View Full Version : RAN and VSTOL
wessex19
21st Jun 2007, 03:12
With the Federal Government announcing the purchase of 2 LHD's http://www.lhd.tenix.com/index.asp and 3 F-100 destroyers http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/f100/ what would the likelihood be of the RAN operating VSTOL aircraft in the future considering that the LHD's are ski jump equipped and claim on their website they can operate both VSTOL and UAV's.
How about we pull some RN Sea harriers out of mothballs to NAS Nowra to give the RAN the fixed wing culture back that it had developed over so many years. The Navy needs its own CAP!!!!
Critical Reynolds No
21st Jun 2007, 03:27
More to the point probably the STOVL F-35B.
:yuk: please lets not these morons waste any more money, Harriers??? (Seaprites by another name?):yuk:
Dragon79
21st Jun 2007, 23:18
Um Choppers doing VSTOL fine.
Sea Sprite - less said the better.
Sea King - Are they still grounded?
2 out of 4 types flying.
Like This - Do That
22nd Jun 2007, 02:56
And how many of 816's aircraft are airworthy?!?!?!?
Shot Nancy
22nd Jun 2007, 03:42
The Navy needs its own CAP!!!!
Where is the threat?
No confidence in your self defence systems? Maybe you just want to own the trainset and not let anyone else play with it.
A carrier battle group is a formidable force that, in the US case, can almost guarantee achieving the objective. A bit beyond Australia’s defence budget for a while so we continue our odds and ends approach to warfare.
The capability lost when the RAN was “Scholesed” in 1983 is unlikely to be recovered in our lifetime.
More to the point probably the STOVL F-35B.
How many to provide 24hr CAP? I’ll give you a hint, a lot more than one. The floating platform just got a lot bigger, oh it is now carrier size! Do you want more hulls or airframes? It is the NAVY after all.
As an aside when does anyone expect China’s carrier to be operational?
Dragon79
23rd Jun 2007, 00:51
Only 3 AWD to go around.
Why not split the F35 order in 80 As and 20 Bs , allow the air force to operate the Bs, Navy don't have to worry about operating fast Jets then, scrap the Super Hornets and save that money and bin the F111s now.
The Brits seem to operate OK ,with what 12 aircraft, turned out OK for them down in the south atlantic(a few more on Hermes, and yes it was a cloase run thing). The LHDs selected already have the Ski Jump. Not only could they operate in the CAP role could also provide support to troops, deployed from the LHDs. We are pretty much moving towards looking like the US Marines, why not go the whole way?
Didn't we give the Chinese a helping we sold Melbourne to them. They already have one of the russian carriers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army_Navy
This is an interesting link from the sea jet thread.
STRATFOR (http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:spbZBYg54gwJ:www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php%3Fid%3D286856+stratfor+china+carrier&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd)