US aircraft that the UK should have bought

[Dr Jekyll]

Inspired by the 'most important US aircraft' thread and all the discussions about British potential world beaters cancelled in favour of US aircraft.

What are the US aircraft the UK really should have bought?

I'd suggest F15 instead of Tornado ADV.

Starlifter instead of Belfast.

Any others?

[411A]

P3 instead of the Nimrod.

[Ridge Runner]

None. We had a perfectly good and thriving aircraft industry that was capable of supporting all functions. Its like everything else in the world now, the US way seems to be accepted at the cost of our own genius. RR

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Perhaps if a certain Alliott Verdon Roe had bought a flying machine from the Wright brothers, he might have saved himself the expense and anguish of designing and building his own machines. Simply building Wright machines ”under licence”, his factory would probably have avoided contributing the Lancaster to the ’42 – ’45 bombing campaign. What a short sighted man.

[Herod]

OK, it's an American instead of an Americam, but the Sea Stallion instead of the Chinook.

[mr fish]

a few more c17's!!!

[tornadoken]

FAA was short-changed after its Lend/Lease types left, 1946, and before F-4K arrived, 1968. Between 1946 and 1950 we had no $ so had little option but to try Attacker, Seamew, Sea Venom, Sea Hawk, Wyvern; we lingered awhile wastefully on Firebrand, Spearfish, Sturgeon. But from start of Korean War we had access to $, which RAF put to such good use on Sabre, Neptune &tc. We spent much to bring carriers into Service but put low industry priority on their Air Groups, letting Gannet AEW.3, Scimitar, Sea Vixen take forever to reach any operational value. We took some $ kit - AI radar, Bullpup, Sidewinder - but should have taken Essex-Air Groups - Trader, Tracker, Banshee, Skyhawk - as RAN/RCN did.

[Double Zero]

Dr.Jekyll,

Couldn't agree more re. C-17 & Tornado ADV, but since when ( maybe 1936 ish ) did common sense come into the equation ?

There's a lot said about the U.S. having a " not invented here " attidude, but when they saw something good, like the Harrier & Hawk, they bought them.

In return, which UK politician is going to send out his son / best chum / girlfriend in an F3 if they had the choice of an F-15 ?!

As long as politics ( don't say money as I don't believe that, to a large extent ) over-ride aircraft designers and Test Pilots, we will get crap kit, and could still have had an aircraft industry making decent products.

My entry for ' what we should have bought '; Harrier 2+ with AMRAAM.

Not as sexy as JSF, or as good a radar as FA2, but a huge degree of commonality with GR9 ( and I think I can say that, and know the differences, having photographed the detailed structure & various kit for both, officially I might add ! ) - JSF can wait, we'll need it one day, but we need Harrier 2+ right now.

[JW411]

Undoubtedly the KC-10 instead of wasting an absolute fortune on converting second-hand L-1011s.

[tinpis]

All of them? :rolleyes:

[Tempsford]

Spoken by a man who flew one of the finest examples Vickers made...
the VC9.

Good old tin.

[Dan Winterland]

Once, many years ago, there was a plan to buy the F18 instead of the F3. The other side of this was that the USAF were considering the GR1 as a SEAD aircraft.

Why the F18? Because it had a probe.

That would have made sense.