Spaz,

Sharkey's claims are nothing more than fatuous, egotistic bolleaux which, time and again, require official MoD spokespersons to waste time refuting. Strange how his oft-wheeled-out career history mentions nothing of being a naval architect....yet, like his ignorance of modern carrier aviation, he seemingly remains abjectly out of touch with the progress of technology, tactics, techniques and procedures.

Mr Ward...pour another Pina Colada and enjoy a quiet, deserving retirement. You earned much respect and adoration for your S. Atlantic exploits but it would be a total shame to destroy the pitiful remnants of that former reputation in your dotage.

Ever hear of the P-8? It was an option. The number of '5th gen' fighters available is very small. (I am still not sure just what '5th gen' means other than "bloody expensive.")

USMC to fly from UK carriers 2021...hang on when will the RAF F35b's be operational from UK carriers, 2020?....

update first operational deployment 2021....

This'll Make Waves! USMC F35s to Deploy on HMS Q.Elisabeth!
 

Just reported by BBC

US F35 fighters to deploy from Royal Navy aircraft carrier - BBC News

US and UK F35 fighters are to deploy alongside each other when the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier begins her first operational tour in 2021.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has signed an agreement with his US counterpart to allow Marine Corps F35Bs to fly from HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The first Royal Navy and RAF F35s, the Lightning II, will be deployed in 2018.
The announcement came on the margins of a London meeting about action against the so-called Islamic State group.
The F35 fighter is built by Lockheed Martin in the US.
The aircraft will later also be available for deployment on HMS Prince of Wales, the second of the new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, currently being constructed in Rosyth.
Sir Michael said: "As Britain's pre-eminent operational partner, including in our current fight against Daesh [Islamic State group], the inter-operability of British and American forces is crucial...
"Britain and America's longstanding defence and intelligence sharing epitomises the special relationship that helps keeps both our nations safer and more secure."

Hang on. USMC plus FAA/RAF to act together in 2021 against 'the so called Islamic State'.

2021. Isn't that 5 years away?

Politicians (nice suits though) giving away the 'Master Plan' again.

The Emperor's new clothes? The RN played a blinder all those years ago when they persuaded Gordo Brown to order two aircraft carriers and fast jets that the UK cannot afford and does not really need.

Now they are about to be delivered the RN and MOD suddenly realised that the ships are naked so they desperately need to clothe them with something impressive so a mix of AAC Apache and some Marine Corp F35s will be draped on the decks to pretend that we have a big stick. Just a matter of spending a few £ Billion fixing those all electric destroyers and all will be ready for a quick cruise down the channel before either running out of cash or breaking down.

Old, old, old, news - been planned and reported by the government, navy, media - and F-35 and Carrier threads here for months.

e.g.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09...op_deployment/

shouldn't be an issue - the US F35s will be using the right hand side of the deck and we will be using the left ;) Anyhoo - is the govt saying that they won't have defeated the 'stop-calling-it-so-called-everyone-is-actually-already-calling-it-IS-or-Daesh' by 2021?
I was promised the increased defence and Intelligence services spending would have won the 'so-called' war by then? I was looking forward to decades of peace on Earth and no national debt by 2020....

Yeah but the person who promised that turned out to have a yellow streak a mile wide running down his back..

As ORAC says, this information has been in the public domain for months now and planned behind the scenes for quite some time prior.

Think about it: with inherently in-built interoperability, why WOULDN'T you test and operate USMC F-35B with UK ones, on the world's only purpose-built F-35B aircraft carriers?! This is called increasing capability for mutual benefit folks... Sure, it's a way of plussing up the firepower on our decks early on, but the Marines are keen, so again, why not?

I suspect the OP is attempting to incite outrage from what is, ostensibly, a logical move.

Presumably basing on the QE2 class will be the only time that USMCs F35s will use a ramp for TO or do they have them on their own ships?

All USMC LH-class are flat-tops so yes, Torque, flying from QE Class will be their only ramp experience.

If both projects had gone head on their initial timescales, it could be argued that the USMC might have been so impressed with an F35 on a ramp, as I recall they liked Harriers on ramps off the Illustrious class, that they might have ordered a number of QECs.

Highly doubt it. The US Navy specifics the "carriers" they want, and something as big as the QEC would be counter to the current LHA/LHD classes and the super carriers, and in betweener if you will. Yes, US Marine Harrier pilots were impressed with the ski jump when they used it, and outfitting ski ramps to the LHA's/LHD's over the past decades has come up periodically but this was dismissed with the thought that ramp taking up to many helo spots on the LHA/LHD, and the flat deck was deemed to work well enough for the Harriers.


Conspiracy theorists would also opine that the carrier admirals would see a large deck STOVL carrier as a direct threat to carrier orders, and worry that politicians may decide, "hey lets buy cheaper carriers" and risk future conventional carrier operations. As most would agree, cats and traps allows for greater payload off the deck and for aircraft that are not as compromised with STOVL penalties.


Thirdly the US has a robust ship building industry, with very strong ties to US congress. Why buy from a foreign yard? Legal obstacles as well.


Fourthly, the QEC is partially designed to commercial standards. US warships are designed to military specs. Likely a non-starter.


The LHA/LHD and carrier mix seems to work well with current US doctrine. The LHA/LHD is designed to support robust amphibious ops, helo ops and imbedded Harriers and soon F-35's to support the task group. The aviation heavy USS America gave up other capabilities to support more aircraft, but looks like that will not be repeated for future orders.

There's a ramp at Pax River -


http://i65.tinypic.com/11ljtzs.jpg

"Fourthly, the QEC is partially designed to commercial standards. US warships are designed to military specs. Likely a non-starter."


Which means what exactly, apart from Frame Numbers are from Fwd to Aft on a naval ship compared to Aft to Fwd on a Commercial ship?

[QUOTE=MSOCS;9611111]

I suspect the OP is attempting to incite outrage from what is, ostensibly, a logical move.[/QUOTE

Just passing on what, was, at the time, live from a parliamentary news feed.

What was of more interest, alongside the continued extension of RAF GR4 operations in theatre (again no surprises there) was the quiet slippage of UK F35B, on Operations, to the right. Again.

Still its bound to find it's niche eventually.

Not sure what you mean GR. IOC Maritime has been Dec 2020 for quite a long time now. Therefore the feasible first EMBARKED operational deployment is 2021. There is nothing to necessarily preclude UK F-35B deploying on land-based operations after the earlier IOC Land is declared; i.e some time in 2019...

That's only 2 years away

F-35 Wingtip Vortices - A cool look but..
 

I have noticed in most videos and still photos of the F-35 in flight; that they often appear to have visible wing tip vortices even in straight and level flight.

Is this a design flaw? I would expect to see them when pulling g at high speed but not during AAR behind a tanker!

It can't be a great feature in a 5th generation stealth fighter; unless it makes the opposition think they're pulling more g than they actually are.

Am I missing something here? :confused:

The bit you are missing is AoA, rather than G. At normal cruise speed the vortices are not really visible.

If you think about LO requirements the lack of anything resembling or artificially acting as a wing fence / pylon etc is understandable.