have you been for the last few months? The latest GAO report and earlier DOD report as well as many articles from Pentagon-based journalists all demonstrate that the F 35 programme is in critical shape and will never meet expectations on cost or performance. 80% of development testing remains to be completed and the USA is unable to predict any firm Initial Operating Capability for any of the three variants. For you to say, “And we took delivery of our first one this month – without fanfare.” is bogus spin! The aircraft in question is part of the development programme. It does not in any sense represent an operational aircraft. On paper, it belongs to the UK because the UK has had to put money into the project. You should not read any more into the delivery of the aircraft than that. If you do you are deluding yourself.
The US Marine Corps is NOT in exactly the same position as we are reference to the STOVL. They will continue to operate their multirole Harrier aircraft until at least 2025, they plan to procure 60 F-35C aircraft for air defence and a deep strike and THEY ARE NOW LOOKING AT HOW THEY CAN ADAPT THEIR AMPHIBIOUS CARRIERS WHICH OPERATE THE HARRIER AND WOULD OPERATE THE STOVL AIRCRAFT FOR THE OPERATION OF NON-STOVL AIRCRAFT.

“The EMALS technology is completely new and unproven, and has been designed for a 100,000 ton ship. When they have perfected it for that, they then have to decide how to redesign it for a 65,000 ton ship. Using as my reference point the absurd sums paid for other defence equipment (monopoly supplier and monopsony purchaser!) I am not altogether surprised that it is costing almost £1 billion, nor that the carrier alliance will chalk up £750 million completely redesigning and rebuilding the ship to accommodate it.”
You are wrong to say that the EMALS system will have to be redesigned for the Queen Elizabeth class carrier. That is not the case at all. It is working well and has been designed for easy unit by unit installation into a carrier deck - whether that is the deck of a 65,000 ton ship or 100,000 ton ship. If your government is to be accountable it should take serious note of “the absurd sums paid for other defence equipment (monopoly supplier and monopsony purchaser!)” [BRITISH AEROSPACE SYSTEMS IS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE!] and prevent BAe from taking our government and our armed forces to the cleaners on all aspects of defence related costs! Again, I say to you, BAE were contracted to design the ships to take into account the fitting of catapults and arresting gear. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, START HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE OR THIS GOVERNMENT WILL BECOME A COMPLETE LAUGHINGSTOCK!
Yes, Gordon Brown may have made mistakes and may be culpable as a lackey of the unions but does your government now wish to be seen in the same light as a lackey of British Aerospace Systems?

disclaimer; I know not everybody likes him, but it's an informed opinon nonetheless, take it for what it's worth.

Last edited by kbrockman; 30th Apr 2012 at 15:11.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 15:35
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Of course I will disagree.....not because I am biased but because your argument is wrong.

Widger I don't think that you can say the way Harrier was operated from "carriers" would be the way that F35 would be from the QE class. The huge difference is that the Harrier GR was thrown in late on in life - with F35 it can be planned from the start. Everyone can go to F35 with an understanding of what is required from them, fundamentally different to some guy who "didn't sign up to be on a bloody boat".

The point is, that for the QE class to be operationally effective, you need to have a weapon system, (which is all that F35 is) onboard when you need it. That means the whole system operational from the stick monkey, to the chock head. That takes time and must be continually practiced. With limited number of airframes, that challenge becomes even more difficult as you cannot just 'roule' squadrons through the platform. To do other wise is like deploying a soldier without a rifle or body armour......oh!


At the end of the day there needs to be an assessment (I really don't want to call it a TNA) and the secret is to find the right balance of what has been done before and what new technology enables. This would then drive how much time is needed on board, in the sim or on a dummy deck etc. You then flex this depending on defence need - if we need aircraft in afghan for another 15 years then you lean carrier training as much as possible. If we are going to the Falklands which has been taken because everyone was drunk on Friday night, then you major on carrier ops (or lots and lots of tanking!).

With F35C, you could do as the USN has for years and support the 'Stan' from the sea, without the need for HNS. You cannot do Maritime 'part-time'. When the need arises, you need a operationally effective unit. Yes it takes time to transit to various parts of the world but, that time can be used for final operational training, not training the pilots how to do a recovery in IMC without the availability of a diversion.

My personal opinion is that the RN will simply have the attitude that they are Naval Power assets and should be on the carrier whatever and will be extremely reticent to let them go elsewhere. I have seen this attitude again and again with the RN - they are extremely protectionist. By contrast the RAF will simply look how best to employ Air Power in a given situation. But I am sure you will disagree.

