It was 30 years ago today...

[John Farley]

althenick

I am not aware of any Argentine team coming to UK to assess the Harrier or the SHAR.

On 9 Sept 79 I did land a GR1 on the 25 de Mayo as it went down the Channel on its delivery trip from Holland to Argentina. This was at our request to be allowed to demonstrate the Harrier. They objected that they had no ATC or any deck crew facilities which we said was fine by us - we just wanted an R/T freq and position. On the day in question there was very poor vis in the Channel and I could not find them despite going to where they said they were. They offered no steers but there was an RN chopper on board who had ferried a VIP to the ship earlier in the day. As it happened he was just getting airborne to RTB so used his blue parrot to give me steers until I found them. It transpired they were over 40 miles away from where they had said they were.

[Jetex Jim]

Sure, but the Spey F-4 programme for the RAF could still have gone ahead without going to the expense of converting a very tired ship to operate the jet for only 8 years.

Not really. The RAF didn't want Spey engined Phantoms in any case. But someone had to concoct a reason to re-engine the F4. Operating from the Ark was the one they came up with. It was stated that all the RAF F4s would be 'swing-role' and would be carrier capable, so all the UK Phantom fleet had to be re-engined! Total b@llocks as the F4Ms didn't have the nose leg extension that the carrier capable F4Ks had.

Interestingly enough, as someone stated earlier, the Eagle would have been a better bet than the Ark. But once the re-engining exercise was commited to, the practicalities of it all didn't matter.

Morale
Never underestimate the capacity of central government to misspend taxpayers money, and never underestimate the extent to which the truth will be bent, in order to justify it.

[Brain Potter]

Yes, I understand that the RAF didn't want the Spey Phantom in the first place, but the F-4K and then M were ordered in 1964, with the naval variant intended to serve on the CVA-01 class of ship. The carrier was not cancelled until 1966, and I guess that quite a bit of money and effort had already gone into the Spey Phantom programme by that time. What doesn't make sense is to then spend a whole load more money fitting an old ship to take these Phantoms to sea for only 8 years. Cancelling the FAA Phantom plan at the same time as the ship it was intended to fly from, would not necessarily have caused the end the Spey Phantom in-toto, however sensible that course of action would have been.

We may yet see parallels of this saga with JSF and CVF.

[Jetex Jim]

Originally Posted by Brain Potter

We may yet see parallels of this saga with JSF and CVF.

Yes. However the big difference now is this, BAE is a multinational corporation with manufacturing facilities outside the UK. Money spent by the UK in order to maintain participation in JSF-B will not neccessarily go to make jobs in the UK.

This should change the whole ball game. Time and again the UK has made procurement choices which have been influenced/driven by the need to create/maintain jobs in the UK.

Which has meant it's been about what BAE has been capable of building, rather than what HM Forces actually need. Now it's different, the company known as BAE is now no more British than Lockheed Martin. The days where buying British are an issue are gone. So how about we start to buy the stuff the forces need for a change?

[Navaleye]

It is a fact that the modifications required to make Eagle Phantom cable were almost zero. Alll she really needed were water cooled JBDs that Ark had anyway, plus a couple of bridle catchers. You have to look at where she was refitted and the politics of time to work out why. I never made it onto either, but Eagle's mid-60s refit gave us a most capable carrier. As for Ark and the Falklands, certainly the topic came up in conversation more than once. Her hull life was expired, and short of giving her a new one, her time was over and her machinery was just as shot. Look at how much part Argentina's carrier took in the conflict - slightly older, but with much less mileage.

You could also argue that the Argentinians might not have appreciated that and Adm Anaya may have watched "Sailor" while he was Naval Attache in London.

Why was the Ark Royal so tired anyway?

Her nickname in the fleet was "Park Royal" although a twin to Eagle she always suffered from unreliable machinery. Plus carriers are always heavily used. As as a result, the more reliable and efficient Eagle got the lion's share of the upkeep and refit budget at the expense of Ark.

I did get visit Bulwark in 1980(?) which of the same generation and she was shot as well.

[Navaleye]

I am not aware of any Argentine team coming to UK to assess the Harrier or the SHAR.

It was a just well timed punt and PR exercise by BAE at the time. The A4 deal was already done then. The US had already agreed to supply them with ex USMC A4s for next to nothing. Of course if they had said yes in 79/80 they would not be in service by Apr 82 - unless we had given them some of ours.

[Obi Wan Russell]

25 de Mayo was delivered to Argentina in 1969, not 1979. Unless you are referring to a return visit to Holland perhaps? But she had been operating A-4 Skyhawks all through the 70s long before the SHAR had flown. Eagle had more than enough hull life to remain in service well into the eighties. It has to be remembered that after Healy's cancellation of the three ship CVA program in 1966, the government and the navy both had differring plans for the carrier force. The government stated that all the remaining carriers would be phased out by 1972, whilst the Navy kept quiet, did it's sums and worked out the Labour party coud well be given the grand order of the boot by 1970. So they planned to maintain the carrier force past the date of the election in the hope that the tories would keep their promise and reverse the carrier axe. The pre 66 plan had been to refit both Ark and Eagle for phantoms to operate alongside CVA 01 form the early 70s until they could be replaced by CVA 02 (Ark) and CVA 03 (Eagle). After 66 the navy quietly kept to this plan despite having lost CVA 01 (temporarily they hoped) and planned to keep both Eagle and Ark in service through the 70s. Victorious and Hermes were to be kept running as long as possible to keep up numbers of trained aircrew and deck crew. Sometime around 1968 the Labour party must have figured this out and cancelled Eagle's phantomisation (as has been said previously, this would have been a minimal upgrade; her catapults were identical to Ark's and only lacked water cooled JBDs and bridle catchers. Her arrestor gear would have also been upgraded from DAX 1 to DAX 2 standard as well), saving a paltry £5million, compared to Ark's refit cost of £32million. The Phantoms intended for Eagle's air group were quickly diverted to the RAF to form 43 sqn, and the first the Navy knew of this was when the aircraft were delivered in RAF camouflage. Some of these were loaned back to 767 NAS which was the training and support sqn for all F-4Ks FAA and RAF. This is why there are photos in ciirculation of RAF Phantoms with a Navy sqn badge on the tail and Navy style modex numbers on the side of the fuselage. hen the tories won in 1970, they lost no time in breaking their promise to retain the carriers, though they made out it was their descision to retain Ark Royal through the 70s despite the Navy having made this the plan all along.

[Trojan1981]

worth a watch

Dailymotion - Ark Royal traps, a video from heydrich. phantom, buccaneer