Sad times
 

It is truly depressing to see that we are now receiving contributions from our American friends which suggest that they hail from those parts of that country where they do not find it necessary to cook their meat before eating it. The long list of those in USA who worked tirelessly for the Nazi's or, worse yet, the Japanese,would include not only "Dear little Werner whose good little earner" was the US Space programme, but the head of NBC postwar research, Mr Ford of automobile fame and Ambassador Kennedy.It saddens me also to recognise that, having spent a Khalif's ransome on developing Typhoon, with one of the declared reasons being to ensure we keep our options open in international procurement, we are again embarking upon a development option in the LM aircraft which, for all its hype, is still in trouble in both spec and delivery terms.( I d not, of course, suggest that marinising a Typhoon is an option, only that the whole proframme was designed to maintain an r&d and production base that would ensure we did not have to follow this route) I still find myself emotionally stirred by the thought of the Andrew having big flat tops. My head however still persists in thinking "where are the URG's and CBG's coming from?" The actual build time on these vessels will see an IOC when? 2020? when the airplane will have been 25 years in development. Politics will drive a procurement of this airplane, however much its capability is finally compromised by its hybrid status. It's a real shame that we find ourselves driving it in co-operation with the sort of neanderthals who post comments such as those I read here today. Mr Boot would be turning in his grave.

It says here on the RN's own site...

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.1257

that the root of the word Admiral is....

ARABIC!

Oh :mad:! Islamists under the bunk! EVERYBODY PANIC

Defense News: Contract Awarded for 1st of New U.S. Carrier Class

The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding a $5.1 billion contract Sept. 10 to begin construction of the first ship of a new class of aircraft carrier.

Northrop's Newport News, Va., shipyard will build the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), lead ship of the first new class of nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carriers in more than four decades.

The Newport News yard is the only shipyard in the world currently capable of building the large aircraft carriers used by the Navy. CVN 78-class ships are expected to displace around 100,000 tons with a length of nearly 1,100 feet. The design of the new flattops includes a new flight deck with an improved weapon handling system, advanced arresting gear, a newly developed electromagnetic aircraft launch system, new and simplified nuclear propulsion plants and a new electrical power generation system.

The last 10 aircraft carriers belong to the Nimitz class. Construction on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) began in 1967 and the ship entered service in 1975. The tenth and last ship of the class, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), is expected to be delivered to the Navy in 2009.

The new, seven-year cost-plus incentive fee contract covers the detail design and construction of the Gerald R. Ford. Advance construction of the ship began in 2005 under a separate contract valued at $2.7 billion. Total cost of the new carrier is expected to be about $11 billion; Keel-laying is scheduled to take place in the fall of 2009 with delivery to the fleet in 2015....

Nostrinian,
Quote
PS I cant let this lie, Im not suggesting that their is a racism issue in the Wardroom, but I've still yet after my third decade RN meet many Black or Asian Officers, which is so unusual. Why is this? And no FAA aircrew of that origin at all. Ever. And my god we now have a F1 driving whizz kid who is black.

IIRC there was a black Obs at Portland on Lynx in 80's (can't remember his name). He may only be a .5, like Obama, so not sure if that counts and there was an Indian guy around at the same time who I think was an engineer. Can't remember his name either. Where the hell have those brain cells gone?!

There was a 100% Asian looker at CU, who I think worked in the SK sim, in 79/80. Probably a Lt Cdr and tall-ish, as I recall. I'm certain he was not an exchange officer from the Indian Navy.

I've just been on wiki (not always accurate I know) But according to it the new CVN 78 will cost $5.1 Million. It seems to me that for not a lot more the UKDF could get a far larger and more capable platform.


... or am I missing something ?

Al

Yes - all the previous contracts already let.

Tim Colton's website gives some details of these on the front page.

Maritime Business Strategies

$5.1Bn is £2.8Bn per ship at todays exchange rates. The actual value - totalling all the contracts noted above would be £4.5Bn per ship, or over double our current programme.

You would also have to factor in an awful lot of additional infrastructure work for a UK CVN, as only Devonport has a nuclear licence and a CVF/CVN won't fit in there.

The price of CVF is not as cheap as it perhaps could / should have been, but MoD bears a large proportion of the responsibility for that and it certainly ain't going to get much cheaper now.

Bolstering a revisionist view of the late Sen. McCarthy and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee:

Figure in Rosenberg case finally admits spying for Soviets
By Sam Roberts
Published: September 12, 2008

NEW YORK: In 1951, Morton Sobell was tried and convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on espionage charges. He served more than 18 years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, traveled to Cuba and Vietnam after his release in 1969 and became an advocate for progressive causes.
Through it all, he maintained his innocence.
But on Thursday, Sobell, 91, dramatically reversed himself, shedding new light on a case that still fans smoldering political passions [ amongst an ethnic group which is not to be named]. In an interview, he admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy.
And he implicated his fellow defendant Julius Rosenberg in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the U.S. government described as the secret to the atomic bomb.
In the interview with The New York Times, whose global edition is the International Herald Tribune, Sobell, who lives in New York, was asked whether as an electrical engineer he turned over military secrets to the Soviets during World War II when they were considered allies of the United States and were bearing the brunt of Nazi brutality. Was he, in fact, a spy?
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that," he replied. "I never thought of it as that in those terms."
...

