JAJ,
Good points and I can see the advantages offered by the Fin in the Stan. However, central point for the country is that it can't go to sea. We've taken a course that means we have to regenerate maritime aviation from scratch in 10 years. Poor call, in my view.
Yep, no doubt Tornado has more legs than the Harrier, and the recovery problems were acute with both SHAR and GR7. GR9 would have remedied a lot of that. The reason we were looking so hard at RVLs for JSF was to give better insurance against the same happening with that jet. now all academic, sadly. Your points are well made.
Two carriers is less than anyone would like, but that's the real world. The key to the issue was to get the RAF to include carriers in their basing assumptions IN PLACE OF a DOB or two. That would have got the staffs thinking carefully about where to put them. The real world is that carriers can be put just about anywhere on the globe in two weeks or so. They are often the first things that start moving if a situation starts to arise, with their full time embarked air groups - this is the USN pattern. However, if the air guys (RAF) only see them as 'a potentially useful basing option' (quoting CAS) and see aircraft at sea as 'detachments' rather than 'embarked units' then the need to move carriers around goes. All a matter of doctrine and policy.
GazEd - A Typhoon successfully used GPS and aircraft data to drop a PWIV? So? BAE should have been driven to do this a long while back We had publicity shots of LGBs o the aircraft two years ago. This is ops normal, and late to boot. Sorry, and probably too hard on the guys working hard, but this is no longer rocket science.
best regards
Engines