we would then have to use only the kit delivered on the platform as we could not clear or use anything of our own and when our friends and allies wont give us a capability they want only for themselves what should we do ?
You've hit the nail on the head! Once the destruction of independent UK T&E capability is complete, we will then have no option to buy and use absolutely standard
foreign kit bought off the shelf. We will have no choice but to accept whatever T&E standards the "first user" country adopts.
Furthermore, do our politicians/military brass realise that they will no longer be able to buy Airframe X from the US (let's say) and add that we would like to have R-R engines instead of GE, Smith's cockpit displays instead of the preferred US supplier, or any other "home grown" avionics or other systems? In other words, loss of UK T&E will lead directly and inevitably to further loss of UK design innovation and manufacturing capability.
It is common nowadays to find military aircraft, in particular, having in-service lives of 40 years or more. Naturally, over such long lives, the defence requirement which led to the original purchase will inevitably mutate. As we won't have the independent design or manufacturing capability, we will have to go cap in hand to the makers of Airframe X and ask them to provide the new capability. Unless the requirement is also needed by the prime user, we will inevitably go to the back of the queue - or even be told that to design, manufacture and test a mere 80 (or whatever) sets of kit is not worth them spending their time on it. If you think that defence procurement in the UK has seen some excessive cost overruns, wait until you see what a monopoly overseas supplier charges a tiny, foreign customer!
The TPs contributing to this thread will understand the point I am making, but some of the non-TPs may not. For them, a true story. Back in the 1960s, the RAF was desperate to upgrade the air-to-ground weapons fit of the Hunter. The Hunter was then using WWII vintage 3" "drainpipe" rockets - notoriously inaccurate. An order was placed for pods of SNEB rockets (already in use by the French) to replace them. Boscombe got stick from the RAF for "delaying" the introduction of SNEB. The reason was simple: on the first firing flight, it was found that pod debris had damaged the underside of the ailerons. Hawker Siddeley said that such damage would mean a double aileron change after every two firing sorties! Clearly unacceptable. Details of the problem were fed back to Matra in France. It took them
nine months to produce the first attempted cure - which also didn't work. The SNEB was eventually cleared for use on the Hunter, the delay being wholly attributable to the supplier.
If we lose UK T&E capability, it follows as surely as night follows day that the whole procurement process will change. There will be no scope for working up operational requirements from first principles and issuing a detailed spec for interested manufacturers to consider. Instead, the operational requirement will have to be defined in the broadest of terms. The (shrunken) procurement branch will then have to shop around the world's manufacturers to see if any are offering an "off the shelf" product which
might be capable of meeting the requirement -
without any mods whatsoever. I understand the aircraft industry in China is developing rapidly. Their future products may well be competitively priced, but does anyone believe their T&E standards will be as high as the Western world's?
In any future conflict, forget the UOR which comes from unforeseen problems in actual combat use. Unless the host supplier nation agrees on the need, there won't be a mod.
Sorry to go on at such length, but I'm sure our UK politicians and military brass have simply not thought through the consequences of their recent decisions.
V