You all seem to be overlooking the Fireball XL5 and Supercar option.........

That Supercar idea might be the answer. Cheap as chips with its 60s-era technology and it would only need the Royal Navy to recruit funny but strange looking puppets to pilot to it. If that goes over budget (as it most likely would) and belly up, the UK could always look at restarting a production line for Thunderbird 6 instead, thereby safeguarding jobs for the British aerospace industry. Sorted. :ok:

No to what?
The AV-8B and A-10 also flew over A-stan, so what? That doesn't make them suitable future strike aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm.
Your logic fails. Both Rafale and F-35 are multi role aircraft. Rafale is currently operational. So too is the F-18F. Funnily enough, the RAA seems to prefer the Super Hornet to the Rafale. Why do you think that is?
Just to keep you current with the history of Military Aviation, the F-16 Falcon started as an air-to-air fighter, and ended up through various blocks and mods as a decent air-to-ground platform. Typhoon may go through a similar evolution, but that depends on requirements and budget, as well as parallel tech advancement.

EDIT: sorry, looks like Typhoon is already air-to-ground certified, back in 2008. :O Oops, wasn't keeping up.

So we are agreed then - Bin Dave, chop harriers and gap till Big Lizzie gets wet, order up some plastic superbug.

Leave gr4 till bugs get here, chop gr4 and buy more bugs - common fleet twixt crab and matelot, crab have bugs and tiffin.

all other money into SH/AT

Where is my consultancy fee?

Probably the best summing-up I've heard in a long time - nice one!

doff's fez in salute - "I thank you"

Follow-up: Deliver conformal tanks, weapon pod, Selex IRST and Meteors to US Navy to retrofit late Block II Bugs, and for the extra Block IIs that they buy when LockMart presents them with the real price for Dave-C.

Develop Phoon to full potential with some of the $ saved by Dave-B cnx, and fill the gap left when LockMart presents them foreign suck..., I mean the international partners with the real price and schedule for Dave-A.

35 Billion black hole in procurement, 25% cuts across the MOD to save 5 Billion a year, and £20 Billion in Trident costs to cover.

If you lot think 2 new carriers, JSF or F18 are arriving anytime soon, you are dreaming.

The RN will consist of Albion & Ocean, a few subs and very few escorts. RM and CHF may survive, with the Merlin if they do.

The RAF will consist of enough Typhoons to guard the UK, no Nimrod, no RJ, no tankers, no Puma/Merlin and very possibly no A400M. I can't realistically see the new Chinooks arriving either.

The Army will be minus an amoured brigade with a smaller logs chain and minus anything else they can chop around the edges. Lynx will go and Wildcat looks iffy.

I'm afraid Mr Osborne stiffed any procurement plans when he threw us the Trident funding hospital pass.

Sitting here debating whether you'll get F18 or JSF may pass the day, but flies in the face of reality. I'll post a 'I got it hugely wrong' thread on Oct 22 if I have, but can't really see it.

"The rafale M is flying over A-stan,"

does it still need an entandard/mirage to hold its hand/carry the targeting pod for it?

MGD - I'll hold you to that one but I suspect your assessment is more righter than moine!

I don't care so long as there is plenty of stuff to see at the Airshows!:ok:

FB

By the way, has anyone thought about the idea of splitting the Army between the R.A.F. and R.N.:)

They're keeping Ocean? Problem solved!

Ocean flight deck length = 170m
Sea Fury takeoff distance = 170m (ish)

Just need to work out how to hang a Meteor on VR930 and we're sorted.

'Course, after my consulting fee, and the £2.7 Bn 10-year PFI PBL support deal we'll need to put in place with BAE, she'll only be available for ops one day a month. Less if the RNHF insist on taking her to shows.

:E

I/C

astronaute

I'll take that as a yes then

The yes is, you WILL NEVER GET the F-35 !:hmm:

Astro - why don't you go off a google 'French military victories' come back to us when you find some. Now there's a good 13 year old.

Lowob... Nice!

If Converteam do get the task of coming up with an EMCAT, I hope they make a better job of it than their efforts onboard my current place of employment.:ugh:

"The Rafale is on the block 3, soon it will be on the 4, then it will do everything you can ask to an omni-role fighter !"

only 25 years after it first flew, impressive!

Rafale's development process has been just as troubled as jsf in its own way, its merely further down it by virtue of being older

Dream on mate ! The Rafale is flying out of the PAN and CVNs.

All the F-18 pilots ( USN) are impressed by the plane.

Recall me what kind of naval fighter do you have !!!:hmm:

May I point out that the planned UK JSF buy is in penny packets until the '20s. We literally plan to buy a handful. The inevitable slippage is moving that to the right.

The intention at the moment is to save money - as soon as possible. What on earth leads anyone to think the government would even consider buying a new type - in numbers - which would require a large up front payment?

I would suggest that the likely option, without a current threat requiring a carrier, is to retire the GR7/9 force early, try and sell off the first CVA to India or elsewhere (including the GR7/9 wing as air assets), and look at harmonising the entry into service of the second CVA to coincide with the purchase of the F35C.

Time to adapt the design for EMALS and spread the cost.

Hmmm having 1 CVA is not an option as 1 will allways be in refit / working up so having only 1 would mean no CVA for 2/3 years at a time makes the whole idea pointless.

After visiting Landivisiau in 2008 I decided then you had the best Naval Air Arm in Europe with the best jet! Its better than Super Hornet (which is still a great aircraft). With your current force it probably makes you 2nd best navy in the world next to the USA, with you currently having the best Naval jet in service. We are not exactly in the same league which is really sad to say. One politican after another has failed this country.
We should try and be more like you! Even after the upcoming cuts and closure of places such as Reims and Cambrai you will still have far more than we do.

