Mojave UCAV, Predator based STOL version.

Should make a nice little air wing….

https://www.ga-asi.com/remotely-piloted-aircraft/mojave

​​​​​​​

UK Govt order 7 F-35b's from lot 17. Believe these will be for around 2026 delivery

This has to be the slowest and most protracted fleet build up in British history!

I think it's funded by whatever they have left at the end of the Financial Year - instead of buying more desks or paint they add an F-35. Appalling when you see the Australian (and others) rate of purchase.

It's probably just covering the attrition of those they park at the bottom of the Med. :O

Now , now...........

No point buying early builds that will need upgrades to be able to deploy UK missiles

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6daa10736.jpeg

​​​​What a touching and thoughtful letter. Respect.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...cific-in-2025/

Britain to send an aircraft carrier to the Indo-Pacific in 2025

LONDON — The Royal Navy is to deploy a carrier strike group to the Indo-Pacific region as part of strengthening of its defense ties with Japan and other nations there, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced Thursday on the eve of the G7 summit meeting in Hiroshima.

Confirmation of the planned deployment of one of the Royal Navy’s two 65,000-tonne behemoths came as Sunak and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, agreed May 18 what is called the Hiroshima Accord, a wide-ranging pact covering economic, defense, security and technology collaboration….

Details of the new carrier deployment are not yet available other than the British saying in their statement the strike group will include naval escorts and F-35 combat jets working alongside the Japanese Self Defence Force and other navies in the region.

The deployment will be the second time a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier has deployed to the region….

That gives HMS P o W a year and a half to get sorted, meanwhile HMS QE gets worn out I suppose.
Might we have as many as a dozen Lightnings embarked by then?

No doubt the Chicom Navy are shivering in their Sea Boots upon hearing the news of it.

I wonder which Navy will be the most surprised if it happens.

Neither the PLAN nor the RN are likely to be surprised by the appearance of one of the carriers and associated group in the Pacific. Setting up, supporting and delivering a deployment anywhere on the global oceans is something the Royal Navy can do, has done many times and will no doubt do again.

The hard part is usually getting the FO to support it, and the politicians to pay for it.

N

Which carrier do you suppose please?

Sorry, no idea. I guess there will be political input on exact timing, and quite possibly which ship, and that will affect the choice, along with any other planned commitments.

N

​​​​​​​IT'S HAPPENING, BOYS. The Royal Navy is buying a 7-months campaign of demonstrations of General Atomics' MOJAVE capability that could allow MQ-9B PROTECTOR-equivalent capability to embark on the aircraft carriers as Short Take Off and Landing aircraft.

When shy of pilots and carrier aircraft.....makes sense to go the unmanned UAV path don't it?

Who claims title to them....RN or RAF?

Long list of drone programmes… Vampire, Vixen, Mojave, Proteus, Primus, Minerva and Peregrine.

Plus, at lower level, PUMA, PRIMIS, SECONDIS and GHOST S4.

It is a well known fact that timelines slip and ambitions sometimes are not realized, but fact is: Royal Navy is working on its Future Maritime Aviation Force vision of a variety of drones integrating helicopters and a "standard" carrier wing of 2x F-35B Sqns (24 embarked jets)

The road to FMAF is undoubtedly long and complex. Much of what is being pursued was, quite simply, never done before. There is no ready manual, much of it has yet to be written and progress will come in stages, both for technical and budgetary reasons.….

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...306503680.html

ORAC has posted this link on another thread it includes:-

https://thinpinstripedline.********....oughts-on.html

The other problem is that the military are very good at proposing short term measures to solve tactical problems that will have strategic consequences. For example the decision in 2010 to pay off the RFA FORT GEORGE was a means of saving a tiny amount of money in year to avoid a refit. This was a good way of saving money in the short term and based on the assumption that the remaining 3 ships would cope until the Future Solid Support ship entered service, probably later that decade. The problem is that this tactical measure failed because repeated tactical measures later seem to have proposed slipping the ordering of the FSS to solve in year pressures. That the FSS was only finally ordered in late 2022, the best part of a decade after this should have happened means that right now the Royal Navy finds itself with only one ancient support ship (RFA FORT VICTORIA) to cover both carriers. As the outstandingly good ‘Save The Royal Navy’ website has pointed out in painful detail, the ‘Fort Vic’ is in very poor materiel state and may be paid off too, leaving the RN without any stores support for its carrier strike groups. The same carrier strike groups that the Prime Minister has just committed to deploying to Japan in 2025…

What a cunningly stunning plan.....is this unscheduled upkeep period intentional by the wizards to ensure both carriers are never at sea and thus the shortfall of the support ships is negated and deployment promises are worth exactly the stone they are etched upon?