High Spirits
Until 1978 this Country could deploy a carrier like this one. A self contained air force requiring no HNS and with it's it's own organic FJ, AEW and AAR aircraft. The Ark Royal and Illustrious were a shadow of what could once be undertaken but sufficed as we were not going to be involved in out of area deployments. History proved otherwise. Then ignoring this recent history, SDSR suggested that we would face no threat requiring carrier strike until 2020. Political events since now suggest that this was a brave assumption!
At present we are deploying a small number of fast jets. How many aircraft does the RAF now need to maintain the 8 or so being used in Afghanistan and say twenty ish for Libya? The answer seems to be rather a lot. The Expeditionary Air Wing concept fails if ill equipped to be able to deploy quickly and continue to function overseas for a sustained period of time.
So although I still consider that the Ark Royal/Harrier GR9 combination was not
essential for the Libya op, the longer this deployment lasts, the more their deletion
is going to be noticed. And heaven help us if events take a turn for the worse anywhere else where HNS and allied support could be even more of an issue.
