UK Maritime Patrol Aircraft - An Urgent Requirement

[Bannock]

You have to listen to DCs speach today. I almost choked when he declared that we can no longer expect allied aircraft to protect our nation.

Blue Nun going on ice!

[Party Animal]

Bannock - you can't leave it at that mate - spill the beans!!

What speech, when, where, why, context, etc.....

Copy of the text??

[The Old Fat One]

This is a text of the speech DC made on 10 Nov

PM speech: Lord Mayor's Banquet 2014 | PoliticsHome | Press Release | PoliticsHome

I think Bannock's point is well out of context...but that's just IMO

[Bannock]

Out of context, you're probably right, but the irony of that sentance was worthy of comment.

That's news editors for you. Just airing the juicy bits.

[Ormeside28]

I know that I am going back a "few" years, but does anybody remember, Lindhome Drop and find the nearest ship or is that in the realms of fantasy in this "modern" world.

[Davef68]

Originally Posted by Bannock

You have to listen to DCs speach today. I almost choked when he declared that we can no longer expect allied aircraft to protect our nation.

He did caveat that with 'entirely'

[tbwtg]

Usually just lurk here but couldn't resist...

... drawing your attention to this -

BBC: "UK called on NATO help in sub search"

BBC News - UK called on Nato help in sub search

Sigh.

[GreenKnight121]

Also here: Canadians, French, U.S. Hunt For Submarine Off Scotland | Defense content from Aviation Week

[Davef68]

Which was the plan they announced in 2010. Has it happened before? My memroy says it has, at least once, but with much less publicity.

One would almost think that a Defence Review was due and we needed to show a threat/capability gap....

[Biggus]

While I realize that what politicians say before they are elected and what they actually do after they are elected are very different things, reading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30417955

implies that if Labour are in power/coalition post 2015 then every government department except the NHS (and you can expect Education to eventually be added) will face budget cuts year on year until the annual deficit is reduced.

All parties are falling over themselves to state how they will reduce the deficit, against this background I can't see how SDSR 2015 will be anything other than another capability, for which read cost, cutting exercise.

Funding for new assets (such as MPA/MMA) is likely only to be feasible if something else is given up. Depressing times for the military as asset after asset, base after base and capability after capability disappears.

Oh, government sector workers can also expect minimal pay rises for years to come, which the government of the day will justify on the basis that inflation is currently only 1.2%.

[Wander00]

In context, what DC said was


"The international operation is about protecting our people, our economy and our way of life - and we have a fundamental duty to take part.

It would be completely wrong to think we could entirely sub-contract the task of protecting the streets of Britain to the air forces of our allies.

And to do so would not just place our national security in the hands of others,

it would endanger our economic security too."


That seems to argue for credible UK armed forces

[Heathrow Harry]

I think you'll find the critical word in that statement is "entirely"....

[Bannock]

Cat - Pigeons........ Go !

Exclusive - Japan seeks to sell sub-hunting jet to UK as Abe pushes arms exports | Reuters

[Sandy Parts]

baggsy popping over to Atsugi NAS (guess that is where they will be based?) to collect it. Need to go back there to fill in the blanks from the last visit (remember that one TT? - I suspect not!!)
On a serious note - if we had the money to buy them (which I don't feel we do), wouldn't we buy the P8 (maybe on C17 style lease/buy deal to match the costs for the P1)? Good to speculate but I feel this is a PR stunt to distract the Japanese public from their economic woes..

[LowObservable]

Could add a bit of competition to the process, although I'd like to see CF34s on it from the operating cost and support perspective. It's also nice to have four engines and not carry the scar weight from the USN wanting to carry the AAS and external SLAM-ERs. However, the price is likely to be a bit scary.

[KenV]

It's also nice to have four engines and not carry the scar weight from the USN wanting to carry the AAS and external SLAM-ERs. However, the price is likely to be a bit scary.

Having four engines carries a price premium. Kawsaki P-1 costs $170M. Beoing P-8 costs $150M.

The standard P-8 does not include structure to accomodate the AAS. That structure is added on later after the aircraft is delivered to the Navy.

[DunWinching]

Lindholme gear

I saw Lindholme dropped in about 1992. We were called out in our Wessex SAR cab from Valley to a sunken trawler off the IoM. It had put out a mayday an hour before dawn and gone silent. The coastguard had fishing boats, us, a ferry all track searching from Douglas to Whitehaven. Sadly the coasties had applied the tide drift in the wrong direction, but the Nimrod went off on a private foray and found the survivors in the water sans dinghy. They dropped the Lindholme within 20 ft of them, and orbited until we showed up. Brilliant bit of work by the kipper boys, I wrote and told their boss.

[The Old Fat One]

Good to speculate but I feel this is a PR stunt to distract the Japanese public from their economic woes..

Not in a million years. The Japanese simply do think like that. For starters, the vast majority of Japanese know next to zilch about their "self-defense forces". I lectured a bunch of Japanese students in 1996 and when I pointed out they had the second highest absolute dollar spend on military hardware in the world (behind the US) they all looked at me like I was totally nuts. (PS...it was probably third, behind China, but no one really knows what they blow).

[Roland Pulfrew]

$170M v $150M

Got any evidence for those figures? Do they include support, training systems, spares? Reports I've seen suggest that a P-1 is about 2/3rds the cost of a P-8.

[middlesbrough]

MPA and Japan

Can remember taking a Nimrod Mr1 to the Tokyo airshow in 1973 when BAe were trying to sell the Nimrod to the Japanese.