Perfect. $1.9bn for 11 P8A.

Cost and numbers just about right.

Then running costs, base infrastructure, competition from green and dark blue.

The Navy might be onside but the Army would want its guns and roses first.

Discussion of use of £8Bn MOD under spend - FIRST OF ALL, NOTHING NEW HERE, ITS BEEN DONE, MOVE ON.











If you want to have the discussion (again), possible uses, as opposed to buying MPA, include:


More "people" as opposed to more hi-tech kit, as advocated by current CDS.

Other extra kit e.g. 9th C-17

Cost overruns on current projects - take your pick - carriers, F-35, Type 26, etc

Retention of UOR assets not funded when we pull out of Afghanistan

Retention of Sentinel (as favored I believe by current CAS).

The RN (assuming an MPA fleet isn't owned by the RN) and Army getting their hands on a share of the money.

Claw-back by the treasury.





As I have said before, if the RAF has some "spare" money, will it prefer to retain the in service, manned and experienced, known quantity of the Sentinel, or go back to the drawing board and start from scratch again with MPA? Thats an argument that was presumably already lost once in SDSR 2010, so how can it (assuming the RAF actually want to) be won now?

Initial costs of purchase of an MPA fleet of any real size are almost the easy money, the real cost long term will be in operating costs, manpower, simulators, industry support, etc. How much of your £8bn will that lot swallow over 4 years......

Pontius-we have former U.K MPA crews scattered around the world on secondment. Its farsical to suggest that ten years is required to reactivate a UK MPA fleet. Couple that with Boeing having P-8's ready for order and the viability of a new fleet in short order . As to the threats - Africa has been bubbling for years -however it is the new training ground for global terrorism .
Whilst we cannot predict where we will be engaged next -I am fairly certain that RAF P-8's deployed in Cyprus or else where could rapidly find items of interest to our nation.

RD, the Nimrod went out of service 3 years ago. Boeing delivered the E3D 3 years after it was ordered and the same with Air Seeker. While we are jawing and jossing about P8 here there is no talk of even ordering any MPA yet. Given the next SDSR is a year off that leaves just 3 years from my 10.

When the first aircraft is delivered, working from precedent, it will not start flying immediately and assuming 8 aircraft at one per month, that would be near a year before you had a full fleet.

Assuming crew training at two crews at a time, and 4 crews per year, it would take 3 years to train the full cadre. P8 is also quite different from the 707 so there would be a significant engineering training schedule too. On my fag packet calculation that runs to 10 years.

The Sentinel took 5 years from first flight of the production aircraft to first operational flight.

You might achieve IOC after 8 but would not get FOC until possibly 11 years from the cessation of MOPS.

You make the point about a number of scattered crews around the world; their career futures have already been discussed on Pprune. Will they all be held to RoS or will some move on?

In the event that one or two on here may wish to update themselves in what it actually going on, may I recommend:

http://underwater-defence-security.c...e-military.php

According to the website anyone in any part of the public sector can go free.

There are a couple of top drawer MPA operators speaking, as well as all sorts of submarine types.

In my experience, when these two cadres get it on, the bar will be taking a hammering as well.

Who knows...we get a debrief on here following the two days, there is hope for this thread yet.

TOFO, you forgot to mention it was free, unlike an MPA replacement :)

Afraid not. Maybe just a little pessimistic.

Unless the MOD issue a UOR, the decision will not be taken until 2015 and then the implementation is going to be 3-5 years if all goes well, and when was the last time that happened? From where I'm sitting I can see no circumstances where a UOR is in any way possible.

Again...I would be delighted to be wrong.

au contraire

I say it so many times because I cannot really believe some of your assertions! A bit like the

in your last one. Really? And you would know this exactly how PN? I'm not going to comment any further except to say you may wish to believe this, but your wish is wishful thinking.

As to

We are of course comparing apples with orang-utans. There are only 2 realistic options available to the UK: P8A and CASA 295. Both are proven, available and one benefits from having UK OCU trained and OEU personnel embedded within another nation's military (sadly also the most expensive option). They are both vastly different from the development process of a bespoke single type fleet as manifested by the Sentinel.

PN, RP Said oh dear, oh dear, oh dear to your clear lack of knowledge about the prior uses of Nimrod MR2!
You stated very wrongly that Nimrod played no part in policing the Straights, that they played no part in counter drugs in the carribean.
When you know so little your credibility takes a dive!

