On New Years Day, the story from the
Mail On Sunday about
Art Nalls and his SHAR made me think.
Thought 1: The US is not a regulation free zone, he has had to satisfy Federal Aviation Administration regulations, but has done this without breaking the bank.
Thought 2: The manual (sic) ran to 400 000 pages - that's some paper.
Thought 3: Even with all the work he had to do, removing things, local modifications such as a new ejection seat, the level of expenditure quoted by the article is around £1 million, including operating costs. Does that suggest that it need not be as expensive as some suggest?
Thought 4: Art Nalls had no support from a Government, nor from BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Martin Baker, or others. How much more could be achieved with their support?
Originally Posted by Courtney
P.S. To keep or regain the capability, we need a cat and trap jet. So my counter proposal is to regenerate a squadron of F4s. Grateful for your thoughts on that. We didn't decommission some of those too far away from the SHAR, did we?
How would Phantom operate from
Illustrious/
Queen Elizabeth?
Originally Posted by Biggus
Quite possibly, but how many of its systems are working, its Radar, RWR, attack system? As someone else pointed out, having an aircraft fit to fly the display circuit and go to war in a modern environment are two very different things. A Tiger Moth can work the display circuit.....
Although I'm not expert on SHAR, there are no doubt numerous avionics systems that would need to be operational that a Hunter, and even a Buccaneer, don't have. Including Secure Comms, ECM, Link 16, Radar integrated into a weapons system, IN/GPS system, etc, etc. How many of these has Art got working on his SHAR?
Good point. However, replacing comms and EW kit should not be impossible. SHAR never received Link 16 so no need to worry about that. As for the radar, regenerating Blue Vixen as it was and performing the work needed to integrate AMRAAM would be hard, time consuming, and expensive. However, if we forget about AMRAAM and accept that an aircraft with Sidewinder can still engage aircraft at a greater range than shipborne missiles can, then things look different. Instead of regenerating the entire Blue Vixen functionality, COTS/made to order components (microwave devices from
TMD perhaps, or waveguides (including filters, couplers, etc) from
TWS, or perhaps antenna work from
Q-par Angus?) could be used to provide at least a basic radar with air to air (and hopefully air to surface) modes.
In 1982 the
AEW Sea King went from existing only on paper to flying sorties in approximately ten weeks. Things
can happen fast, and all sorts of things achieved,
if the will is there.
Originally Posted by Evalu8tor
The RNHF aircraft are supported by a PT, are the historic aircraft of other display teams. They all have safety cases and are subject to mods (such as Mode 5 / 8.33). They are inherently simpler designs. Much of the support costs are met by charitable trusts. They only have to display,not fight....
Wrt "paperwork" stopping us flying, would you rather we went back to the pre-Nimrod days? There's a big difference between a 2/3/4* being scurrilous to score points and putting his signature to a safety case where the buck stops with him. If the UK were being threatened then perhaps people would take that risk, but just to keep deck crews "current" in a "what if" capacity it is extremely unlikely.
Your arguement re the Titanic is emotive but irrelevant as you could make the same point about almost any capability that's been lost over the past few years - and I'd argue that the replacement MPA is far more important - and I could invent a scenario to support it.
Finally, what else is the RN prepared to scrap to exhume the SHar? A T45, an Astute or the T26 frigate? Give up CHF? That's the bottom line here. SHar was a great jet in its' day, and one of the hardest opponents I ever "fought" - but that was 10 years ago and the game has moved on. Please do the same....
Interesting point about display aircraft. The new regulations exist to ensure safety. However, from reading the posts of certain PPRuNe posters, I imagine that if the original rules had been obeyed, and non technical managers not allowed to overrule technical people, then many tragic accidents would have been prevented and the issue would never have arisen. However, I see that Art Nalls achieved US civil certification.
It would not be solely to keep deck crews current - there are also many other parts of ship involved in supporting flying operations. It would also be to provide that capability that could be expanded in a crisis. Regarding your last point, I do not know exactly how much it would cost. Nor, I suspect, does anyone else.
Originally Posted by APG63
Small numbers are not practical and why are some here even talking about STOL anymore anyway. F35C will need us to build C&T capability and that is very different.
Surely basics like moving the jets around a moving deck are the same? Or the OOW and bridge team making sure the ship is on the correct heading, at the right speed and so on? What about things like awareness of issues like FOD and jet blast? Not so long ago there was a news story
about concerns being expressed regarding the issue of deck crews (and others) losing skills.
Going back to some earlier points, I have already noted (see the previous page) that for the idea to be feasible some full time people would be needed, they might be regular RN, RNR on FTRS, or civilians working for contractors. I also cannot see why Reservists cannot be managed and employed intelligently - the law has just been changed to allow personnel to be mobilised for shorter periods for "urgent work of national importance".
Regarding spares, a quick Google search finds several sources, including
Aviation Spares International and
Aerospace Logistics - the latter also offers MRO services. Nobody would sell aerospace components without meeting normal quality and traceability standards.
The recent
comments of the Secretary of State for Defence should give us food for thought. Some of my Iran related comments can be found
here, as can links to various papers.
Apart from thinking that it is odd that we will rely entirely on Host Nation Support for air cover should anything happen (which might be denied due to politics or Iranian threats), but that we need to put
Ocean in the middle of London to support security operations for the Olympics, I cannot help thinking that:
Full war is unlikely - what is more likely is that there would be attacks on or harassment of shipping throughout the Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, and Arabian Sea. If Iran decides to get nasty it will not want to concentrate its forces in any one area. Similarly, it will want to disperse and make like difficult for its opponents. Therefore a UK task group might be operating nearer to Iran bases than friendly air bases or the nearest allied carrier.
Shipborne missiles are vastly improved compared to those employed in 1982. However, they cannot visually identify aircraft, or intercept them and warn them off. Since that part of the world if full of civil air traffic, and Iran has MPA and reece aircraft that might be used to provided command and control to other forces, this may be an issue of huge significance. They can only provide defence at a shorter range than a fighter, hence the
comments of the then First Sea Lord in early 2003:
"You need a lot of Type 45s to give the same coverage as a naval air-defence fighter."
Since Iran has submarines (and not just the
Kilos) and more small craft than you can count, an airborne ISTAR asset would be needed. Alas, SDSR axed the Nimrod, so the requirement may fall onto the Navy's Merlins.
Illustrious would probably be the best platform to operate them from.
We live in interesting times....