F/A18s for the RN

[Unixman]

Listening to the BBC news it seems that at least one of the carriers will be cat n' trap...

BBC News - Defence review: HMS Ark Royal to be scrapped (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11570593)

(Might want to merge in to other threads)

[WhyNavy]

RN gets F-18s and RAF gets F-35As. A fair trade I would say !!!

[JFZ90]

Which bits of the F18 are made in Samlesbury?

[Willard Whyte]

Dunno about BAES, but I guess RR will be commissioned to produce a less powerful, heavier and less economical engine to go in a Hornet.

[Vox Populi]

I think the cat is so that we end up with the non vstol version of the F-35 (in 2020). Can't see any mention of F/A-18s in any of the briefings.

[JFZ90]

Maybe GEC Marconi can put iCaptor in the nose.

[JFZ90]

Plus - how much can you hammer down the cost if Lockheed / BAe know you can operate F-18s or Rafale as an alterative.

Thats an interesting question!






(thread running for >60min with no sign of a marinaded Typehoon).

[Daysleeper]

I really don't want to enter this debate but

2-3 steam catapults

there are two flaws with that plan,

Firstly there is no steam and secondly there is no steam. Now I know that technically that is just one flaw, but it is such a fundamental one that I thought it worth mentioning twice.

I think the tech you mean is electro- magnetic aircraft launch system. EMALS

[/Pedant mode]

[AR1]

Cant' see the point of making just one of them for conventional flight ops then splitting the aircraft purchase. Wouldn't it make sense to be able to operate all your navalised aircraft from both aircraft carriers? - unless of course the conventional carrier comes first along with an interim batch of Hornets?

[Norma Stitz]

I think you'll find the 'only one carrier will have cat/trap' arrangement is because HMS Prince of Wales is earmarked to replace Ocean, therefore we'd only have one 'true' carrier.

As for the Super Hornet debate, and F-35B investment, it's a no brainer really in terms of money though potentially short-sighted in having to keep CV qualified crews. US inter-deployment training cycles (IDTC) are intense in themselves with all of their assets (both floating and field carrier landing practice), so it'll be fun to see how we'd cope. Unless the French or Yanks lent us a boat when HMS QE was in re-fit.....

[Wrathmonk]

If they cut the F-35 purchase from 150 to 75, and bought 75 F-18s, the money saved would pay for a third CVF. That's fewer jobs in Salmesbury - but a lot more in Rosyth, Southampton and Birkenhead !

They're not trying to buy more capability with the same money they are trying to save money. So reduce the F35 purchase, ignore buying F18s (how old will it be when PoW comes into Service anyway....?) and you may start making in roads into the £30bn+ black hole in the MOD accounts.

[Pontius Navigator]

Will pprune be very quiet next week with the fate of CVS, SSBN, MRA4, GR4, GR9 and the RN settled?

[ORAC]

Will PPRuNe be very quiet next week with the fate of CVS, SSBN, MRA4, GR4, GR9 and the RN settled? I believe this will just be the start of the political wrangling over bases, numbers of aircraft and RAF/RN manning and control. The real infighting is only just about to begin...

[tonker]

And yet all we need is these. No need for carriers etc, just literally thousands of these buggers all over the globe. Cheap, proven and fewer collateral problems! Handy for football crowd control too:ok:

LiveLeak.com - B-57G Canberra Pave Gat Test (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d0_1287303302)

[Flying Icecream]

So much speculation !! So many rumours !! However,here's my hypothesis (No names,no pack drill ). Anyway ; a senior Royal Naval officer (possibly from the Royal Marines) may have already left these shores for far Americay, where he will (or may already have done) sign a slop-chit for a number of nice shiny FA 18 aeroplanes to be used at some future date,after the pilots have done lots of MADDL-ing at Boscombe Down,Yeovilton (if it's spared) etc, and masses of DLP with US CVAs that are in range, aboard our very own shiny new CVAs,which I fervently hope will be re-named "Eagle" and "Ark Royal" !! In any case,if HMG start the ball rolling now,five or so years should give us plenty of time to train the air & ground staff, set up the support facilities,modify the airfield (s) ,etc....smart move, eh ??
God save the Queen.

[Occasional Aviator]

Will PPRuNe be very quiet next week with the fate of CVS, SSBN, MRA4, GR4, GR9 and the RN settled?

Judging how long the SHAR thread went on with fantasists insisting that it was the best BVR fighter in the world ever and should be brought back, I'd say that any result short of 2 carriers with dedicated wings of F-35, organic ISTAR, carrier-borne UCAVs and promises of more escorts will result in about ten years of naval types bitterly complaining that the RAF stitched them up with a series of dirty tricks.

[Phil_R]

Honest question, since I am not one of the illuminati on this.

If carriers are to have catapults and arrestor wires, and it seems sensible to have them be fully capable if we have to have them, is there some reason it is undesirable to navalise Typhoon?

Surely having some more aircraft built locally has to be better financially than buying them from the US, and you gain additional savings from limiting the number of types in service.

