[QUOTE=SASless]What am I missing here....an angled deck large carrier can do it all....
It would also mean that we could acquire E-2 to meet the MASC requirement instead of the half measure that is the Sea King/Merlin solution. It would give our future carrier group a significantly superior capability and it would be a straight forward, off the shelf purchase.
I would be very pleased to see those at the decision making level opt for a conventional, US style carrier with cats and traps..... money (rather the lack of!) will almost certainly mean that we never see this happen though.
Therefore, it is almost definitely going to be Merlin as our future MASC platform. The only other real alternative is the Osprey. The only scenario in which we could concievably purchase Osprey for MASC is as part of a wider Osprey purchase in which it would meet some of the FRC (Future Rotorcraft Capability) requirement, the budget over the next 10 years for which is £4 bn. Not going to happen me thinks!
