JSF - 6 Months on...
 

We were discussing 6 months a go the problem of the USA not being willing to release the software codes and other data on the JSF to the UK.

The Commons Defence Committee opined that, if no agreement was reached, the aircraft should not be ordered. Government officials duly talked to the USA and Bush signed a nice letter saying it was a good idea. The DoD agreed to hold discussions to sort it out.

We are now at the end of the discussion period, the Memorandum of Understanding needs to be signed - and the Senate/DoD have not moved an inch except for vague assurances. There have been many US correspondents who have said we are bluffing, it is the only choice in town. The other partners, Australia, the Netherlands etc, are signing up, we will as well.

So, it is put up or shut up time. The Defence Committee have put their cards on the table. A decision is needed before the end of the year - just 3 weeks away, including the Xmas holidays. So, what do we do?

BBC: MPs warn over US fighter jet deal

The UK should not agree to a US deal to buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter unless the US releases details allowing independent operation, MPs have warned. The defence committee said an assurance was needed from the US "by the end of the year" that all the technical information would be given to the UK.

The $276.5bn (£140bn) Anglo-US project will supply the armed forces of the US, Britain and several other countries. Earlier this year, the government expressed concerns about the deal.........It still remains unclear whether the US will agree to transfer the technology required to give the UK operational sovereignty of the aircraft. The committee said if there is no deal by the end of the year, the government should focus on developing a "plan B" to acquire alternative aircraft.......

ITV.com .........Ministers have previously threatened that the UK could pull out of plans to buy up to 150 of the military planes for the RAF and Navy unless the US agreed to transfer secrets about its software that Britain argues are needed in order to operate and maintain them independently.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush had reportedly solved the impasse in May, when they announced an agreement in principle that the UK would be given access to the classified details on conditions of strict secrecy. However, the committee warned that it was still "uncertain" whether the US was prepared to supply the required information.

The MPs said: "If the required assurances are not obtained by the end of the year, we recommend that the Ministry of Defence switch the majority of its effort and funding on the programme into developing a fallback 'plan B', so that an alternative aircraft is available in case the UK has to withdraw from the Joint Strike Fighter programme. "We must not get into a situation where there are no aircraft to operate from the two new aircraft carriers when they enter service."

Blow the cobwebs off the Sea Jets!

I feel a fudge coming on....

Typhoon....
 

Tranche 3..... Naval Variant.

And there may even be some spares floating around then too !!

So to speak..........

Buy anything, except a jet that hovers!

Coincidence?
 

Well this could give MoD all the excuse it needs to sh1t-can JCA/CVF and free up funds for the Trident upgrade. Incidentally, why is it so important we have access to JSF technology but not to Trident?

Read the Defence Industrial Strategy

Basically, we want to retain the ability, where we have it, to mainain, update and operate our own assets. With JSF that means doing software updates and adding weapons and sensors of out own. We have no equivalent expertise in ICBMs, and it is unlikely to need any update other than that provided by the USA.

I see the Navy losing their flat tops, but only after we have gone through further expensive feasibility studies to navalise Dave. Got to agree with LJR- hovering is an unnecessary luxury.

Hovering will only be an unnecessary luxury if we get boats that are big enough to operate from in a conventional fashion. I'm not convinced that has been confirmed yet. :(

Agree entirely there chap: what with the imminent fall through of the Saudi deal, there will be Typhoons coming out our ears. Why not use them as naval aircraft. It's not as if the design of CVF has been finalised yet...:hmm:

Other than the simple reason that no non-STOVL land-based design has EVER been developed into a successful (Seafire had some major flaws) carrier-based variant.

Oh and the various Heath-Robinson concepts already wheeled out to get typhoon to be CV-compatible (periscopes anyone????)

"No non-STOVL land-based design has EVER been developed into a successful carrier-based variant."

Yeah, right. Look at failures like the Hawker Nimrod, the de Havilland Sea Hornet, the Sea Venom, the FJ-3 Fury, the Sea Vixen (DH110), the T-45, the F/A-18, the Su-33K, and the MiG-29K.

