Yes, I can see us returning to an "not east of Suez" policy. Pity about the Falklands and Afghanistan. Damned inconvenient.
Nurse,
Quote: With the AWACS future you propose would it be feasible/cost effective to fit Rivet Joint Kit onto a "Retired" AWACS airframe? Unquote.
Umm, I bet nothing is cost effective when you take into account the UKs ability to procure/ project manage many things on time, on quality & on cost! There's no budget for it. Probably cheaper to store the E3Ds & lease/ buy some second hand RJs. Procuring RJs is probably one of the programmes that will continue.
Technically there will also be massive (impossible to overcome problems) with mutual interference between the listening kit and the transmitting kit!
As aside, and I'm well out of the loop now, but if I was the RN I would be doing my damndest to work out how to deploy & recover UAVs from a CVS.