Regardless of the technicalities, is there not an issue with the respective in service dates of the B and C JSF variants?

If the RN were to commit to a cat & trap carrier, would they be required to purchase or lease an interim carrier aircraft to cover the gap between the Harriers retirement and the availability of F-35C?

Current situation
 

Some would say that the current shortage of harriers was always a short term blip until other types could be run out in Stan - coupled with the loss of pilots after the end of SHAR and the upgrade of airframes. Now they're comng back home they should be able to regenerate..... or be sent straight back to the Gulf to do the Presidents bidding???

Accession Number : ADA417314
Title : Test Results of an F/A-18 Automatic Carrier Landing Using Shipboard Relative Global Positioning System
Descriptive Note : Rept. for Jan-Apr 2001
Corporate Author : NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER AIRCRAFT DIV PATUXENT RIVER MD
Personal Author(s) : Sousa, Paul ; Wellons, Lee ; Colby, Glenn ; Waters, Jack ; Weir, John
Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA417314 Check NTIS Availability...
Report Date : 05 SEP 2003
Pagination or Media Count : 34

Abstract : Under the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Precision Approach and Landing System program, the Navy is responsible for developing the shipboard coreponent, termed Shipboard Relative Global Positioning System (SRGPS). As part of the SRGPS effort, a test bed was developed to demonstrate air traffic control, navigation, and landing capabilities in the carrier environment. During flight testing from January through April 2001, Global Positioning System (GPS)-based automatic landings were conducted at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and aboard the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN-7l) using an F/A-18A Hornet test aircraft. This report describes the overall SRGPS test effort. The report also gives an overview of the test bed hardware, as well as results for navigation sensor error, flight technical error, and total system error. The test and analysis results support the feasibility of the GPS-based precision approach and landing system concept.
Descriptors : *GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM, *CARRIER LANDINGS, *SHIPBOARD, *JET FIGHTERS, FLIGHT TESTING, TEST BEDS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, AIR NAVIGATION, PRECISION, LANDING AIDS, NAVIGATIONAL AIDS.
Subject Categories : MILITARY AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS
ATTACK AND FIGHTER AIRCRAFT
NAVIGATION AND GUIDANCE
Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE


Search DTIC's Public STINET for similiar documents.
Members of the public may purchase hardcopy documents from the National Technical Information Service.
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA417314

I've just quicky skimmed through the last ten pages (since my last post here) and have only one word to add: Wibble!

However, the issue of Shipboard Rolling Vertical Landings has been discussed on PPRuNe, on a thread of its own. A link seems appropriate. I have to say that I think it right and proper than the RN continues to be a the forefront of naval aviation innovation.

In fact, I wasn't going to post again until the first steel was cut. This may be local, as part of the carrier(s) will be built locally at Appledore. Very good news, particularly considering how they were let down by the Government in 2003. However, more CVF equipment orders have been placed by the MOD.

The Alstec (now Babcock) weapon handling system is key to sortie generation, but the use of warehousing technology reduces the manpower needed by up to 75%, which is just as well as CVF will never have the sort of 5000 strong crew a US CVN does. It is an example were new technology means that running costs are relatively low. Likewise many systems will be common with other RN platforms, such as the new Artisan radar, which will also be fitted to frigates and amphibious vessels.

At that link:




Rear Admiral Amjad Hussain, Director General Weapons at MOD Defence Equipment and Support, said:Haysus Christuus, you trust him with sensitive info.?

Maybe the RN should be restricted to the foreign customer F-35 software builds.

Wot!
A mole, right inside MOD Equipment and Support, and working against the best interests of the UK military?

Too improbable for words ME...

And from a national of a country that employs people like Von Braun, Kissinger, Schwartzkop, Schwartzenager, Powell to name but a few . . .

Rear Admiral Amjad Hussain, the highest ranking Muslim officer in the armed forces | Society | The Guardian

Interesting stuff on the weapon handling. It continues to underscore the huge difference between the US Navy and almost everyone else, with the USN putting a cast of thousands on all its ships - the orthodoxy being that they are needed to fight the ship and a fire at the same time. Meanwhile, the UK MoD did have the sense to look at carrier operations and recognize that the driver for through-life costs was the crew.

True, but the first gent didn't really have a choice about his (second) employer...

It'll be interesting to see the implications for routine ship hygiene and maintenance of such reduced manning given that the next generation of warships will be as big if not bigger than their predecessors.

Will compartments have to be sealed off to reduce such cleaning regimes to acceptable levels? Will rounds be reduced? Or can we expect to see CPOs and senior officers cleaning the heads and other nooks and crannies? And will this have a knock on effect upon the long term serviceability of CVF, T45 etc.

