View Full Version : Sunday lunch in Texas
Reheat On
7th Apr 2002, 06:32
Assumption 1: El Presidente Tone is anxious to keep his ex officio invite to the best bashes on the other side of the pond, and his assured steak at all the best BBQs
Assumption 2: EPT indeed wants to remain being allowed to be Dubya's ear on such matters as the Middle East [our record in Palestine was, I think, technically better than the US's!]
Assumption 3: Dubya is no fool and reckons on a quid pro quo
Question: How long will it before Dubya threatens EPT with the eject button if he insists on cutting the UK defence budget while the US is cranking theirs back to reality. Would EPT have the b@££$ to say 'no' to Dubya, and stay friends with Father Gordon, or would he feel morally and ethicaly obliged [yeah, right!] to shift his Governements stand and take his Scots friend on in a fight to the political death?
For sure, EPT is very exposed in his present position both at home and abroad.
BEagle
7th Apr 2002, 14:13
“Hey, Tiny, have a beer. Howdya like your steak?”
“Um yes, OK. Oh - and moist and pink in the middle but with no blood. Just the way I like Cherie”
“OK, Tiny. I hear you gotta a problematicisation with you airplane carriers?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. It’s George, George. That is, the other George. He won’t let me put my hand in his sporran for the new engines we need....”
“Say, bubba - no problemo. We love your little limey carriers with our famous Harry airplanes. Thanks for buying ‘em - keeps my friends at MacDonalds real happy. What can I do to help?”
“Well, it’s just that we're finding 9 per ship rather expensi......”
“9, 9? You got 9 squadrons per boat? Shee-hit, that’s awesome. Some kinda air power. Didn’t know we’d sold you so many...”
“No. 9 aeroplanes on each ship. But lots of nice silver in the wardroom”
“You gotta be sh*tting me, Tiny. No way you only have 9 airplanes per boat. Hell - that’s less than the number of helicopters that go with me when I go shopping. Why y’only wanna put 9 airplanes in each boat - ain’t they big enough to carry any more?”
“No. It’s not that. Under New Labour we inherited a dismal legacy from so many years of Tory misrule and....”
“Right on. When I was back in high school we heard that sonofabitch Healey had cancelled your carriers. Tory m*therf*ckers like that musta made it hard for you.......”
“So really we think that we ought to scrap all our Sea Harriers and just send our RAF bombers to sea....”
“What kind bombers you talkin’? B 52, B1, B2 - whatya got?”
“Err, more Harriers actually”
“Sheehit, Tiny. You got no carriers worth the name, you can’t afford even 9 fighters on’em, your little bombers can’t hardly bomb sh*t - why don’t you just stay home and guard Portsmouth an’ let Uncle Sam do the real fightin’. Tell you what though - you can send your Eurofrightener 2000s to help out in our lil’ police operations....”
“Err, they don’t work. Yet. More Conservative lies....”
“Mebbe. What else ya got? F-16s like most of the third world? F-18s like the Aussies? “
“No. But we’ve got our Tornado F3s.....”
“Why didn’t you say before, bubba. What’they puppies like in a dogfight, huh?”
“Not good. But that was because the Conservative......”
“Now looky here, Tiny. You got no ships, no fighters, no heavy bombers, whaddya spend the defence budget on? New uniforms for women or something?”
“Err, funny you should say that...... Aah - the steaks are ready. Glad we had this little talk George - you can always rely on me to send in the Marines when you need them. Or some of our 1950s generation PR9s, 1960s VC10s and Nimrods........”
WE Branch Fanatic
7th Apr 2002, 15:33
"Hey Tony do you wanna new hat?"
"Gosh George, thanks. Actually I wanted some Caps"
"Caps Tony? Gee don't ya like our cowboy hats?"
"Well, actually since I've become Presiden.....oops, gosh, sorry, this beer has gone to my head, I mean Prime Minister, we've already got a cowboy outfit"
"Whadya mean Tony?"