The RN has learnt to its cost, time and again since 1979, of the Defence stupidity of getting rid of its carriers, with the associated very capable aircraft (F4/Buccaneer/Gannet). Tactical Support to maritime Operations (TASMO) was a downright lie and never worked outside UK home waters or within a hour's flight of Singapore! In almost every campaign since 1979, the RN has come up against the limitations of the Invicible class and Harrier (Falklands, GW1, GW2, Adriatic), with the limits on numbers of FE@R capable of being carried, limits of MTOW, Bring-back, hot and high performance, range etc. They (RN and RAF) did a fantastic job making the most of the aircraft but, it was always a compromise, one which meant that the real benefit of Carrier based Air Power has been lost on a generation of both the public and UK Service Personnel, hence some of the rubbish spouted on here and other forums.

QEC will enable the operation of air platforms, not just F35, the capability of which will not have been seen since 1979 in the UK. The only question, is what aircraft/UAVs will operate off the vessels and can they be afforded.

Your comment that the RAF will simply look how best to employ Air Power is not worth justifying with an answer.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 16:17
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OK, stupid question time (and I know there's already been a few of those).

If we go for the -C, then why would we need to spend copious amounts of fg hours practising landings? The key here is automation - even existing US carriers have an autoland capability - they just never use it. But we're culturally slowly coming round to the understanding that we are operating plenty of unstable jets that are unflyable if enough computers fail - so you build in redundancy. So, why should not every future F-35C carrier landing be 'hands-off'?

(I understand there'll be a need for deck handling practice - but you could achieve that with non-flyable replicas!)
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 16:28
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I have a feeling you are vastly overestimating the capabilities of the current level of technology when it comes to autoland reliability and competence in the more adverse conditions.

Up until today there still is no substitute for that computer between our ears for complex tasks as this.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 17:12
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Widger

Apart from the Falklands when have British interests been seriously at risk due to a lack of thru deck carriers?

I can't think of another one..................

The trouble is too many Admirals think they have to be a mini-USN - they want carriers AND SSN subs AND SSBN subs

I think two out of three ain't bad......................
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 17:46
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I think sssetowtf makes some very valid arguments in favour of -b being a 'not bad' solution. If that's all we can afford, let's have it.

As for sharky - what exactly does he want & what is his point? Is he really saying no jsf won't affect uk industry? Thank heavens no one now seems to take him seriously - the level of bile suggests a serious lack of judgement & objectivity.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 18:45
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Actually within his rant I see some of his bull****ting antics of old flaring up again:

What say you to the insider information that the Eurofighter radomes are now cracking up and falling off in the air during manoeuvre?
Thats news to me, that would be a major flight incident that would more then likely lead to a grounding. Haven't heard about any such groundings for this reason and even if it is true might well not be BAE Systems fault as it is a multinational design.

not to mention many others including the Tornado F3 weapons system
Much has been written about the F3 Tornado's weapons system over the years but the early issues can't really be laid at BAe's door considering it was a GEC-Marconi Elliott Avionic Systems Ltd radar and weapon system, not forgetting Ferrenti who made significant components of the system but answered directly to the MOD. Actually it was BAE Systems after various mergers who eventually fixed it and upgraded it into what was a very effective system in its later years. Another thing about the Tornado ADV weapon system is in many ways much of the earlier flack was slightly unfair on the developers. Even early on the RAF started to ask for capabilities that were never put into the weapon system specification. Some capabilities that were available on the older Phantom curiously, the manufacturers are not telepathic if they are not asked for something they won't include it. Frankly that shows poor planning on the MOD/RAF side rather then the manufacturers.

Nimrod’s total lack of airworthiness and maintainability
Maybe maybe not, certainly I think BAE should of proffered some alternatives to the Nimrod airframe but done is done. No RAF aircraft enters service without defects and maintainability is down to how much you are prepared to spend. Neither MR2 or MRA4 lacked airworthiness, one had been operated ten to fifteen years beyond its planned OSD with all the associated risks and the latter was still in flight trials.

the huge cost of maintaining Tornado GR4 in service
What are those costs? What are they in comparison to other types? What capabilities do we lose if we decide to retire them now? What capabilities would of been lost if we had retained a different type? Are other Tornado operators paying significantly less then the RAF? The RAF and MOD clearly think its a type worth retaining, we could shop around for maintenance with the other Tornado operators if we so wished. Or keep the money in the UK and it should be noted the F3 fleet is being gutted to support the GR4's...good cost saving there I would think.

the inability of the Storm Shadow missile to guide properly to its target or for its warhead to work correctly, etc
I would say Storm Shadow performance is probably highly classified making any rumours rather suspect (except for the arch bull****ter that is..)! Any navigation issues or warhead problems haven't exactly been made clear to the public and considering it is a MBDA weapon based on a French designed missile parking any problem directly at BAE Systems door is rather unfair yet again.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 19:05
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Widger

Apart from the Falklands when have British interests been seriously at risk due to a lack of thru deck carriers?
You are misquoting me. I never said British interests were at risk and we have not had a lack of 'through deck carriers (sic)'.

I said that the RN has learnt to its cost, time and again the limitations of Through Deck Cruisers operating Harrier (RN or RAF variety).