I’d be interested to hear the opinions of some of you RN types on this practical aspect of ever reducing crews.

Regards,
MM

MM
 

You forgot the shoes.:}

:) True.

But we had a few who were worked for the wrong side - Klaus Fuchs, Bruno Pontecorvo etc :)

Essentially you must treat, vet and observe the person and not do a blanket ethnic profiling.

You forgot the shoes.

Is that something to do with ritual foot washing facilities?

MM,

Maybe they will let out a MAC and get Qinetiq or Serco to do the house keeping :}

Probably hire in a whole team from Kharachi and be far cheaper. Remember the Chinese. They did all the dhobbi. In WWI they did lots of trench and grave digging for the British Army.

Services: Housekeepers

Ships husbandry in a large ship without a large compliment is a consideration. A bigger consideration is firefighting and damage control.

The damm things will have a crew of 1,450 people, WHAT is the problem?

Espionage really does happen. There really are traitors out there. I too a course under Prof. J. Reece Roth back in 1981. Pompous gent.
The only fellow I ever saw wearing a white lab coat while teaching class.

Now Dr. Roth's going to a taxpayer-supported retirement home!

washingtonpost.com > Nation
Professor Is Convicted Of Sharing Technology

J. Reece Roth
J. Reece Roth (AP)
Enlarge Photo
...

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 4, 2008; Page A04
A federal jury in Knoxville, Tenn., convicted a retired university professor on conspiracy, wire fraud and export control charges yesterday for improperly sharing sensitive technology with students from China and Iran.
Plasma physicist J. Reece Roth, 70, faces more than a decade in prison when he is sentenced early next year. Prosecutors say the professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee exchanged restricted military data with foreign research assistants and traveled overseas with electronic versions of sensitive materials on his laptop computer.
The case is the latest in a series involving the Arms Export Control Act. It also is among the first in which the government sought to punish a defendant for distributing scientific know-how rather than equipment to foreigners studying at universities with military research contracts.
Roth worked with a Knoxville technology company on a pair of U.S. Air Force contracts to develop plasma-based guidance systems for the wings of unmanned vehicles from 2004 to 2006, according to court papers. The drones are used in surveillance and to house weapons. This year, the company, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, and another scientist there pleaded guilty to related charges.
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303228.html

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Roth's mind-set on trial
Dueling lawyers say man either arrogant or naive in violation
By Jamie Satterfield (Contact)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Related links
* Indictment of John Roth and Atmospheric Glow Technologies
* University of Tennessee faculty page on J. Reece Roth

University of Tennessee professor emeritus J. Reece Roth either was too arrogant to comply with laws designed to keep foreign eyes from peeking at sensitive military data or too naive to know when he should.
That line of demarcation was clearly drawn Tuesday as dueling attorneys sought to sway a federal jury deciding whether Roth plotted with a Knoxville technology firm to violate the Arms Export Control Act, repeatedly allowed two foreign national graduate students access to information on a U.S. Air Force project and took data about it to China in May 2006.
Jurors deliberated some five hours before U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan sent them home for the night. They will return today to continue debating Roth's fate.
Roth ran afoul of the law when he agreed to serve as a subcontractor on an Air Force project awarded to Atmospheric Glow Technologies Inc. that involved the use of plasma actuators on drones.
AGT and ex-employee Daniel Max Sherman, a physicist and former Roth student, have pleaded guilty.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Mackie told jurors in closing arguments Tuesday that Roth well knew the project fell under the auspices of export control, pointing to Roth's own handwritten notes. In those notes, Roth detailed a plan to divide labor between an American graduate student, who would handle export control data, and a Chinese graduate student, who would work in the UT Plasma Research Laboratory.
That plan fell apart, however, when the division stymied progress, and the two graduate students began sharing information, testimony showed. The case came under federal probe when Roth wanted to include an Iranian student. AGT balked. Roth complained to UT officials, who, testimony showed, told him he was violating the law.
"His mind-set was, 'I know what the rules should be. This is my area. I know what's best for this,' " Mackie told jurors. "Dr. Roth, in his own mind, said, 'I know what I'm doing. I don't have to follow this.' "
...

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/sep/03/roths-mind-set-on-trial/

Presenting the answer to the CVF crewing issues:

http://peterthink.blogs.com/thinking/roomba_1.jpg

Modern Elmo......shame on you!:=:=:=

Admiral Hussein is a fine Officer and a first class leader.

Nostrinian.....Don't tar the Wardroom with the American brush!