"Oh and the various Heath-Robinson concepts already wheeled out to get typhoon to be CV-compatible (periscopes anyone????)"

Yeah, right. Your second generalisation is almost as incisive as your first. Typhoon N will clearly be compromised (there's a 300-500 kg weight penalty, depending on the options exercised), but the commonality benefits are considerable, and it will be supportable, sustainable, operable and upgradeable without US say-so.

Take it the Rafale M now in full air to air variant and air to ground variant was not a success then. They ve managed not only to develop the multi role aspect of a land base aircraft, but also adapt it for carrier ops whilst we are still pi**ing about with our air to air typhoon?
:ugh:

Nevermind eh?

Well just as the start of this thread indicates, we've been here and said all this before. I stick with my original comments, in fact the notion of navalising the final batch of Typhoons looks even more attractive now than it did months ago!

:cool: We have more Typhoons ordered than we actually need (well, more than our stated needs)

:cool: We don't need a vstol aircraft

:cool: The new carriers have catapult retrofit capability built-in

:cool: BAe have already said that navalising the Typhoon isn't as difficult as imagined

And now it's looking like BAe might not even be able to slow Typhoon deliveries to the RAF - seen as the Saudis look like abandoning their order. Hmm, all those Typhoons looking for a good home... You can see the inevitability of this saga growing day by day! Still, never say die - the MoD might still pull defeat from the jaws of victory and insist on throwing vast sums of money at an aircraft we don't even need.

At this late date, I am amazed to find those who are unaware that the F-18 and Rafale were designed from the start as carrier aircraft!


Wokawoka:
Wasn't the whole reason France pulled out of the EFA/Typhoon project because they wanted a carrier capable version and the rest said "later, if we do it at all"... so they built the Rafale instead, specifically to get a carrier-capable aircraft? Wasn't it designed from the start as a carrier aircraft??



Jackonicko; (why am I not surprised)
F-18... maybe you are referring to its origins as the YF-17 for the USAF light fighter competition won by the F-16, but don't you remember the complete, nose-to-tail redesign (with the -17's builder, Northrop, becoming a sub-contracter of McDonnell-Douglas because N. had no carrier aircraft experience), with a totally new landing gear, fuselage, & wing structure specifically for the carrier environment?

Will the UK Treasury pay for a whole new airframe & wings for "Seaphoon"?

The F-18L, you ask? Oh yes, an attempt to de-navalize the Hornet to make it cheaper for non-carrier nations, wasn't it?


And from a US point of view, don't even mention the T-45 "navalization" of the Hawk... years late, well over-budget, a completely new wing, and restrictions on operating weight (due to structural concerns) when flown from a carrier as compared to land, and this from a trainer! What if we had been trying to navalize one of the combat-capable versions, eh? Would you still call that a "success"?


And as for Su-33K, and the MiG-29K, both designed for grass-strip operations, and still with payload restrictions when operating from a carrier, not really what you want from an aircraft that is supposed to do strike, like a Seaphoon would need to... that is why the Russians use the Su-25 Frogfoot from their carriers too... to get something that can carry attack payloads!

If you really want to claim one of the Russian birds as a "land-to-carrier" success, that is the real one... but it was a "dirt-field, rough-service" design from the start... not something that could be said about Typhoon, so I can see why you would leave that one out!

I suppose we could sell you some of our upgraded A-10Cs to give you a Carrier Strike Force if you go the Seaphoon route!


Which brings us to the other examples you use... de Havilland Sea Hornet, the Sea Venom, the FJ-3 Fury, the Sea Vixen (DH110)... all aircraft from a day when:
1. take-off & landing speeds were MUCH slower, and therefore MUCH less stressful...
2. aircraft were "over-engineered"... rather than subject to draconian weight-saving measures that leave little excess margin of strength
3. modification of existing aircraft & designs was MUCH cheaper as a portion of acquisition costs than it is now!