J, I concede about the Caribbean but I didn't exclude the Straits (sic), but back to the other point - numbers.

The numbers of MR2 were adequate; the maximum potentially affordable numbers of a replacement would be sufficient for one or the other.

Ed:

Jayland, quite, I ignored that point. I suppose the point really is a single figure buy even worthwhile? I know other air forces have very few but then they don't have out strategic ambitions.

It's irelevant when the numbers affordable are zero!

KISS
 

1.We are a maritime nation and currently we have very limited detail of what is sailing around our shores.

2.General consensus agrees that we need MPA even if only to- check illegal fishermen,monitor drug/ arms runners,coordinate rescue operations,conduct maritime anti terrorist ops,prosecute polluters etc etc.

3.As has been repeated ad nauseum -thanks to barmy bankers,Gordon Brown forgetting his 5 principles etc etc 'there is no money left'.

4.Thus we cannot afford the Rolls Royce LRMP 17-20 high-tech state of the art aircraft solution.

5.As far as I am aware we are still a member of the NATO ( or will be be a member of 'the European Defence Force ' (joke) ) thus there is no need for us to cover all of the high tech roles as there is no way we should even think about taking on anyone on our own!

6.Thus I suggest that our unsophisticated MPA -3 x P3s rescued from the USA boneyard perhaps- should stick solely to the dry role.The ASW Wet role is far too difficult/expensive - is it even possible to detect the latest quiet diesels?

7.Who should operate this force- does it really matter so long as it exists?
I would vote for a combined single defence force- I know that it didn't work with the Canadians,but that was a long time ago!
Think of all the money it would save at the top end!

In deference to Jayland for I am out of date on this one but:

We used to undertake oil rig surveillance patrols on behalf of the Dept for Energy or whatever it was called then. We also used to patrol for the MAFF and DAFS. And anyone can report a PolRep (even done it from a Dominie).

Essentially a 4-engined LRMP was too expensive and the ministries, having seen how effective we were, went and leased their own aircraft, small twin-props IIRC.

On coordination of rescue, certainly this was done and done well but was essentially a civil aid matter. Provision of SAR was an essential military function but times change. Would the RAF get a fixed wing SAR role at the same time as it is civilianising the RW elements?

Your P3 solution would be cheaper but still more expensive than the Dakota that was used after we stopped doing oil patrols.

KISS
 

PN please do be flippant!

I think I have mentioned it before, but the day after the Nimrod 4 was cancelled, Liam Fox was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland. I can't remember his exact words, but to paraphrase, he said that the UK still had an MPA need,but the Nimrod MRA4 was not the aircraft to fulfil it (due to the fact that they had no idea when it would actually enter service, or how much it would cost). He also said that they would look at the requirement when the financial conditions were better.

I think you might get the Treasury to stump up for a few aircraft to do fisheries patrols, environmental monitoring etc etc - but the moment we talk about "prosecuting SSN's" they will just say no way - we've been down that road before

HH,

As has already been pointed out, the UK government is still doing..... "fisheries patrols, environmental monitoring etc etc.... using aircraft, but in a far more efficient way than having MOD own and run their own aircraft for the purpose.


A couple of examples:

Photo: G-EXEX (CN: 4040037) United Kingdom - Coast Guard Cessna 404 Titan by ranger703 - JetPhotos.Net

Scottish Fisheries - takes delivery of a new aircraft | Airplane-Pictures.net @AirplanePics

not enough aircraft ... too many gaps
 

Dear Biggus,
just to ad to your statement,

"the UK government is still doing..... "fisheries patrols, environmental monitoring etc etc.... using aircraft, but in a far more efficient way than having MOD own and run their own aircraft for the purpose..."

They are not as efficient as you may think.

Do you know that there were no aircraft available for the Fisheries Patrols in England over the recent winter period? One of the two available Scottish Fisheries Patrol aircraft was called in to cover the gap.

What do you think, are two Cessnas enough for the entire UK fisheries areas?

What sort of signal does this send out to those who view our shores as being vulnerable?

Broke? :)

KISS
 

As far as I am aware the civilian agencies doing fishery protection do not have the security clearances,training or equipment to help the 'military '.
We need MPA!