No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?
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Thank you Tourist and Engines for making me laugh..
I have been in awful pain all day and reading your contributions has cheered me up no end..
Is it Tourist and Engines or is it Tourist masquerading as Engines or...
Engines masquerading as Tourist??
Regarding the question about single engined fast jets operating from a proper RN carrier, would that be the Vampire?
Slightly before my time though..
I have been in awful pain all day and reading your contributions has cheered me up no end..
Is it Tourist and Engines or is it Tourist masquerading as Engines or...
Engines masquerading as Tourist??
Regarding the question about single engined fast jets operating from a proper RN carrier, would that be the Vampire?
Slightly before my time though..
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Regarding the question about single engined fast jets operating from a proper RN carrier, would that be the Vampire?
Slightly before my time though..
Slightly before my time though..
glojo - I think the single-engined Sea Venom and Sea Hawk came after Sea Vampire as did the Sea Harrier of course. Sea Vixen, Scimitar, Buccaneer and Phantom were all twin-engined.
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Nice picture Kbrockman but the date is actually 1966. The RN carrier is Victorious operating in the Far East with a Crusader and Skyhawks from the USS Oriskany clearly taking the opportunity to cross deck with another SEATO Nation. The Buccaneer S2's of 801 Naval Air Squadron had just been introduced to service in the initial Dark Sea Grey and White paint job.
It's still hard to believe that Vic got chopped not too long after with the run down of the carrier force.
It's still hard to believe that Vic got chopped not too long after with the run down of the carrier force.
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Oops my bad, made 76 from 67 it seems.
On a related note, anybody know if the French and their Etendards and Crusaders ever operated from a RN carrier ?
On a related note, anybody know if the French and their Etendards and Crusaders ever operated from a RN carrier ?
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Ah Widger, you remind me of many a fine time aboard doing exactly what you wrote. Thanks for the nostalgia; though I never had the pleasure of going to a hotel except when Ex Hairy Funnel involved a run ashore to Edinburgh and the Irish Pub!!
Ivor, ironically, and compared to some of the comments made on anticipated time aboard in the future, the RN FAA were also part time 'embarkers' for around 2/3rds of the period 2000-2010 both in SHar and in GR7/9 as they did the same time at sea as the rest of JFH. Of course that was because the RAF wouldn't let the RN Sqn go to sea more often - because there was an Op on perhaps?! One where land-based ops were more appropriate. I couldn't agree more with you on training and gaining the skill to go to sea safely. Now that we are buying -B we can train more akin to how it was done on Harrier and not in the way the USN does with such devotion to FCLP.
Will a bigger ship require more personnel to run? Likely, yes. Will it be a cramped flight deck? Initially, no, and not for at least 10 years or so after FOC of QE. Later, yes but then everyone would have had time to work up to that level.
The dream of angled decks and cats and traps is now just that. We're buying two expensive floating airfields that will go someway to compensating for a lack of range and/or host nation support. They will be fantastical to see in operation and very useful for projecting influence far from home shores. Training to fly on and from them will be easier than flying Harrier from CVS so I simply do not buy any hint of an increased training burden at all.
Good luck to the RN and RAF pilots who will do it.
Ivor, ironically, and compared to some of the comments made on anticipated time aboard in the future, the RN FAA were also part time 'embarkers' for around 2/3rds of the period 2000-2010 both in SHar and in GR7/9 as they did the same time at sea as the rest of JFH. Of course that was because the RAF wouldn't let the RN Sqn go to sea more often - because there was an Op on perhaps?! One where land-based ops were more appropriate. I couldn't agree more with you on training and gaining the skill to go to sea safely. Now that we are buying -B we can train more akin to how it was done on Harrier and not in the way the USN does with such devotion to FCLP.
Will a bigger ship require more personnel to run? Likely, yes. Will it be a cramped flight deck? Initially, no, and not for at least 10 years or so after FOC of QE. Later, yes but then everyone would have had time to work up to that level.