Note: This part was a misunderstanding of Jackonicko's post on my part... see my response post below. I am keeping this here so others will understand the following posts!
Nimrod??? Just when has Nimrod ever operated from a carrier?? Just like you, to try to distract from the issue at hand (modification of land-based aircraft to carrier-based ones) by trying to broaden the discussion to include something that merely operates over water while still flying from land bases!!!

Navalization (adapting to operate from shipboard) is a completely different subject from Marinization (adapting to operate over sea water)!

"Nimrod??? Just when has Nimrod ever operated from a carrier??"

Try a Google search - or go to Duxford!

Hint: We're not talking about the Comet derivative full of doughnut scoffing teenage signallers!

Errr, he said Hawker Nimrod. 1930s naval fighter, developed from the land based Fury.

http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Ai...937profile.gif

HAWKER Nimrod
 

Greennight121, You really need to bone up on your aviation history! The BAE Nimrod is the second aircraft to bear that name. Part of the reason for it being so named was in recognition of the success of the successful Hawker Nimrod biplane which helped you chaps learn that carrier ops were a possibility! Having spent many hours at the controls of the later version I can say that only the prospect of a warm bed and a cold beer prevented me from making an approach to one of your pitching steel decks :-)!
Well done Beags - beat me by 4 Min

ps. Shouldn't the Harrier be at the top of that list Jacko? :p :p

I thought there were discussions about possibly obtaining some Rafale-M's as part of a deal as the French Navy has ordered (I think) one of the carriers we're building. Whats happened to this option?

I also remember reading a quote from an senior RAAF bloke, saying that altho the F-35 was a great "bomb tuck", aside from its bvr capabilities, it wouldn't be good in air-to-air as "it would be aerodynamically unable to mix it in aerial combat with Migs or Sukhois....". I don't think he was a fan.

Any Seaharriers left over....? :}

OK, OK... my mistake--- and I apologise to Jackonicko for that part... and only that part... of my statement.

HOWEVER, that just goes even further in supporting my point... THAT Nimrod was from the days when a fighter type rarely even used a catapult to take off from a carrier... and had a landing speed of 50-70 MPH... rather than 120+MPH!!


See note added in my earlier post.

Olddog... "Part of the reason for it being so named was in recognition of the success of the successful Hawker Nimrod biplane which helped you chaps learn that carrier ops were a possibility!"


Wasn't that a lot of years after we backward Colonials had already modified one collier (see USS Langley) to a carrier, and had such success with it (and in operating aircraft from it) that we had modified 2 partially complete Battlecruiser hulls to full Carriers (see USS Lexington & USS Saratoga)? Which were, by the way, far better carriers than your own such conversions (see HMS Courageous, Glorious, Furious)! :E


All in the friendly spirit of "family fueds", of course... :ok:

Pass-A-Frozo

Unfortunately, this is an area in which I am in total agreement with you... as one with many programmer friends (and a brother who is the chief programmer for a multi-state electric power utility: Sierra-Pacific Power, which controls all electric power in Nevada, eastern Oregon & Washington, and parts of California), the state of programming in the US (as far as coherence, simplicity, and effectiveness) has deteriorated drastically in the last 25 years!

This is emphatically shown by the fact that virtually every major US Defense project (and many civilian ones) has experienced major software problems during its development phase... accounting for a majority of the cost and time overruns on almost every such program!

Yeah, but you were still putting on wooden decks up to and including the Essex and Ticonderoga class carriers, which proved a bit of an embarassment when the kamikaze attacks started. :ouch: The Royal Navy switched to steel decks in 1936 with the Illustrious class..... :ok:

I'd be astonished but pleasantly surprised if Trust-me-Tone and co. had the balls to pull the plug on Dave and re-assert some British self-determination. Paying such a colossal amount of money to not actually "own" ones jets, nor to be able to hang what one will from them, seems ridiculous and doing so will be yet another meek international surrender of sovereignty.

Would certainly be interesting, let the Saudis buy Rafale, navalise all their prospective Typhoons and still provide a potential boost for UK contractors.

Can't see it.

