Mummy please make this thread go away.

The leaping heap has leapt. Its not coming back. It would be on no sensible persons top ten aircraft I want to bring back. Useless in its day, useless now. Move on.

Mummy please make this thread go away.

The leaping heap has leapt. Its not coming back. It would be on no sensible persons top ten aircraft I want to bring back. Useless in its day, useless now. Move on.

It's the naughty step for you.

... not really fair.

[BANTER] We all know that without the SHARs from Lusty in the Adriatic, there would have been no way of providing air defence .... er .... for Lusty in the Adriatic.... ;) [/BANTER]

Thanks for your valued and well informed input.

It would be a complete waste of money, time and effort to bring back any form of Harrier now. As a nation we will have at least one carrier in the near future and F35/SuperHornet is where all the effort should be made with regard to that carrier.

WEBFoot,

Good.

Was intended as humour to highlight the obsurdity of regenerating ANY old type that we have already scrapped.

Maybe, but the dynamics on a flight deck with Harriers is very different to running cats. I guess that's why the First Sea Lord has gone to have a look.

Anyways, it's all to early yet. There is a long while to wait before we even see the carrier(s), probably only one, and what jet we put on it (if F35C can't catch a cable, it may not be the one for us).

Did I mention SuperHornet?

P.S. Justanopinion, well said.

Iconic Harrier jets go to US to be broken down for spares | The Sun |News|Campaigns|Our Boys

Thats that then. Lets close this down....:D

Holy crap....it is just astounding that this thread is still meandering....GET OVER IT! :ugh:

"However, I see that Art Nalls achieved US civil certification."

Hardly; he got the FAA equivalent of a Permit to Fly.

This is all cr*p! It degenerated into the world of absolute fantasy and farce months ago yet tries to pass off as serious debate led by someone who has his head buried firmly in the sand who takes increasingly wacky banter and can't see it for the p*ss take that it is.

Please, close this thread. By all means, open a thread to accommodate insane ramblings but, for the sake of credibility, shut this down as it no longer exists as a sensible sharing of opinions that it once purported to do.

Whilst the Harrier is not longer part of the inventories of the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy, it still remains an effective combat aircraft for a number of countries.

It is actually quite ironic that we have grown used to operating airframes / equipment that are older than their crews, that the planes we have trashed are some of the youngest or most recently revamped ( Nim, Wagwah etc) - however I suppose the mrethodology is the same as renovating airbases

This thread will disappear if you log in.

Damn - No it won't!!

Or perhaps not Skelton...


See

EVERETT AERO - Aircraft/BAe SEA HARRIER/FA2/JUMP JET

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO i clicked on the link.

Mummy mummy it wont go away:D

In Omnibus Princeps....


Lament her early passing; accept that the decision was a very, very close call and lets move on. She will always be an icon and a representation of great engineering and incredible, exceptional people. Lest we forget, but please lets move on.... enough is enough

Regards,

BD

In retrospect...
 

Now we have decided that the future is F35B and STOVL, not F35C and CTOL. If F35B had been the selected version all along, how would that have changed the SDSR decision making?

My thoughts are here in the "No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?" thread.

I always thought that having no embarked fixed wing aviation on RN decks for a decade, and then picking up the baton and going for Gold was going to be risky. I still think there are many basics common to both STOVL and CTOL deck operations - including the mechanics of working with live jets on a moving deck, getting the ship on the right course and speed, and various other things that have to be done.

I wonder if the decision have anything to do with feasibility issues (remember the A in SMART stands for Attainable), or even the issue of capability this decade? If we had known the future was STOVL - would the same SDSR decisions have been made? Presumably the things put in place to train RN Pilots and others in CTOL operations will have to change now? This latest decision gives us the opportunity to recover the capability earlier - possibly very soon. Also we can embark (US/Italian/Spanish) Harriers aboard Lusty/Queen Elizabeth.

