Originally Posted by
Lilaccruiser
Well said. Not long before his death, Sandy Woodward argued for CATOBAR QEs with the Super Hornet as the air component. One suspects that navalising the Typhoon would have used up an ocean of money but that might have been an option. BAE were keen at one point.
Whatever, we now have these 65,000 ton monsters with a F35B air arm that’s seriously challenged for range and payload and whose AEW is of necessity a low altitude helicopter based system. And don’t start me on the lack of proper missile defences.....
Engines has previously posted about the real technical and operational difficulties in navalising the Typhoon. BAe studied it for MoD I think.
If you want a good naval aircraft you need to design seaborne characteristics in from the first sketches, and there is plenty of evidence that adapting a land based design usually produces poor results. Trying to make one design suitable for two or three different operational environments has an even worse track record.
N