Of course, with Greedy Gordon effectively running the country now, cancelling Dave might just prove an excuse to shave another couple of billion from the defence budget rather than appropriate reinvestment in CVF.

It will probably be a whole lot cheaper than ordering 140 new JSFs.

Even when added to the cost of building the ~75, I think it was, Seaphoons and the ~65 Typhoon F.3s for the RAF in order to replace those 140 JSFs? At the current price for Typhoon (more than Dave A, remember) plus the re-design costs?

Not bloody likely!!!

And yes, I do remember Dave B costs a bit more than Typhoon, but not that much more!

Was going to give Jacko's post the savaging it deserves, but note it's already been done by GK121.

Would also add that to the best of my knowledge none of the Sea Hornet / Sea Venom / DH110 alleged land-based progenitors ever had an extensive service career. Funnily enough, the Fury didn't last long on ships either, although obviously a very succesful land-based fighter.

As for EF2000N - I don't think anyone who saw those studies believed what BAe were saying - it was a clear attempt to knock JSF off the options plot, as became clear when people started getting into the detail of what it would need to do aboard ship.IIRC the aircraft was not fitted with nose-tow and was STOBAR only, making it by far the worst for deck ops and sortie generation.

All that said, the OCA/DCA abilities of Dave do not engender confidence.....

Marion Carl (who knew a thing or two about air-to-air combat and aeroplanes) is on record somewhere as having said that given an Fury with an afterburning engine, he'd have happily have taken on any aircraft anyone chose to point in his direction, and would have been willing to have a crack without the burner...; he still thought the FJ-3/4 perhaps the finest naval aircraft he ever flew.

The point JN challenged was:

"No non-STOVL land-based design has EVER been developed into a successful carrier-based variant."

It doesn't matter about massive redesign for carrier use (which is a form of 'development', even if pushing the word to its very extreme); landing speeds; over-engineering, or anything else raised to attack JN. Also, note the assertion's use of the emphasised 'ever'. JN's rebuttal of that absolute was not imprecise. A post-facto application of historical conditions to undermine JN's point is rather unfair.

Had JN attacked a point phrased - 'only with rare exceptions has a land-based design been developed into a successful carrier-based variant and the chances of this being done today given the cost, increased structural stresses of carrier operations and current approaches to aircraft design where the over-engineering of the past doesn't take place', then 'savaging' the post would be reasonable.

He didn't. The generalised charge made about turning a land-based design into a successful carrier-based variant is inaccurate, whether or not one thinks JN is using the point to push the case for a navalised Typhoon. Trying to savage him for attacking an inaccurate generalisation is, if I may be so bold, unfair.

There is a useful and valid debate to be had about whether a Seaphoon could ever provide the sort of capability the RN requires at a reasonable cost and without serious redesign. I'm in the same camp as N_a_b and GK, i.e. unconvinced: but I don't think it's valid to imply that JN's rejoinder is little more than pro-Typhoon propaganda, since he actually has a point regarding the intial observation.

True, up to a point. The armo(u)red RN decks were great at 'sweepers, man your brooms' for pushing the remnants of the Japanese a/c overboard, but the number of aircraft carried suffered as a result. Seems like it was around half (RN 45-ish v. 85-ish for a USN CV), so the trade between offensive and defensive is interesting.

But we did have air conditioning unlike the 'easy bake' ovens of the RN!

All this is, of course, based on military capability instead of politics. There is is a political case, for the next few years, to demonstrate UK independence from the USA - hence the new UCAV being a UK only programme without US or EU participations.

An independent Typhoon variant rather than the JSF may be seen as just the right message to send....

Rafale would be a better bet than Sea Typhoon - after all its was designed for carrier operations.

Now then.....

1. :ugh:
2. Blair doesn't seem very good at fighting the UK's corner. Does he try?:rolleyes
3. See the Sea Jet thread.
4. See the Future Carrier thread.