The dream of angled decks and cats and traps is now just that. We're buying two expensive floating airfields that will go someway to compensating for a lack of range and/or host nation support. They will be fantastical to see in operation and very useful for projecting influence far from home shores. Training to fly on and from them will be easier than flying Harrier from CVS so I simply do not buy any hint of an increased training burden at all.
Good luck to the RN and RAF pilots who will do it.
Last edited by ICBM; 22nd Jun 2012 at 23:23.
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Let us not forget that the success of the JFH embarkations was done with a legacy of supervision and, in the main, in fairly benign conditions. The 'pitch up and make it work' technique only really works if you have a 'socket' into which to 'plug' and without significant investment in embarked time the socket is impossible to create.
Exam question. Which JFH senior officers could truly supervise deck ops/ Answer - two or three.
Let us also be clear about one thing. The pilot hands/ eyes/ controls in whatever sea state and whatever emcon state and in whatever NBCD condition are fairly straight forward. What 'certain people' have to get their heads around is that the aircrew are at times a training audience (as has been described) and at times a training tool. If the TAG leaves with the requisite number of bounces to call itself current - but not all the armourers loaded weapons in a swell, not all the freddies checked people in and out through 'force marshal' and not all the air traffickers conducted a four ball CCA - well the system has failed. Full stop.
This is what the JFH embarkation cycle did not achieve - and even at the end of the Harrier life (for example) we had never exercised bomb prep for a surge op using PW4...so didn't know if our assumptions would in any way hold up.
Producing OC from Maritime aviation is about creating a full-up system of systems amongst which the pilot him or herself is almost irrelevant - and which requires the TAG to be embarked for extended periods, over and above when the pilots feel comfortable.
And yes I are one, and yes I have 'a modicum' of experience.
Exam question. Which JFH senior officers could truly supervise deck ops/ Answer - two or three.
Let us also be clear about one thing. The pilot hands/ eyes/ controls in whatever sea state and whatever emcon state and in whatever NBCD condition are fairly straight forward. What 'certain people' have to get their heads around is that the aircrew are at times a training audience (as has been described) and at times a training tool. If the TAG leaves with the requisite number of bounces to call itself current - but not all the armourers loaded weapons in a swell, not all the freddies checked people in and out through 'force marshal' and not all the air traffickers conducted a four ball CCA - well the system has failed. Full stop.
This is what the JFH embarkation cycle did not achieve - and even at the end of the Harrier life (for example) we had never exercised bomb prep for a surge op using PW4...so didn't know if our assumptions would in any way hold up.
Producing OC from Maritime aviation is about creating a full-up system of systems amongst which the pilot him or herself is almost irrelevant - and which requires the TAG to be embarked for extended periods, over and above when the pilots feel comfortable.
And yes I are one, and yes I have 'a modicum' of experience.
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So JFH never produced OC for the period 2000-2010 then? Ah, does that mean UK has been without a capable carrier force since the 90s and arguably earlier?
With no real QE capability coming to the fore until 2020+ that could mean UK will have survived without OC for nearly 20 years then.
That won't look good in SDSR-15
With no real QE capability coming to the fore until 2020+ that could mean UK will have survived without OC for nearly 20 years then.
That won't look good in SDSR-15
Last edited by ICBM; 23rd Jun 2012 at 00:13.
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That's not what I said.
But we never exercised at surge because the 1 Gp maths pretty much stated that a squadron with average competences could be up and running within three weeks. If you look at what HEPC/ JFHPC actually gave the embarking squadrons to work with it was never a huge amount of jets.
NSW that became 800 NAS produced some good stuff in 2009 into 2010 and 1(F) did very well on Auriga. At the end 'the whole team' had Red Crown, Green Crown up to speed etc and were working well with dynamic targeting from the boat as well. In short the investment was paying off.
Did we achieve OC. Yes. Anything JFH did from KAF it could do from the boat. Did it achieve FOC? No. Why? Because FOC was a 20 sortie per day surge and that could require upwards of 80 PW4 in 24 hours and we never, ever, even attempted it.