"New Labour"
"Why dya want caps then?"
"CAPS George. Combat Air Patrols."
"Don't ya have your airplanes for fleet air defence?"
"Oh yes. Sea Harriers"
"So whats the problem?"
"We are going to scrap them and spend the money on.......errrr.......ummmmm......offices"
"Didn't you learn that you needed ship based fighters during that war when the Armenians invaded the Faroe islands?"
"Oh! Gosh. Ya know.............sorry, Cherie's calling...."
Flatus Veteranus
7th Apr 2002, 16:41
BEagle
WEBF
Brilliant! You ought to be script-writing "Spitting Image". Almost weed myself!:D :D :D :D
BEagle
let's not forget that the Yanks haven't come up with a B52 replacement yet :)
Sunday Times today was promoting possible RB211 powerplants for a(nother) B52 life extension - odd considering I thought nice shiny CFM56s had replaced the JT3s on the Gs and Hs...
Today, the only Buffs left in the USAF inventory are 94 B-52Hs. Of these, only 71 are operationally available, with just 44 combat-coded aircraft. (the Air Force will add five additional B-52 attrition reserve aircraft to this total to raise it to 76 to cover attrition.)
There is a proposal under consideration to re-engine the remaining B-52H aircraft to extend the service life. If implemented, this will call for the B-52 to be utilized through 2025. Current engineering analysis show the B-52's life span to extend beyond the year 2040. No decision has been made.
The aircraft is presently powered by 8 x Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans.
phase slag
7th Apr 2002, 21:38
wow - that's amazing.
Brian Rausch
8th Apr 2002, 02:35
"let's not forget that the Yanks haven't come up with a B52 replacement yet "
MarkD - When Europe fields a strategic bomber replacement for the Lancaster or the Heinkel 111 (sorry I don't know if the Armee d'la Air had any offensive aircraft ) you can take some more mick out of the spams for their old but effective aircraft.
Yes, this was a bite.:p
BEagle
8th Apr 2002, 04:03
I seem to remember something called the Vulcan? Which was supposed to be replaced by TSR2? Which was cancelled and was supposed to be replaced by F-111K? Which was cancelled - so the RAF received Earl Mountbottom's favourite, the Buccaneer, as a stop gap. Which became a 25 year stop gap - and the Vulcan staggered on for another 20 years as well......
Then we were supposed to have the AFVG? Which was cancelled and we received Tornado - which the Labour government wouldn't allow to have sufficient range to fly from the UK to Moscow and back?
Then we had a little war in the Islas Malvinas. For which we needed our soon-to-be-scrapped Vulcans........then there was the Gulf War where virtually all UK attacks needed air-to-air refuelling....then there was Afghanistan where the main air-to-ground effort has been delivered by....heavy bombers!
Reheat On
8th Apr 2002, 04:21
No Buff replacement, huh?
So the Bone [seen on the side of a GR4 - when I grow up I ewant to be a B-1B] is to be forgotten, and the Spirit does not count with its 15 hour ish sortie time.... they seem like pretty good partners on the dance floor. Have you looked at the refit prorammes they have done in terms of avionics, nav, comms, weapons carraige etc etc.
There speaketh a man who methinks ain't quite up to speed.
The point remains - EPT's bluff will surely be called at the high table of international policing - or we will be surrupticiously funding part of the US budget so that we can lay call to it. But he cannot continue to claim free US holidays while back home the forces are being squeexszed dry by the anarchic tendencies of the treasury.
Brill scripts Beags and WEBF. 'spose to be accuracte you should mention the Valiant and Victor as well.:mad:
What I didn't add was that the present plans for the bomber force (B52, B1 and B2) do not hold water with present attrition meaning that the in service dates cannot be met. The present administration have various ideas about re-opening B2 production to allow retirement of the B52/B1 with a force of about 80-90 B2s. This would save money in the long term with retirement of types etc. The problem is finding funds in the short term............
