Fair cop - MFTS was a poor example. The point I was trying to make is a single service chief is more likely to talk of his own "empire" in his own single-service strategy. CAS is no different to CNS/CGS in this respect. Whilst many may wish it otherwise we are still three seperate services who have individual service interests and single service chiefs to develop those interests and take them forward. An aircraft carrier is not joint (although the air wing aspect of it is) unless we are going to see non Dark Blue Captains of the future carriers! For that reason I see no need for CAS to talk aircraft carriers. But he does talk of the need to "maintain and further develop an agile, adaptable and capable expeditionary air power contribution to the UK's overall defence capability, which takes full account of emerging threats, concepts and technologies" which without spelling it out in simple words would, IMHO, suggest he is fully supportive of the carrier concept. However, without wishing to incur the wrath of the senior sefvice too much (had enough of doing that for the last 12 months) his strategic priorities are set for the next 5-10 year timescale - when exactly are the carriers going to be fully CR (including JSF)....? I'm sure it's been mentioned a thousand times on this thread but I'm too lazy to look!