And you're right, ICBM. It would look ridiculous in a SDSR just as it looked ridiculous in 2010. We should have put ten jets on the boat and seen what we could achieve. The fact we never did is ridiculous. At the very death of the Harrier we had no idea where the pinch points were in sortie generation from the deck.
If I recall correctly Auriga/ 1(F) was given six aeroplanes (with a certain DCINC displaying surprise it wasn't four) and at the same time JFH was putting fourteen up every afternoon at CQWI. A great effort, but a picture that illustrates where the priorities lay.
But we never exercised at surge because the 1 Gp maths pretty much stated that a squadron with average competences could be up and running within three weeks. If you look at what HEPC/ JFHPC actually gave the embarking squadrons to work with it was never a huge amount of jets.
NSW that became 800 NAS produced some good stuff in 2009 into 2010 and 1(F) did very well on Auriga. At the end 'the whole team' had Red Crown, Green Crown up to speed etc and were working well with dynamic targeting from the boat as well. In short the investment was paying off.
Did we achieve OC. Yes. Anything JFH did from KAF it could do from the boat. Did it achieve FOC? No. Why? Because FOC was a 20 sortie per day surge and that could require upwards of 80 PW4 in 24 hours and we never, ever, even attempted it.
And you're right, ICBM. It would look ridiculous in a SDSR just as it looked ridiculous in 2010. We should have put ten jets on the boat and seen what we could achieve. The fact we never did is ridiculous. At the very death of the Harrier we had no idea where the pinch points were in sortie generation from the deck.
If I recall correctly Auriga/ 1(F) was given six aeroplanes (with a certain DCINC displaying surprise it wasn't four) and at the same time JFH was putting fourteen up every afternoon at CQWI. A great effort, but a picture that illustrates where the priorities lay.
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You're absolutely correct that there's more to it than just aircrew currency & quals, but I still don't see it as a major issue. Military folks are quite capable of just getting on and making things work when required.
For example, the USMC had never dreamed of operating 24 Harriers off an LHD's deck before 2003. No one in the Gator Navy had ever operated the deck with much more than 6 jets before, but both the USS Bataan and the Bonhomme Richard figured it out and made it happen during sustained combat ops for Iraqi Freedom.
Flexibility is the mantra of all modern armed forces so I just don't buy into the notion that the only possible way the UK can have a capability to operate aircraft from a carrier is to have a force that significantly biases its training regime to that end. The carrier is an undeniably unforgiving environment, but so too are the snow-covered runways of Norway & Canada or all the world's hot & high airfields or, dare I suggest it but it is a capability that the -B has, expeditionary airfields etc.
For me, pilots should have a good understanding of the issues relevant to operating from any surface that they are required to, but the overwhelming majority of their time has to be spent figuring out how to break other peoples' stuff. They shouldn't be condemned to a life on the ocean waves just because it warms the cockles of some folks in the RN who are still bitter that the RAF moved Australia in the 60s.
For example, the USMC had never dreamed of operating 24 Harriers off an LHD's deck before 2003. No one in the Gator Navy had ever operated the deck with much more than 6 jets before, but both the USS Bataan and the Bonhomme Richard figured it out and made it happen during sustained combat ops for Iraqi Freedom.
Flexibility is the mantra of all modern armed forces so I just don't buy into the notion that the only possible way the UK can have a capability to operate aircraft from a carrier is to have a force that significantly biases its training regime to that end. The carrier is an undeniably unforgiving environment, but so too are the snow-covered runways of Norway & Canada or all the world's hot & high airfields or, dare I suggest it but it is a capability that the -B has, expeditionary airfields etc.
For me, pilots should have a good understanding of the issues relevant to operating from any surface that they are required to, but the overwhelming majority of their time has to be spent figuring out how to break other peoples' stuff. They shouldn't be condemned to a life on the ocean waves just because it warms the cockles of some folks in the RN who are still bitter that the RAF moved Australia in the 60s.
