Originally Posted by
typerated
So if the RAF can't afford a suitable adversary – nor can most countries outside of the US – is there an alterative hiding in the past?
And it’s obviously a waste of money using a Hawk /Alpha Jet /Skyhawk etc -
Would it not be better to fund very active DACT deployment schedule between countries.
So for the UK
Week 1 Swedish Gripens to Coningsby
Week 2 Lossiemouth to French Mirage 2000s
Week 3 Coningsby to Spanish F/A-18s
Week 4 USAFE F-16s to Lossiemouth
Week 5 Polish Mig-29s to Marham
etc etc.
It means more time away and some time flying Red Air but surely in Europe there are lots of dissimilar aircraft looking for opponents through European NATO – why hire machines that are very unrepresentative.
Or, put the money into more tankers – and fly longer range DACT sorties – meet the Swedes off Denmark if you don't want to drink Swedish beer for the week!
It wouldn’t work. As you point out it means more time away, which means a concomitant reduction in numbers to do QRA and I guess the force is already running hot. The logistics tail to conduct dets all over the place would be horrendous when there’s already spares issues. I also guess you’d get the standard answer of - ‘different budgets’ so you wouldn’t be able to use the money ear marked for this contract.
Quite a sad state of affairs that we will end up with a 1990s solution….