If I recall correctly, the UK had a substantial balance of payments crisis at the time and it was essential that a large component of the 'Fifty-fifty Phantom' (as it was nicknamed) was of UK origin. Hence the Spey.

The UK also tried to offset the cost by selling the Jetstream 3M to the US where it would have been the C-10A; that also flopped when Handley Page couldn't keep to its delivery dates. But at least the 3M wouldn't have had the awful Astazou engine, it would have had Garretts!

D.D

Wot? Well didn't the RAF have a stab at moving Australia one time?

JJ,

I happily stand corrected on numbers. But the basic point is that the RN went for Ks as the only way to get the aircraft on board. The one plus - I believe that UK F-4s were the fastest to altitude of any variant. As you say, a pricey cocktail.

Victorious was retired on an excuse (politics) but it was the huge cost of her conversion that did for Eagle. As I posted previously, converting WW2 ships to take big and fast jets proved prohibitively expensive for the USN - the RN sadly had no real alternatives.

DZ,

RVLs on land have been there from the start on JSF - the USMC have a requirement for a short field landing. For ship operations, VLs were the only recovery method in the requirement. SRVL work is taking what the basic aircraft delivers and applying it to shipboard recoveries.

I don't think F-35B can back taxy. It was always there on Sea Harrier, and we used it plenty of times - but the CVF deck is large enough to allow aircraft repositioning via normal taxy.

Best Regards as ever

Engines

Speys etc.
 

Thanks, 'Engines'.

Seems to me there are two sadly conflicting concerns here - in an ideal world, and with a little country like the U.K, one would have hoped they were both playing the same game.

Instead we have 'job creation' - usually leaving our forces with crap kit - or 'wartime desperation' - which it seems one doesn't get time for nowadays.

While the Gripen may not be the absolute bee's knees, I can't help thinking that what with that & the past Viggen & roads / flyover HAS's etc, the Swedish have much to be admired - their ladies aren't the worst I've ever seen either !

The most intelligent British decision I have heard, in military circles, was to incorporate potential for 'export features' such as extra pylons, RWR etc. into the Hawk, when the basic Ministry spec' didn't actually mention them.

Probably with a lot of thanks due to Gordon Hodson, chief designer of course.

Whereas the RAF did, allegedly, 'move' Australia for obscure political reasons, at least some fishhead tried to do so physically by driving one of HM's war canoes into the only rocks for miles (nautical or otherwise) in any direction.....

DZ,

The JSF is probably one area where the 'job creation' label might not stick. The payback that UK industry is getting on the project is, I reckon, well in excess of what the UK MoD have paid to get on the project. No doubt that F-35B gives a bigger payback for RR, but that is by no means the whole story on F-35.

I am also a fan of the Swedes - good designs, strong and consistent defence policies and realistic requirements all play a part there, IMO.

Hawk's an interesting aircraft - it was a completely PV design in response to an overblown Staff Target for an advanced supersonic trainer (which would have needed a sort of Jag T2 to meet it). You are bang on, pylons and other features were put in with an eye to the future - I was once told that the MoD had to be dissuaded (By Hawkers) from spending a million or so to get them removed!

Beags - no allegedly about it - the RAF presented politicians a revised map of the Far East to show the ability of land based air to provide air cover for the fleet - people I trust told me that one bit of land was moved around 400 miles! Reason was to undermine the case for the carriers - but I don't subscribe to the 'evil RAF' school - sadly, it's probably more true that the RN failed to make their own case strongly enough.

Regards

Engines

Thanks for the answers Engines, I don't agree that JSF/35B IS the right answer but WE of course can only offer opinions :ok:

Engines
Indeed, the costing of these projects gets pretty involved.

Commiting to STOVL means a commitment to a ski-jump deck right? Which means a commitment to rotary wing AEW, (Maritime Airborne Surveillance & Control MASC, so maybe we should also add in
(MASC unit cost + R and D) - (off the shelf cost of E2C)

best regards JJ (an interested party, a taxpayer)

"Do you know what the procurement and through life costs of Dave-B are compared to that of Typhoon?"

No, I don't. Neither does Tom Burbage, Gen. Chuck Davis, DSD(AT&L), MOD(A) or OUT(C&A) because (a) Dave has only flown a few dozen hours and (b) its first cousin, the F-22A, is missing its maintenance targets by a large margin, despite much confident briefery in the 1997-2003 timeframe about "this time we've got the LO maintenance issues sorted, honest Guv."

Engines,

Many thanks for the gen' - one point though, and I don't mean to contradict you, but isn't even the CVF a lot smaller than a Nimitz class, and they still park with the tails over the side ( better for the crew getting out than nose-over-side I suppose ! ).

As the F-35B is a lot larger than a Harrier, I imagine reverse thrust viffing midair is not considered necessary even for approach, and parking will be done by a 'tractor' as is traditional ?

Cue a project for a new super deck tug - probably a more profitable contract than the aircraft!

While I'm all for advance, wouldn't a Harrier -even allowing for lost knowledge & manufacturing capability ( all relatively available given the will ) -with AMRAAM and something like an S-3 / Osprey / Orion with buddy tanking & AEW have been a lot cheaper, therefore in a perfect world more of them, and more Type 45 destroyers ( we all know the answer to that one...).

