Grey Area,
What a great idea, all the F3 Navs retrain as AH Front Seaters, the AH fleet gets it Air Defence missile (all the LRUs are already there, as is the radar
) and then significantly reduce the F3 fleet (or even better multi-role other capabilities). RUSI don't really see a medium level air defence threat in the next 20 years (thanks to Uncle Sam) and therefore in the layered Air Defence (FSC, AH and a multi-role Typhoon can do the lot - not forgetting Type 42/45 for the fisheads).
TLT NITEX has shown that AH in Air Defence is not just bar room bravado, but despite the very high calibre of many F3 Navs I am not too sure whether their Service ethos, previous military experience in the Ground Level environment will actually result in a smooth transition to AH tactical operations (no JTIDS or AWACS picture giving the feed).
So, good idea Grey Area lets do it!
Oh and the cockpit heating goes up to 32 degrees so yes we can deliver piping hot pizzas but as an AAC Melchett recently said on TV when asked what an Apache can do an AH doesn't hand out sweets!