To Greenknight 121
 

The Rafale started with the Rafale A demonstrator, which was a follow on to the Mirage 4000, demonstrating aircraft manoeuvrabiltiy VS instability using forward canards. Both were land based aircraft. The design for the Rafale M with reinforce landing gear and different intakes came after the first series of Rafale B/C. The rafale NEVER (do you like the underline?) started as a carrier based aircraft. Therefore I come back to my first comment. Quite successful for an aircraft firstly designed as land based :)
So I would drop the patronising tone Mr and like the other one said go and BOF on your aircraft recce and history. :ok:

The French left the Eurofighter programme because they could not persuade the other partners to limit the size/weight to a 10 ton limit. The limitiations that limit imposed on performance/payload/range etc were just too great.

Why, you will ask, were the French so insistent on a 10 ton limit?

That was the maximum weight foran aircraft capable of operating off the deck of the Foch......

................lets not forget the 50% workshare requested by the French

I knew someone would bring up the Rafale A... which was just a technology demonstrator (materials/aerodynamic design/full fly-by-computer) like the EAP was... the actual Rafale B/C/M design was developed from that, yes... but they were quite different in their internals from R-A... and they were (ok, no underline) designed with the stronger structures needed by a production combat aircraft that would operate from a carrier.


One more thing. If the carrier design was mostly done before the first B/C model started building, then it counts as a "from the start/beginning" design! There was no modification of an in-production design needed... which is the problem with Typhoon at this late stage.

Which programme is that? The only UK U(C)AV programme has been the Phoenix, which has had many, many more takeoffs than landings and is being scrapped next year. There is then the Predator B ''''''''''''''''squadron''''''''''''''' (term used v. loosely) being stood up in the next couple of years, an American venture, and the UAV being leased/purchased from Thales, a French company, the 450. Neither of these are British. And (for now at least) this country definitely does not have independence from the septics, given that we are now completely unable to defend any of our foreign territories, namely ones 2,500 miles from the nearest friendly base. I'm all in favour of the seaphoon, no matter how much development it needs, however.

Notaboffin,

“To the best of my knowledge none of the Sea Hornet / Sea Venom / DH110 alleged land-based progenitors ever had an extensive service career.”

Not a historian, either, clearly. The ‘best of your knowledge’ simply and demonstrably doesn’t cut it. While the DH110 RAF did not see service, both the Hornet and the Venom served with distinction, and had careers that were no shorter than their contemporaries.

“IIRC the aircraft was not fitted with nose-tow and was STOBAR only, making it by far the worst for deck ops and sortie generation.”

Every time you post, you demonstrate further ignorance. The Typhoon N studies examined STOBAR and non-STOBAR carrier versions, the non-STOBAR versions including nose-pull and fuselage pull catapault sub variants.


GK121,

I don’t know why you are or are not surprised. As a Johnny come lately septic with 49 posts you are proving yourself to be every bit as clueless as your postcount would suggest.

The F/A-18 was a productionised derivative of the YF-17, the latter plainly a “non-STOVL land-based design that was developed into a successful carrier-based variant.

And like the USN, and despite teething troubles, yes, I’d call the Goshawk a success. And so did my Boeing guide while we examined the latest one taking shape at St Louis.

Like Notahistorian, you need to polish up your knowledge of aviation. Russia’s carrierborne Su-25UTGs are used only for pilot conversion training and standardization, and not for strike or attack. And the Su-33 has proved a success in its intended role, and the MiG-29K would have done, had funding allowed.

Orac,

“Shouldn't the Harrier be at the top of that list Jacko?”

No, cos old ‘Notafknclue’ did say non-STOVL.

Jacko

Was it something I said?

Or are you just a single issue obsessive, with a sense of humour removal? Maybe it's the scars from the 70s where many RAF stations were covered in naval aircraft imposed on the RAF?

If BAe have undertaken Typhoon N studies with a nose tow (no sane person would go for a fuselage tow these days) I hope it was of better quality than the EF2000 work.

I bow to superior knowledge on the Hornet / Venom question however.

Ho hum....

Do keep up - Taranis

"Lord Drayson said that Britain had decided to develop the new type of aircraft alone, and would not be involved in any collaborative programme, either with the US or with European partners".........