That concludes it then.

You're a Walt.

Don't spoil it Tourist! I'm looking forwards to the next instalment of bilge.

My favourite so far was.....

Priceless!

Ur Funny Lads, Keep it Coming.... :mad:

I may be completely wrong but wasn't the Canadian purple experiment an unmitigated disaster?

The Canadian experience is widely misunderstood. It's interesting, not from the point of view of why it didn't work at first, but what they went back to.

For a start, they are still called the Canadian Armed Forces and have a single HQ - there aren't separate navy, army and air force HQs. However, they are orgainised along environmental lines and - get this - the air force flies all the aircraft, the navy sails all the ships and the army drives all the tanks.

Thus you have Canadian frigates, crewed by navy crews, with an army boarding party and a helicopter flown and maintained by their air force. they say it works for them......

Agree entirely, 10 or 15 years ago - If I had joined the RAF I would be a bit put out if I was stuck on a boat - however times have changed - a crab can find himslef on a boat just as easily as a wafu can find himself deployed in a hot sandy place (or cold muddy place like FI). Our respective recruiters should really make this point clear when people walk through the careers office door.

Tourist - about your post !!
 

Tourist, post 10 - "Harrier? ........2 became dark blue"

Gotta be a bit of a pedant here, the RAF actually only lost 1 Harrier Sqn (3(F) Sqn) to form the Naval Strike Wing, consisting of 800 and 801 NAS. 1(F), IV(AC) and 20(R) Sqns still exist. (An RAF Harrier Sqn has twice as many aircraft as a RN one, hence why the RN deploy as NSW rather as separate sqns.) Please don't get me started on where the manpower came from either.............Also, you seem to have forgotten the fate of 899 NAS :}

HOWEVER, as for the rest of your post I concede that we light blue have lost a number of aircraft types, for instance when I joined, we had Harrier, Phantom, Lightning, Tornado, Jaguar, Canberra, Buccaneer, Hunter, Shackleton, E3, HS125, BAe146, Andover, C130, TriStar, VC10 as well as several flavours of rotary wing and probably numerous other aircraft types that I can't recall........

And before, you start it wasn't really that long ago.

Ok, I'll give you that, but you get my point?

Reports of the imminent death of the fixed wing element of the FAA are somewhat premature.

Few tactical omissions there mate, probably to suit your argument...

Chinook.....not stopped since mid 90's
Tornado GR4...about to deploy to the Stan
Tristar....going like the clappers just trying to keep up
VC10....knackered but still stagging on

Conversely, the present carriers are FA use in the Stan (our commitment for the next 15 years), and cant see the new ones being much more use other than the normal round of cocktail parties and exercises in the Caribbean and Far East.

I know where Id make savings to ensure troops get back from theatre on time. Typhoon would be first, but your new war canoes would be a close second.

"our commitment for the next 15 years"

You talk as if 15 yrs is a long time.
The lead time on things like carriers is longer than that, and we must look to the future.
Carriers are useful for a long time. Some of our last real carriers are still in service with other nations after 50.

As to your other points:-

"Chinook.....not stopped since mid 90's
Tornado GR4...about to deploy to the Stan
Tristar....going like the clappers just trying to keep up
VC10....knackered but still stagging on

more than happy to add them to the list, with your accurate desriptions of their state. It all bolsters my argument that the RAF is in a bad way, and the FAA is a better bet.

Whilst I agree with Tourist that the RAF is in a bad way, the FAA is in no way a better bet. When FLynx is cancelled, the carriers are delayed, JSF is delayed/scaled down/cancelled etc it won't look too rosy. Add to that the fact that there is no money to replace SK4, or SK7, and how does that make the FAA a better bet?