I have offered my own ideas and suggestions, before this decision. They can be easily found in the thread - even from page one. This decision could justifiably be portrayed as a win in terms of both new carriers being operational, and in being able to get back the carrier strike capability imminently.

I don't want to detract from the "No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?" thread - but what do we need to do now?

BTW I have found an old briefing paper on CVF: FLEET HEADQUARTERS CARRIER STRIKE BRIEFING

Not really. The guys and girls need to get used to big deck operations. Additionally the pilot programme on the F18 is about retaining (and growing back) FAA pilot numbers and gaining experience in maritime strike ops with the only navy that still does it properly. These people will be the LSOs, QFIs, QWIs, Senior Pilots and COs of the future. All things being equal (oh yeah!) the first F35 squadron should be manned by these new maritime aviators and not ex-Typhoon types.....but I won't hold my breath.

Are we sending people stateside for the whole eight or so years?

I cannot help thinking that it would be helpful to have some RN jets (other than the NFSF(FW) Hawks) that are UK based to give flying posts back in the UK. As for recruiting new Pilots and building a cadre for F35/CVF, I suspect that having jets in the UK would help with this too - with a capability (at least partly) now.

The assumption that we would not need carrier aviation this decade now seems so out of date, what with discussion of posible options including sending the RN to the Middle East in response to hostilities breaking out with Iran.

We live in interesting times. :(

From MOD news recently: Royal Navy unveils carrier training facility

To keep up with the state-of-the-art technology on board sailors and engineers will be trained in a £1m building at HMS Collingwood in Fareham, Hampshire, which has been set out in the same way as an operations room on board the new carrier.

The personnel will be trained on the new mission system which links all the combat, communications and visual surveillance systems together by a fibre-optic network - these are usually separate on warships, allowing for a much more integrated way of working.

So Warfare Branch and Weapon Engineering types will be training for CVF, but not fixed wing pilots or deck crews?

I still think that the Government could make this into a success story, by leasing a few AV8Bs from the US (also worth considering other options and issues mentioned on this thread), and possibly either extending the life of HMS Illustrious post 2014, and/or speeding up the build and entry into service of HMS Queen Elizabeth. Additionally a radar equipped jet would help make up for the loss of ISTAR capability when Sea King ASaCs is retired before a replacement system is ready.

Things have changed since October 2010, not only the switch back to F35B for CVF and the need to prepare for a STOVL future, but also the world has changed - for the worse. The Harrier is the only type of aircraft (until F35B comes along) that can do STOVL shipborne operations, a capability I believe we need NOW. The US Marine Corps intend to carry on operating the AV8B into the next decade - and until 2025 or later if necessary.

Back on 17 December 2010, vecvechookattack wrote:

Why is this not happening? Would embarking foreign Harriers be too embarrassing for the Government?

As an aside, I think that there will soon be an announcement in parliament regarding our Reserve forces and there future. What else might be announced? Last year's FR20 paper suggested using the Reserves to retain capabilities for the future, and recommended an enlarged RNR Air Branch. It also made other slightly odd and not very practical suggestions such as a coastal security role and a Caribbean based counter narcotics role, without going into the practical details. We are recruiting hundreds of extra Reservists, although there will be fewer RFAs and Chartered Vessels to provide force protection for, less ships/aircraft needing logistical support, and a reduced need for communications or other support. Perhaps an enlarged air branch (working with regular personnel as part of an enlarged NFSF(FW) perhaps?) is part of the way forward - with borrowed Harriers?

Meanwhile, on this thread I wondered how Italy and Spain retained their Harrier fleets. Here is an interesting article about the Italian Navy and their Harriers:

A tale of two Harriers: How Italy held on to carrier strike

In the case of Harrier, an important difference is that the Italian Harriers are of the AV8B+ type, and thus are fully multirole: they have radar, anti-air missiles and guided weapons for strike missions. The Harrier GR9 notoriously had no radar and no AMRAAM - those capabilities were lost years ago with the Sea Harrier. The multirole capability of the AV8B+ makes it easier for the Navy to argue for their retention.