Man-on-the-fence
8th Apr 2002, 08:51
Replacing ANYTHING with the B2 seems a bit dodgy at the moment.
Its a (to mix metaphors) one horse weapon. All it has is Stealth and what happens when the Anti-Geeks find a way of getting around that. You have a big flying target in the shape of a Bat.
I know the B-1/B-52 force arent much better but the PRIMARY defence for the B-2 is Stealth.
I know this is an over simplification but I hope you get the point.
MarkD
Methinks you are confusing B-53's with KC-135's.
Man-on...
Don't think I was [thinking of KC-135] although it might have been a ditched program... the TF33s [military JT3D] x 8 to be replaced with CFM56 x 4 was what I remembered. The KCs have got some CFMs, like the E-3D does. cfm56.com is still pushing hard for the rest of the Sentries to be re-engined...
As to B52, what I meant was - strategic bombing over low(er) AA threat with heavy payload at reasonable cost for multiple units. B2 doesn't fit that *particular* bill, otherwise they wouldn't keep the 52 flying.
Sometimes, as with Vulcan etc., simple gets the job done too. Incidentally, is there any serious proposal to replace Canberra PR9 when they finally fall to bits or is that capability doomed too?
As for the RB211 proposal [Allison's mind, not RR's hehe] see here:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b52-strat/
Man-on-the-fence
8th Apr 2002, 12:01
MarkD
As the saying goes, when the last B-2 and B-1 are retired to AMARC. The B-52 will perform the ceremonial flyby :D
Good old Buffy's gonna be around a while yet.
Gotcha re the CFM's etc I had heard about the proposal but last I heard it had been quietly dropped.
Flatus Veteranus
8th Apr 2002, 12:49
The silent deal is more likely to be that the Spams will do the clever bits with large capital costs (ie, air power) and the Brits will do the bloody bits, with low equpment costs and a high body-count. PBI! :(
MarkD, the engine was the RB211-535E4 (as used on the 757).
In 1996, Boeing made an unsolicited proposal to modernise the B-52 fleet by replacing the TF-33 engines with the RB-211 through a long-term leasing agreement and providing a fixed-cost, privatized maintenance concept through a "power-by-the-hour" arrangement. Boeing projected reengining cost savings of about $4.7 billion by reengining 71 B-52s (one presumes this would now rise to 76).
The GAO estimated that Boeing's proposal would cost the Air Force approximately $1.3 billion rather than saving money as Boeing projected.
Three factors account for nearly 90% percent of the difference between the Boeing and USAF estimates: fuel inflation rates, total engine removal rates and engine unit repair costs.
Boeing used a fuel inflation rate of 4.8 percent, the USAF projected a most probable fuel inflation rate of 3.09 percent. The different fuel inflation rates account for about $1.1 billion.
Boeing used an engine replacement rate data for 6 years. The USAF used a statistical average based over 26. Differences in the engine removal rate estimates accounted for approximately $1.3 billion.
Boeing surveyed commercial engine manufacturers to determine their overhaul price. The USAF stated that only 14 percent of engines returned to the depot require a complete overhaul and there is a different cost for less than a complete overhaul. Differences in the repair costs accounted for approximately $1.1 billion.
Boeing also projected savings when it considered reductions in the number of tanker aircraft needed to support the reengined B-52 fleet. They projected that reengined B-52s would be able to fly for longer periods without refueling, thereby reducing the requirement for tanker support. However, the USAF disagreed with the analysis. Their position was that the tanker fleet was already overstretched and any reductions in the number of tankers required to support B-52s would simply be swallowed up elsewhere.
The GAO did not assess the validity of the tanker analysis, but did comment that demands on the tanker fleet had not diminished since Operation Desert Storm and that the drawdown of forces from overseas bases has further added to AAR requirements because of the need to refuel aircraft to enable them to reach overseas destinations, perform their missions, and return.
In view of the heavy use of AAR required in Afghanistan and the perceived need to procure additional tankers, I would think that the final point will have been the most relevant in re-opening the discussion.