They know what it did. But they cancelled it with the intention of replacing it with something new. If they can get away with it, they will cut the new thing back as far as they can. They will not do another massive U-turn and lease/buy back the Harriers they already sold to the Americans.
Surely the move from F35C back to F35B was the major U-turn? Well, the Government seem to have survived that.
Leasing a few AV8Bs, and operating them
Illustrious/
QE instead of just sending people to learn CTOL skills would just be changing the implementation of policy?
Accept it. They have defined a path for the future of Naval Aviation and the best we can all hope for is that it doesn't get watered down too much. Certainly don't expect an expansion of the plan. You know what I mean. Don't you?
How relevant is it now? Sending people stateside to fly Hornet, and others to do CTOL work, when the future is STOVL? Also if the post SDSR plan was so good, how come they were concerns about the retention of skills which led to other proposals (all
mentioned elsewhere on the same thread - as were the issues. See the posts by Bismark and Not_a_boffin that are on the first page or the following ones). Some of the proposals had backing of senior people - including the First Sea Lord!
Originally Posted by Bismark
As I am sure has been said elsewhere, the aircraft and pilots just represent the front end of the carrier strike capability. The idiocy of the SDSR decision, which the PM is about to compound in the FR/UK Defence deal (FT Today), is that we risk losing the capability to operate jets off carriers. All of the expertise on the current CVSs will have gone (we are getting rid of the CVSs), the aircrew will have gone (either PVRd, redundant or moved to other aircraft types, the command experience will have gone (as will the met, ATC, FC, deck handlers, planners etc, etc).
Originally Posted by Not_a_boffin
ICBM - unfortunately, while your point re CV ops might be true, I'd put a fair bit of money that the guys who've done exchange tours have not done time in CATCC, Wings / Little F (Air & mini-boss in USN), handlers office or the squadron engineering and logs posts.
While they may be adept at doing the mission plan, launch, mission, recovery thing, they are unlikely to have a great understanding of how to spot a deck, arrange aircraft for servicing vice maintenance, weapons prep and bombing up and how all the various departments both in the squadrons and on the ship work to deliver the sortie rate. People thinking just about aircrew and (to some degree) chockheads are missing the point - it's the corporate experience of how to put it all together that is about to be lost. Nor can that be maintained at HMS Siskin - that just gives the basics of handling, not the fine art of pulling it all together.
As SDSR says "we need a plan to regenerate the necessary skills"- all I can say is it had better be a f8cking good one, cunning eneough to do more than brush your teeth with!
Maybe a better idea would be to bring back the Phantom and the Buccaneer..
Can they fly from
Lusty/
QE? Will they provide a capability now? Will they prepare our people for a STOVL future?
Recently there was a story in Pompey Evening News about a
proposal to build a couple of extra Patrol Vessels. Apart from the industrial skills issue, would this not be a tacit admission that ship numbers have been cut too far? A U-turn even?
However, OPVs are not really suitable for counter piracy or counter narcotics work, despite what the member for Portsmouth North thinks. It would not be money well spent. Restoring the STOVL capability would - a squadron of leased Harriers would not only help us prepare for the future, but also have an immediate effect in terms of national capabilities and possible UK contributions to coalition operations. The more limited proposals, or even embarking foreign Harriers, would help make the path to CVF easier, and more coherent?
What would the cost of a single F35B crash on deck be? Seen in those terms, it might seem like a sensible precaution to try to prevent it.