aviate1138:
If they wait just a little bit longer won't there be lots of earlier F-18s going cheap? Think of the money saved. After all if it is a need to put wings on a new carrier and then parade off some snitty Third World country whose inhabitants won't know the difference between an early [very cheap] and late [much more expensive] model F-18. Let's face it with the reduction in hours flown, why buy anything flyable at brand new prices! They will never reach anywhere near their time-expired/weary wings date.
The USN/USMC F/A-18 As/Bs and Cs/Ds won't be of any use to anyone, they may not have reached the end of their airframe hours but they have used up their allotment of cat/trap cycles and cannot be flown from the deck anymore. Useful for spare parts mainly but not much else.
In fact seeing as the Royal Navy has been told not to upset those naughty pirates why not build some Pinewood Studios replica battleships [all phoney but looking authentic] at a fraction of the normal cost and save even more money?
In the same vein, why doesn't the RAF just make do with lots of wooden/plastic Typhoon mockups on their airfields? That way they can make do with just the real Tiffies they have now and save a fortune on operating costs. Alternatively since the Russians only seem to send relics from the fifties to probe our airspace, how about we reply by intercepting them with Hawker Hunters? They might take the hint... I hear we have some back in service at the moment anyway, why not task them with northern QRA? And the army can buy lots of inflatable tanks like they did in WW2. Fooled the nazis in '44...