The CVS were compromised operating as anything other than ASW platforms and the Harrier was compromised by operating from it. The 'delta' (horrible term) between the Invincible Class and the likes of HMS Ark Royal of the 1970s, is huge! In every area of conflict since 1979, the RN could have played a much bigger and more effective role, in support of wider Defence, than it has done. My point about the utility of Air Power from the sea, being lost on a generation, is clearly summed up by your post.

QEC will be a National asset that will be able to fulfill a very large number of Defence tasks. This is something that a previous poster has alluded to.

QEC will be able to sail into a port and exert Defence Diplomacy for friendly nations. (Yes including hosting the Cocktail party that some posters mock but fail to understand that value of).

That same ship will be able to poise of a coast for weeks, without the need for Host Nation Support or having to negotiate/cajole/argue with a 'friendly' state to base its aircraft there.

QEC will be able to exert influence over most areas of the world. The weapon systems onboard, will be able to strike, defend, gather intelligence, provide support etc, all for weeks on end with minimal physical or cultural footprint.

QEC will be able to protect the interests of the UK in all those areas of the world where it still has an interest...those same areas also holding reserves of minerals etc. which in years to come, will be the UK's children's inheritance.

QEC will be able to operate helicopters, provide disaster relief, evacuate citizens, (without having to rely on Cyprus), provide medical facilities, engineering, rest and recuperation for troops, etc etc etc. It will be excellent value for money and all of a sudden, the UK will have a very 'in demand' capability. The issue is........what to fly off it and can the UK afford those aircraft?


All spelling mistakes are because Eastenders is on and I have fat fingers.
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Old 30th Apr 2012, 19:19
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Apart from the Falklands when have British interests been seriously at risk due to a lack of thru deck carriers?

I can't think of another one..................
Hi Heathrow,
I would suggest we forget what uniform we wear and ask what operations would have been easier if we had still had a carrier capability be it through deck or conventional.
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Old 1st May 2012, 02:56
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ORAC - I quite agree that when it comes to F35 or something else the flight test guys are not objective. However, when it comes to a decision between B and C they are, as they have worked on both, are all experienced on other types and can offer comparitive opinions accordingly.
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Old 1st May 2012, 07:02
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Originally Posted by White Overalls
However, when it comes to a decision between B and C they are, as they have worked on both, are all experienced on other types and can offer comparitive opinions accordingly.
If we are talking about choice for UK carrier operations then do we have Fleet Air Arm pilots testing these aircraft? I have seen images of an RAF pilot but so far nothing about any Navy pilots. Is it correct to suggest that no Royal Navy pilot will take to the skies until 2013? If so then the decisons will be made long before any Navy pilot gets to fly this aircraft.

I ask this question because of the experience, knowledge and most important, expertise of these pilots in the area of carrier operations. It has been stated elsewhere that we have Royal Navy pilots flying the F-18 from the decks of US carriers, these pilots will have expert knowledge of both conventional carrier operations and STOVL, surely if we are seeking opinions from pilots then these are the very best people to offer that advice? They may well have flown the SHAR as well as the latest Harriers so have an all round picture to compare the advantages, disadvantages of various types. what experience do the current UK pilots of the F-35B have to fall back on regarding conventional carrier ops vs STOVL? This is not a silly case of trying to score points, it is a sensible question asking about the expertise of pilots who are no doubt highly experienced, highly qualified and well respected RAF pilots, but what experience do they have to answer questions regarding suitability of aircraft for carrier operations?

Why did we not put a Fleet Air Arm pilot into this first aircraft if we are still undecided and need expert information to help answer any outstanding questions?
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Old 1st May 2012, 12:26
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Glojo - I don't carry a flag for any specific service

My point is that we can't continue to act as if we have the resources of the USA - those days ended around 1945

We keep trying to develop/buy lots of kit that quite simply we cannot afford

We need to decide

a) how much of the budget should be ring fenced for defence

b) what we can get for that money

For the last 60 years defence has been demand driven - I'm afraid that is no longer possible and somethings are going to have to give
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Old 1st May 2012, 13:15
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Glojo - I don't carry a flag for any specific service

My point is that we can't continue to act as if we have the resources of the USA - those days ended around 1945
Not another, we're not the nation we were post. As for 1945, I think you'll find the gulf between what we could afford per head and what America could back then, was far wider than it is today.

The principal difference between the UK and USA IN 2012, is they don't spend anything like the amount we do on state provision. I believe there may be a balance somewhere in between, but to run again another line,always dressed up as "time for a few hard facts of life about our position in the world today" is not an eye opener, nor was it ever. We're still about the 7th richest nation on the planet. What we do have is the worst possible value for money in terms of quantity of men and machines from the defence budget. Furthermore, the F35 looks increasingly like a serious future defence arrangement fiasco not just for us but for all involved.

FB
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