Too late now, in the words of Basil Fawlty after banging head on table " No, it's not a dream, we're stuck with it !"

DZ,

CVF deck is really big for the tonnage - it's about the same area as the original Forrestal class. You are spot on - the aircraft will still need to be spotted with tails over water, but the whole deck cycle and aircraft handling routines will be very different from our current CVS. On CVF, aircraft will be taxied under their own power to areas of the deck where a short 'push back' will get them spotted. On CVS, nearly all deck moves are 'tractored' from start to finish.

The CVF team have built some really smart flight deck movements simulations and have modelled this stuff for a few years - I am told that the USN are very impressed.

As an old time Harrier engineer, I'd love to agree that a Harrier plus AMRAAM could have cut the mustard - but we had one and we junked it early. FA2. Further developments were looked at, and there were any number of projects put around by Kingston, but the fact is that the basic Harrier concept of a centrally mounted high bypass turbofan generating lift by direct jet thrust carries too many performance penalties. The X-32 showed how real they were.

JJ, I agree that going STOVL ties us in to a range of costs. The trick is how that range of costs stacks up against the costs of running a cat and trap operation. I don't know the answers, but the high priced help in town apparently do. One thing I do know is that committing to an 'off the shelf' E-2 would not be cheap. I'd also suggest that one area of our capabilities that we do not want to hand over to Uncle Sam is our organic C4ISR.

Best Regards

Engines

... our organic C4ISR.

A helo with a radar dangling out one side is RN C4ISR for the 21st C.?

Engines, sorry. You've got me scratching my head over your last remarks.

Military procurement and cheap are words rarely found in the same sentence. But the cost difference between off-the-shelf and new dev...

Ditto the remarks of the representative from Tennesse, re. organic capability. We are hardly world class in this area.

Nationally, for MRA4, should it ever actually make it into service, all the LINK11/16 is Boeing; as with the rest of the mission electronics.
E3D, well I hardly need state the obvious.

JJ

JJ, ME,

Sorry if I wasn't clearer. My bad.

A helo with a radar dangling out of the side - or perhaps a converted airliner with a dome scabbed on top? Neither sounds good put that way. I had heard that the ASACs SK7 have done a good job in Iraq - but again, perhaps I'm off beam here. And these days they are really a joint asset, not 'RN'. Same as all our ISTAR assets.

What I was getting at is that going cap in hand to the US for a major ISTAR (more modern acronym?) asset just ensures a loss of UK expertise in this area. My view (very probably uninformed) is that we aren't as far behind the US in all the areas as some may think. And we need to remember that in ISTAR, as in all areas, enough might be, well, enough.

E-2 and affordability - again, none of us have the detailed sums, but I've been around enough 'off the shelf' projects to realize that first, there is no product on the 'shelf' - you always end up paying for some development (e.g. Danish Merlins). Second, the US extract a good price for their exports - and the support costs can be eye watering. I'm not arguing that buying US is wrong - but it's certainly not a panacea.

Best Regards as ever,

ASaC7 is not bad by all accounts, although it would be better if it could stay up higher and longer. And to add to the point on E-2D - it is so intimately involved with the US Navy way of doing business that it might be ill matched for anyone else's needs. (Note the fact that attempts to glue the E-2 radar on to other platforms have not appealed on the export market, nor generally has the E-2.)

Fleet AEW
 

"Although it would be better if it could stay up higher and longer".

I've heard that before somewhere - curse that Romulan ale !

- But isn't a UAV best suited - even going to the extremes of solar power ( I think that's in the future, but know the needs of a powerful radar - and for that matter a relatively VSTOL aircraft ).

In the meantime, as the F-35 seems a cert', there's still a big question mark over the other aircraft required on CVF; as it seems to me the obvious answer is ' Merlin ', how about a stripped out F-35 to buddy-tank the offensive ones - and maybe even give some short range cover for the fleet...

Please forgive my musings, but this is a 'rumour / discussion network' and I realise all this will have been thought of long before.

'Engines', I have the feeling we've met...

Sorry to dissagree LO, but I think E-2 exports have been quite successful

Wiki list 8 (OK 7:E), and I think a couple more countries are interested (Pakistan and somewhere in South America?)

E-2 Hawkeye - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the V22 Osprey. Boeing seem to have given up on the idea of placing a large radar on top of the aircraft as it seems there was very little clearance between this and the rotors when in verticle mode. However they are now looking at fitting an inflatable rad dome to the rear ramp. Beedall's site gives this description under a photograph:-

Third photograph from the top Navy Matters | Maritime Airborne Surveillance and Control

Well, at least they've got one thing right....

I also seem to remember, from my dim and distant past, that a friend of mine, ex boss of 820 Merlin Sqn, went to the good 'ole US of A to test fly the Osprey.

His impression was extremely favourable and the info from Thales at the time was that all aircraft lifts were to be made the correct dimensions to take the Osprey. Which has a remarkably small footprint when folded.

Osprey AEW perhaps?

(Sad that the Osprey looks like it's having a dump :confused: At least we had the excuse of rushing the MK2 AEW in for the Falklands, whats Boeings excuse for the jury rig structure?)