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Orca,
We both know that the work that was done for 2010 was commendable and accurate but amounted to nothing because it 'wasn't the right answer'. If we've anything to learn from that cost-cutting exercise it's that the next SDSR will be no different.
I feel that for many a year to come, the boys and girls on QEC will look around and say 'this could have been so much more'; sure, most things can when money is no object. However, the RN will get big carriers (if it is the right answer); the FAA and RAF will get F-35B (if it is the right answer) and MASC will become much more than a requirement (if it is the right answer). Put together they will be a significant capability for the UK; much more than we have ever fielded at the forefront of technology.
Yes, I ask the difficult question or push the controversial issue but fundamentally know that the FAA and RAF will both have to be one voice in 2014 for F-35B to survive to ever be flown by both Services. No bickering, no blame. Those still crying into their pints over the change back to -B, arguing on the basis of a little range/loiter and half a 'g' are missing the big picture IMHO.
We both know that the work that was done for 2010 was commendable and accurate but amounted to nothing because it 'wasn't the right answer'. If we've anything to learn from that cost-cutting exercise it's that the next SDSR will be no different.
I feel that for many a year to come, the boys and girls on QEC will look around and say 'this could have been so much more'; sure, most things can when money is no object. However, the RN will get big carriers (if it is the right answer); the FAA and RAF will get F-35B (if it is the right answer) and MASC will become much more than a requirement (if it is the right answer). Put together they will be a significant capability for the UK; much more than we have ever fielded at the forefront of technology.
Yes, I ask the difficult question or push the controversial issue but fundamentally know that the FAA and RAF will both have to be one voice in 2014 for F-35B to survive to ever be flown by both Services. No bickering, no blame. Those still crying into their pints over the change back to -B, arguing on the basis of a little range/loiter and half a 'g' are missing the big picture IMHO.
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ICBM
I think "the bigger picture" is that without cats and traps we have painted ourselves into the corner we shouldn't be in. Thinking bigger picture, what happens if the F35B is cancelled? What would we use for Fast Air then? We're building a carrier around a single aircraft type; that IMHO is a very stupid thing to do. What happens when we need AEW to be able to see further than the ~100nm horizon from the Helo-based MASC proposal - ie. one that can give adequate warning of far bigger missile than the likes of Exocet? We would need a FW solution to get to 25-35,000ft to see ~230nm for low level activity - contrary to some believers, the world is not flat! Doing a RIP with F35 and its wonderful supposedly all-seeing sensor suite is going to use up your embarked assets very quickly!
The whole thing could fall apart and not be "significant capability for the UK" in very short order.
CPL Clott
I think "the bigger picture" is that without cats and traps we have painted ourselves into the corner we shouldn't be in. Thinking bigger picture, what happens if the F35B is cancelled? What would we use for Fast Air then? We're building a carrier around a single aircraft type; that IMHO is a very stupid thing to do. What happens when we need AEW to be able to see further than the ~100nm horizon from the Helo-based MASC proposal - ie. one that can give adequate warning of far bigger missile than the likes of Exocet? We would need a FW solution to get to 25-35,000ft to see ~230nm for low level activity - contrary to some believers, the world is not flat! Doing a RIP with F35 and its wonderful supposedly all-seeing sensor suite is going to use up your embarked assets very quickly!
The whole thing could fall apart and not be "significant capability for the UK" in very short order.
CPL Clott
Suspicion breeds confidence
I'm not sure those range figures stack up. I seem to remember ~200mile detection ranges for surface targets from an old bagger even in the early days.
Neat trick acheiving 200nm from 10000ft.
By my rule of thumb a 1 m high surface contact paints at around 125nm from 10,000ft due to the planet being in the way.
(Ignoring any radar tricks, rcs or weather limitations limitations. To acheive 200nm is circa 26,000ft.)
By my rule of thumb a 1 m high surface contact paints at around 125nm from 10,000ft due to the planet being in the way.
(Ignoring any radar tricks, rcs or weather limitations limitations. To acheive 200nm is circa 26,000ft.)