A couple of points of order regarding Rafale's multi-role status:

1) It's not currently deployed in Afghanistan
2) It cannot use a laser designation pod, so cannot do any ISR, and has to fly with an M2000D to spike its bombs in.

It was a short-term deployment to make a sales pitch. Its capability is not worthy of comparison with other multi-role aircraft as things stand.

Tell you what, why don't we simply stop paying billions of pounds to India in the form of aid, which they only use to purchase our military harware? Then we could afford to keep our CVF/JSF/F18F etc....

Just a thought.....

because we pay them aid so they act as a buffer against the rise of the pakistan based jihadi uprising - basically its a bribe....

when it does come it will go to india first....

Cynical ain't we

When you take a step back and look at the "big picture" where HMG are prepared to cause financial anguish to literally millions of families over tax-credits being scrapped (along with the provision of HMR&C to reclaim as much as they feel fit) then the carrier program really does shrink in overall importance to the population in general.
I know it's not "right" but that's a realistic outlook.
The choice has been made quite clear to the MOD.

Trident or carriers+lots of other equipment types.

This lot are planning post AFG, and expeditionary warfare is not on the list of "too-does" post AFG.

Well no, the MoD don't have a choice over Trident - lets be fair - its ringfenced! I'm quite sure if the MoD had a choice, they'd pick carriers and lots of other equipment types every time!

Financial anguish? Benefits? Do me a favour. We spend more on benefits than we reap in income tax. An unsustainable state of affairs - the defence budget pales into insignificance next our bloated welfare state yet no-one in Govt has the plums to say or do what 90% of the country is thinking they should...

No doubt we will re-engine it with a British engine resulting in the slowest most powerful and expensive F-18 ever built..... We will not get the source code for the avionics so will be cap in hand to the USA when ever we want to update something, on top of that we will change the weapons fit, the avionics fit and the in flight refuelling fit just to ensure it is no longer compatible with anyone elses F-18's and then we will have the fighter we never wanted, shortly following delivery we will cancel the carriers and the Royal Navy will pass them to the RAF who in future years will have to buy Amercian surplus versions to bolster the fleet whilst then having 2 variants on the books, neither really compatible with the other.....

:p

And lets call it Phantom II just to make sure.

Detainees 'are on hunger strike' (From Oxford Mail)

Some new Darwin Award contenders - with their own solution to part of the UK's 'unsustainable state of affairs', perhaps?

Anyway, as regards the FAA's postulated Sea Hornet, surely no-one would be stupid enough to mess with a proven design?

like the Phantom you mean...............

ummmm...Dyson
 

there already was a Phantom II (the F4)

so it'll have to be the Phantom III !

DM

Aéronautique navale : Les liens se renforcent entre Français et Américains


Rafale Marine : Le point sur le programme


Le groupe aérien embarqué en images


YouTube - ‪Charles de Gaulle et Rafale au Afghanistan‬‎



Dream on.......brits !:ok:

Quote:

---

No doubt we will re-engine it with a British engine resulting in the slowest most powerful and expensive F-18 ever built..... We will not get the source code for the avionics so will be cap in hand to the USA when ever we want to update something, on top of that we will change the weapons fit, the avionics fit and the in flight refuelling fit just to ensure it is no longer compatible with anyone elses F-18's and then we will have the fighter we never wanted, shortly following delivery we will cancel the carriers and the Royal Navy will pass them to the RAF who in future years will have to buy Amercian surplus versions to bolster the fleet whilst then having 2 variants on the books, neither really compatible with the other.....

---

USN aircraft are already using the same flight re-fuelling system as us.

We can get the re-engine thing right from time to time. Our Apache is far more powerful then the USA version (Ok it was very late) Also various Wirlwind/Wessex types.

Agree the F4 was trashed by the Speys. They really did only just fit!! (The engine change kits included fag papers to check for clearance!) Should have bought the F4Js all along .

Granted the F4s with Speys were a maintenance mare, but the ones I flew were awesome beasts, especially in the RAFG LLAD role - even more so when we took off the underwing tanks. Ask anyone from that era that tangled with us (and that includes Viper and Hornet drivers).

What part of either

"then the carrier program really does shrink in overall importance to the population in general."

OR

"I know it's not "right" but that's a realistic outlook."

Do you want me to explain? the politicians may be swinging a large axe but will be looking to show "balance" to the populous.

Oh lordy, the lunatic Frenchman is back.

For those that don't know, our poster 'astronaute' is the latest handle used by a particularly obsessed (and probably mentally ill) Frenchman who has posted across the internet on a range of handles, including 'Thunder' 'Sampiax', Gogo, Gn, Gilles54.

His method of operation is simple - he will flame, flame and flame again, with endless links and posts of pure drivel to 'prove' that anything French is perfect, and anything British is a failure.

He has been here before, and was banned very quickly when he started picking a fight with Jackonicko, and several pilots suggesting they didnt know what they were talking about on the Rafale, and that they were just idiot amateurs.

May I suggest we mag to grid the poster in question ASAP please, he is a troll and nothing more than that.

Comment dit-on "troll" en francais?

Jim - he hasn't claimed to be a former member of the Armee de l'Air (hinting at some FJ experience and an expertise in aeronautics greater than Camm, Mitchell, Bloch/Dassault combined) yet, so are you sure it's the same bloke?

If it is, he was Gegene [sic?] last time, wasn't he?