Another crucial difference is that the Italian Harrier squadron is under full navy control thanks to a law approved on 26 January 1989 specifically to allow the Navy to add a fixed wing jet capability "for air defence of the fleet and the support to naval and amphibious operations". The Royal Navy lost control of its Harriers with the formation of the Joint Force with the RAF, a measure which was part of the Labour defence review in 1998 and that brought the Harriers under RAF Group 1 command. The Navy effectively lost control of them and of their fate at that moment. Just a decade later, in 2008, the First Sea Lord had to threaten resignation to stop the RAF from withdrawing the Harrier force, but by 2010 it was a done deal.

Significantly, the Italian Navy is fighting hard to avoid walking down the same path. The defence review decided that Italy will only order 90 F-35s, down from 131 once planned. The navy won't get the 22 F35-B it had hoped for, but just 15, with 15 more going to the air force, which had once hoped for 40. It is anticipated that the two squadrons will be based on in Grottaglie, current home of the navy's Harriers. There will be collaboration, but the air force call for a "joint force" was rebutted, with the Navy and ministers agreeing that the British experience is a good example of what not to do. The navy squadron will continue to cover the unique requirement for air support at sea and will be under full naval control. Airframes will be shared if and as necessary to ensure that the Cavour carrier can get its full complement of 14.

Finally, the decisive difference is political and strategic. Successive Italian governments have agreed that the armed forces buy Italy respect and political influence. Contributions to multinational efforts are seen as a major element in Italy's foreign policy. As a consequence, the armed forces' strategy has been focused on expeditionary operations, with the navy to the fore thanks to the new carrier Cavour and its larger, more capable future complement of F35Bs and plans for much more capable amphibious forces. Even in a time of cuts, attention was paid to go ahead as regularly as possible with the necessary investments.

In the UK, the focus on expeditionary operations is also proudly declared, but it remains hard to see where the expeditionary focus is when the amphibious fleet is reduced; the only real deployable, independent air element available is removed, tying any future operation to the availability of foreign bases and overflight permissions; and the maritime patrol aircraft are also gone, making it much more risky to send the fleet into hostile waters. It is worth noting that the navy is also crucial to operations that aren't strictly naval campaigns; it was thanks to 60 UK-chartered merchant ships and 4 RFA Ro-Ro vessels that over 90 per cent of the equipment the UK used in Iraq in 2003 reached the theatre of war, under Royal Navy escort due to maritime terrorism fears.

Post April 2013, the First Sea Lord will own the budget for Navy capability.

Why not write to him with your ideas for additional Naval air power in the pre-Lightning years and explain how he will pay to implement them?

Yes, do. Oh, and also who and exactly how you'll re-train the 'few' to fly and operate them across the full spectrum of OS roles safely once again?

The train has left the station, the station has been closed down and the line is covered in grass and weeds.

Move along

alas WEBF is stuck on permanent send with a stuck record stuck in the day when some half arsed jump jet thing was flung off the not very pointy end of a thru deck cruiser cruiser......

I mean if you are gonna hark back to something we will not get again......proper Ark.

Tooms, Buccs, real planes that give "A Full on Robot Chubby" (see Bill n Ted's Bogus Journey)

Discuss............

Reserve Forces
 

WEBF
if you look at arsse you will see the army's desire to rebuild/reorient the reserves is in some disarray. Duke of Westminster (who I had not realised had been subject of a Sun/hooker scam) has resigned as head of the TA. pay peanuts - get monkeys (mind you over-endow MPs with expenses and still get monkeys).

HMS Ark Royal 1975 Video 2 Parts LiveLeak
 

For the 'stormrider':

Hands To Flying Stations 1975 — HMS Ark Royal, Parts 1 & 2

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=141_1312498000&
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ed6_1312498976
“Royal naval instructional film from 1975 featuring Ark Royal & Phantoms, Buccaneers, and other Aircraft on this the last of the full sized aircraft carriers the Royal Navy had. Filmed off Malta in Mediterranean Sea. Nostalgia at its best.”