Just looking for simple solutions, not that navalising Typhoon is necessarily simple but it is presumably possible.

[Norma Stitz]

A navalised Typhoon is a romantic idea...and only that , I'm afraid. You need to design a carrier aircraft from the keel up (pardon the pun), and the cost would spiral therefore off the shelf F/A-18E & Fs or even Rafale are the only conventional options....but alas right now it seems we're not getting either

[Postman Plod]

They're getting cat and trap to make them easier to sell - to the French perhaps. Or maybe Brazil - I mean, why not? Or sod it, Argentina might like them.

[Norma Stitz]

Oh well, end of thread! No F-18K after all.....F-35C it will be (though, like Nimrod, if you 'gap' a capability when do you actually say we don't need it?).

[Thomas coupling]

VSTOL cancelled, carriers to be reconfigured for conventional FW which means atleast a 2 year delay due to the modifications.

[skippedonce]

G-RICH,

Are you proposing the RN scraps more DD/FFs to fund Harrier then? Somehow I don't think your cunning plan has any financial backing.

We, collectively, are broke and the capability trade-offs have been made.

Move on.

[Willard Whyte]

TC, I didn't know they were already putting the deck on. Why 2 years delay, surely not even BAES would build them with a ramp and only then plane the damn thing off.

[GreenKnight121]

They aren't anywhere even putting the main hull blocks together, much less fitting the deck on.

However, they have started fabricating sections of the flight deck for later assembly.

Adjusting the design & fabrication plans* to fit the cats & arresting gear... whether they are the US EMALS or the UK EMCAT... will take some time, thus the first reason for the delay.

Additionally, while the US has begun full-scale testing of EMALS with real aircraft, the UK's Converteam only has a small-scale version built of EMCAT, and still needs to do the whole "design the scaled up version, build it, & test it" process... which will take a few years. Thus the second need for more time.

Regardless of the type chosen, the cat&trap equipment is an expensive bit of kit, the redesign of the flight deck and power distribution net will add more cost to the programme, and extending the build will add still more... but the per-year spend will be lower, due to the adding of 4 years to QE's build schedule, and that is what counts from the Treasury side. And with the 3rd leg of the "justification tripod" built, the delay is guaranteed!



* while the overall ship design set aside room & weight allowances for cat&trap equipment, no detailed design for installation and powering of same was done, because it was not intended to be installed for at least 8-10 years after QE entered service... so there needs to be a delay in fabrication of certain parts to allow that detailed design work to be done, and appropriate changes to the fabrication orders to be written and issued.

Since exact dimensions, structural requirements, isolation considerations, and specific power requirements are needed before that detailed design work can be done, the design work can't start right away.

[jindabyne]

G-RICH

What's the betting that he goes for the F-18 as well ?

I'd take large odds on that as a longish term interim. Plenty of indicators.

[Willard Whyte]

There's a chance, albeit tiny, that our principal allies might help out with '18s, just to keep us in the game, as it were.

One imagines there would be at least some C/D models available in the near future to tide us over.

[Willard Whyte]

G-K, not asking for an explanation, just having a wry dig at BAES.

To much seriousness on these forums - from spelling pedants to policy dissectors.

[Modern Elmo]

now that diiesel/electric U-boats no longer prowl the seas.

?

[LowObservable]

The current UK plan has to say F-35C because on US program of record the Super Hornet will be 4-5 years out of production when the UK needs aircraft, and has an OSD of 2030 (though one has to ask, replaced by what?).

However, I would not bet big money on the survival of the current US plan, under which the most expensive fighters to be acquired in the next 15 years have the smallest range and payload.

[moggiee]

Didn't BAE propose a navalised Typhoon a while back? With all the fuss over whether or not all the Typhoons destined for the RAF will be delivered, could we not beef up the landing gear, fit a hook and give them to the Navy?

Before anyone says "yes but look what they did with the Tornado F2" remember in that case BAE built what they were asked to build, rather than building an aeroplane suited to the task.

Alternatively, I bet the Russians would let us have a few Sukhois at a good price........

[dmanton300]

"One imagines there would be at least some C/D models available in the near future to tide us over."

Certainly not from the US. They are having a very nightmare trying to find enough legacy Hornets to keep their fleet operational, since production stopped. They are cycling A/B/C/D models through upgrades and maintenance just to keep the status quo. Indeed some of the supposedly obsolete A models are now on the F/A-18A++ (yup. .plus plus!) to keep them in the fleet as C's wear out.

So the US is out of the picture unless something changes prior to JSF reaching the carrier. Spain? They have around 100 now counting top ups, some upgraded to EM standard, some not. Australia is a Bug/Super Bug force and probably wants to keep hold of all they can for now.

Nope, the way I see it if we ever got any Hornets they would very likely be new build Super Hornet, the Legacy is pretty much an endangered species jealously guarded by it's users these days.

[Willard Whyte]

Maybe we could swap some tranche 1 tiffies with the Kuwait '18s

Spain got a couple of dozen ex-USN '18As in the late 90s, not saying that will make any others as easy to get hold of.