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Old 23rd Nov 2015, 18:56
  #227 (permalink)  
Easy Street
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
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F-35 squadron numbers - I read the announcement as indicating that there will be two front-line squadrons. Since we already knew that 809 NAS was going to be the OCU, with 617 Sqn the first front-line unit, I think that the speculation over 801 NAS's reappearance is pretty sound. Shame it will be so far away (post-SDSR20!)

As to the number of Typhoon squadrons increasing, this really isn't difficult to understand. Previous plan was to stay at 5 with all the Tranche 1 jets retiring and being replaced by Tranche 3, giving a 5-sqn force of mixed Tranche 2/3 aircraft. New plan is to have 7 sqns, an increase of 2 as announced, by retaining the Tranche 1 aircraft in service. Next question will be how those are mixed in - my money would be on a few of them per sqn for use on QRA and in-house red air. Speculation of a dedicated Typhoon aggressor unit seems a bit, well, aggressive!

All in, a good day for the RAF. On one level, it can be argued that it was a deserved correction to ~15 years of incremental shift towards a land-centric force, which was always an anomaly considering our status as an island trading nation. Therefore I am reluctant to paint this as 'glorious victory', more just an outbreak of common sense!
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