Going back to practical issues:
The launch of
Queen Elizabeth was a great event, but a huge amount of work remains to be done. One issue that will cause headaches (and is already a source of concern to those involved) is that of preparing personnel for fixed wing operations. Whilst this is a hobby horse of mine, I am not alone.
WhiteOvies - 25 June 13:
The bigger issue is getting everyone else to be ready for a large, busy flight deck. At least there is a team of people looking into this issue and both deckcrew, aircrew and engineers are being appropriately positioned to give them some exposure to this dangerous environment prior to QEC.
orca - 26 June 13:
All we need to see is a signed document from CAS saying that he will embark his jets as soon as the CO indicates his ship is ready in all respects to conduct aviation.
The second sentence will indicate that he will disembark them only when the Air Management Organisation is fully up to speed, the Air Group is fulfilling ATO tasking, the Air Weapon supply team have produced weapons to surge capacity and these have been loaded on jets and dropped, the Yellow Coats can marshal, chain and chock a fourship in all weathers, whilst another fourship is taxying for take off. The jets will remain embarked until every Fighter Controller in the fleet has worked a fourship through Red Crown procedures and the JFACCHQ have established resilient comms for a week or two and Flyco have exercised being b#ggered about from dawn to dusk. Repeat all for night ops. When all this is crimped the TG in its entirety will take part in a COMAO based exercise of Neptune Warrior type scope and we'll call it good.
The third sentence will indicate that the jets will be back as soon as any of the above notice any degree of skill fade and the process will start again.
As well as these recent (June 2013) comments, the following comments are from just after the SDSR:
Bismark - 28 Oct 10:
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).
Bismark - 29 Oct 2010:
But what is missing in 2020 is the crews on the ships with any experience of aviation - from the CO downwards....I am sure the MAA will have something to say about that, indeed I wonder whether they are doing anything about it at the moment?
Not a boffin - 30 Oct 10:
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!
Pre SDSR the plan was that the best way to prepare for future fixed wing operations was to have Harriers aboard the CVS as often as possible, as the FAA Command Warrant Officer said in late 2009, after a period of years when having our own jets embarked was a rarity - however embarking American, Italian, and Spanish ones had maintained skills (and hopefully strengthened defence relationships).
Post SDSR, the idea of embarking foreign jets has been repeatedly dismissed, on the basis there is no need to practice skills that will be needed in future, as the future is not here yet.
This PDF document on
route cause analysis contains an interesting example of analysis of factors involved in consistently hitting as baseball at a certain speed. Can you picture a similar thing for a jet taking off from a carrier, doing the mission and being safely recovered - OOW etc able to put ship on right heading/speed and get wind across deck, MEs flashing up engines, FLYCO managing the deck and airspace and deconflicting jets and helicopters, chockheads moving jets and coping with jet blast (not encountered with helicopters, and the F-35B will produce much more than Sea Harrier/Harrier), and so on (Operations Room personnel, WE maintainers, communicators, etc)?
As with most things, the value (and difficulty) is in integration. Aviation is of course a whole ship activity.