Best post on this thread :D:D:D

I would go for #301 (BZ Wrathmonk) or #512 myself.

Or, more simply put, targets, as the half-arsed jump-jet thingy pilots called them :}

Why would we want to do that? We only just scrapped the things. The way things are at the moment we don't need them for ops. Har can't do anything as well as Tornado or Typhoon, except use short runways and we haven't got much in that way now. Probably never will.

No, why take on all the support expense, aircrew and groundcrew, logs, etc, just on the off chance that we might, one day, get a totally different jumping bean?

Apart from anything else, it took the RAF decades finally to destroy FAA fixed wing, hardly likely to help get it back now.

Courtney,

I have to take exception to your last post here for a few reasons which can cloud things. I'm assuming you're not trolling either, though as an ex air defender (Nav?) you could be baiting the muds, so here goes:

Utter bolleaux! How about...CAS - which, incidentally, has been the predominant FJ mission for the past 10 years! 'Har' was better than both of GR4 and Typhoon at CAS! The USMC wouldn't still use the AV-8B II it if it wasn't designed as such; it'd scrap both its Harriers and the flat tops and go big deck with more F/A-18s if it wasn't the case. Why was it better? Harrier had bags of thrust, excellent manoeuvrability and fuel efficiency, eye-watering serviceability and a man-machine interface (weapons, targeting pod) that was truly a work of art in GR9. Tornado GR - Deep strike, low and fast in IMC over the east European plains...awesome at it too. F3? Was a good interceptor when it finally got good radar software and AIM-120 (arguably too late!) Typhoon FGR? Awesome at A-D but currently struggling to fulfil the same A-G capability of the GR4/GR9 Disagree? Speak to the Op ELLAMY GR4 crews who had to hold their hands when bombing. Will Typhoon be good at CAS? Probably one day but right now it isn't. Paveway IV is a giant stride towards that goal but it also needs a low collateral, moving target capability and an optimised cockpit, ergonomically speaking - that's critical. Now, GR4 is a very capable platform for CAS but not optimised for it - give it another 5000lbs of thrust (or EJ200s!) and it would be superb!

Does the above change the price of fish? Not at all, but please don't embarass yourself with misinformed opinions.

Oh, and did the RAF kill FAA? Must have missed that headline in the news somewhere....

Kill the thread, please. It's like debating the validity of the debrief after the event - does nobody any good. Move on...

Bring Back The SE5a
 

I do believe that the SE5a should be brought back in to service.

Minimal radar cross section. STOL performance, rugged, good in ground attack role and can out turn many modern aircraft

Please god, let this thread die....

MSOCS. You rose to the bait old chap.

Oh, and Courtney despite being a twin seat chap for a lot of his time (stand fast F-15) was at least in the correct seat of the two.;)

The thread may now die.

Good shooting Courtney.:D

Oh and I can assure you Courtney has spent plenty time in the back seat too!

Fair cop, guys. I thought this old thead might have just one spasm left in it.

Or was I being serious?:cool:

MSOCS: Yes, do. Oh, and also who and exactly how you'll re-train the 'few' to fly and operate them across the full spectrum of OS roles safely once again?

The train has left the station, the station has been closed down and the line is covered in grass and weeds.

Move along

Wensleyday Railway have recovered over 10 miles of track and the train IS back in the station I'll have you know;)

It would have done if you hadn't posted.



Anyway. From the Wensleydale? Railway site:

Special timetable

Due to water damage, trains will terminate
at Leyburn until Monday 1 October.

We hope to resume the normal timetable
on Tuesday 2 October.

It would be the same if we resurected the Harrier.

It would be the same if we resurected the Harrier.
 

resurected

With spelling like that, then is it any wonder WEBF manages to keep this thread going on - and on - and on - and.....................

I wish people would stop posting worthless comments.

Me too. So stop now.