Quite agree with Mick Smith's post: of all the options, considering there ARE going to be cuts, JSF is the most plausible: way too man unknowns, way too expensive, and the only program hich can be efficiently replaced. But with what?
- Forget about Typhoon. No matter how fantastically superior it is to everybody else. It is not possible to navalise it and it will not be: airframe strength, nosewheel under the intakes, no deck visibility due to the canards, high approach speed, low payload,etc.... Tried it with the Jaguar, binned it, tried it with the Mirage 2000, binned it, it required 80% of modifications on the acft.
Only sensible option is to grind the ski jump and put some F/A-18 (they will be damn old by 2015) or Rafales. I understand RN would rather chew their own hats rather than buying Rafales and re-learning to cat&trap 30 years after Ark Royal (the real one), however it makes sense...