Sobell made his disclosures on Thursday as the National Archives, in response to a lawsuit filed by historians, journalists and a private group, the National Security Archive, released most of the grand jury testimony in the espionage conspiracy case against him and the Rosenbergs.
...
In the interview, Sobell drew a distinction between atomic espionage and the details of radar and artillery devices he said he stole for the Russians.
"What I did was simply defensive, an aircraft gun," he said. "This was defensive. You cannot plead that what you did was only defensive stuff, but there's a big difference between giving that and stuff that could be used to attack our country."
(One device mentioned specifically by Sobell, the SCR 584 radar, is believed by military experts to have been used against U.S. aircraft in Korea and Vietnam.)
...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/12/america/spy.php?page=1

Modern Elmo wins 3 Internets today for out of control thread creep.

CVF v CVN
 

We might be paying over odds but wee are still paying £4bn for two rather than £6bn for one. You could probably crew both CVFs with the CVNs compliment. So not such a bad deal after all.

£4Bn for 2 CVF and $6Bn for CVN - but none the less still expensive

Al

And both cheap when set against the cost of Dii/f at £7.3bn.

We might be paying over odds but wee are still paying £4bn for two rather than £6bn for one. You could probably crew both CVFs with the CVNs compliment. So not such a bad deal after all.

And how much are wee going to be paying for fuel for the CVF and for the fleet oiler carrying additional fuel for the CVF five or ten or twenty years from now?

North Sea oil will all be gone in a few more years. After that, the RN will have to buy imported fuel for its aircraft carriers.


DARPA Eyes Cheaper, Greener Fuel from Coal

Sep 12, 2008

Graham Warwick [email protected]

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has unveiled an "aggressive" program to demonstrate economical and environmentally friendly conversion of coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuels.

DARPA has issued a broad agency announcement (BAA) soliciting research proposals and plans to award 12-month contracts totaling $4.56 million to demonstrate the feasibility of alternative coal to liquid (CTL) technologies. Already investigating biofuels, the agency says its CTL program is intended to demonstrate processes that could meet Defense Department demand for JP-8 jet fuel from U.S. coal reserves at a cost-competitive price compared with petroleum-based fuels.

...

The indirect method of producing CTL fuels is to first gasify the coal then convert it to hydrocarbon fuel using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Each kilogram of coal converted uses a kilogram of water and produces 1.3 kg of CO2 and 0.27 kg of oil, says DARPA.

Using existing technologies, DARPA says, a 100,000 barrel per day (bpd.) CTL plant will cost $6 billion to build, four-times that of a similar-capacity crude oil refinery, while the end-user fuel cost is expected to exceed $4.50/gal.

DARPA's goals for its CTL program equate to a capital cost of less than $1.5 billion for a 100,000bpd plant with zero CO2 emissions, less than $3/gal for JP-8 jet fuel, and less than 0.5 kg. of water consumed for every kilogram of coal converted .

...

DARPA Eyes Cheaper, Greener Fuel from Coal | AVIATION WEEK

More orders this week. See this.

The Ministry of Defence has placed £235m of contracts with industry to provide power and propulsion equipment for the new Royal Navy aircraft carriers it was confirmed today, Monday 6 October 2008.

At 65,000 tonnes each, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be among the world's largest warships and the latest contracts will deliver the carriers' gas turbines, generators, motors, power distribution equipment, platform management systems, propellers, shafts, steering gear, rudders and stabilisers.

The last paragraph is worthy of note.

MOD Defence Equipment and Support Director General Ships, Rear Admiral Bob Love, said: "The new carriers represent a series of firsts for the Fleet and this latest propulsion technology has not yet been seen in the Royal Navy on this scale. This is a step change in the way our ships are powered and, as well as boosting capacity, will significantly improve fuel efficiency enabling uninterrupted long distance deployments and reducing running costs.

Dear all,

I am surprised that no one has been into mention today's announcement about the delays to HMS White Elephant class CVs.

Perhaps WEBF has not stopped crying and gnashing his teeth!

Cheers

BHR

Perhaps folk have preferred to post in the more recent thread

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...-harriers.html

rather than in this sterile and repetitious pro-carrier whingefest?

In contrast to the sterile and repetitious anti-carrier whingefest?

Nostrinian,

Poor show.

That's not banter, it's simple infantile, teddy throwing abuse. God help us if anybody gave you a commission in any service.

Like Old Spice, the mark of a man.

You're a condescending :mad:, commission or no commission.