An alternative interpretation might be "train hard, fight easy"?

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/a-an...ed-f-35-force/

The UKDJ has published the above article which hints at the possibility of the UK operating a mixed force of F-35As and Bs.

FB

What a garbage article.

On the very first page, describing the options of F35A, B and C models, the author states:

”Obviously, as the UK’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are equipped with ski-jump’s instead of catapults for launching and short traps for recovering aircraft, the C variant isn’t a viable option for the UK.”

He then goes on to discard the C model and compare the A and B, neglecting the fact that, by exactly the same criteria, the A model is also eliminated.

At that point I stopped reading......

South Korea plans to build aircraft carrier for F-35B

https://news.usni.org/2020/08/11/sou...rcraft-carrier

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...jets-z2bzfh3nm

Anger at Arab ‘deal’ for US fighter jets

Israeli euphoria at an agreement to establish diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates was replaced by anger yesterday after it was claimed that the Gulf state was close to signing a deal for US F-35 stealth fighter jets. Israeli hawks fear that the sale could end its military dominance in the Middle East.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, denied that he had agreed to advanced arms sales to the UAE in the negotiations with the Trump administration, which brokered the agreement. His senior ministers said they did not know the details and the Americans did not comment.....

Israeli media reported that after its agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel the UAE would now be allowed to purchase the F-35 stealth jet, the most advanced military aircraft being produced in the US, which is in operational use with Israel and Britain, as well as advanced drones.

The UAE, which has a defence procurement budget assessed at £18 billion, much of which is spent on US arms, has been asking to buy the F-35 since at least 2017 but had been rebuffed by the US.

Mr Netanyahu said: “Israel did not give any agreement to any arms deals between the UAE and the US. On the contrary, the US repeatedly promised it is committed to ensuring Israel’s qualitative edge.”

However, he did not deny that such a deal could take place and the fact that he kept the negotiations with the UAE to himself, not updating senior ministers before Thursday’s announcement, has fuelled speculation.

Like the F-15 - the Arabs will get them a lot later than teh Isrealis - by the time they've negotiated the deal, set up a training squadron etc etc it'll be 8 years before they're in service

The Israelis can get stuffed if there is real "anger" here - the US gets to sell to whomever we like - but I suspect that this report is a whole lot of noise and smoke and BS ... not to mention that it smells of the zero value added hyperbole that passes for journalism these days.

The IAF know this: it's the Indian, not the Arrow. (And I'd say that over the years, they've ably demonstrated that theory in practice).

Put differently, you could try to put me into a Formula One car, and in a race. You'd see no anger from Team McLaren, eh?
No matter how nice the car, it's the quality of the driver that makes a very big difference.

Plus: the F-35 does not exist in a vacuum. They operate as a part of a larger and complex system. Getting all of the moving parts to work well together takes a seriously professional military force.

Line to take on this "anger" assessment: a load of bollocks and hot air.

Salute!

Thanks, Wolf


I only helped foreign nationals learn to employ two different attack planes, but it was obvious which ones would have the most success.

Besides technical "comfort and skill", basic airmanship and fire in the belly play a large part on the outcome of the ultimate challenge.

Gums sends...

The F-35 is the Curtis P-40 of our day, Americas export fighter. It may have its faults, but it serves the purpose.
Moreover, although doubtless there are platforms that are superior in some aspects, the aircraft does not operate in a vacuum, as has been pointed out.
What that implies is that the buyer accepts a very close integration with the US industry, a relationship which has big strings attached, as Turkey has demonstrated.
It seems implausible that Israel would be upset by this.

Salute!
Excuse me, ETUDIANT. The comparison with the WW2 era P-40 is ludicrous.
Up to me, I wouldn't let the F-35 be sold to anybody except very close allies that have shed blood with us for a common cause.
Even at the dawn of WW2, the P-40 was not a cornerstone of export aircraft as far as the U.S. was concerned. Seems to me that the P-39 for the Russians was a biggie, as was the original Mustangs.
As far as integration with U.S. industry, I saw this first hand with the F-16 group that suggested cockpit and weapon control software/hardware mods. USAF hosted a working group that submitted suggestions to USAF and DoD. The original cast of characters had a "vote", but the IAF reps suggested things but had no vote. They negotiated directly with GD.
The F-35 is a different breed of cat. There's the obvious LO aspect of the beast, but then there's the cosmic avionics and integration of all the sensors and such. I am not willing to place all that on the market for anyone to buy and then employ against my country and it allies. Period.

Gums sends...

I guess one could look at the Israeli annoyance as an endorsement for the aircraft’s capabilities.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...ases-nk2hfns8c

Britain may halve fighter jet purchases

Britain could buy only half its target of 138 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, according to sources close to the government’s defence review.

The UK has agreed to buy 48 of the stealth multirole jets by the end of 2025 for £9.1 billion. It is the most expensive weapons system in military history..... A wider British aspiration to buy 138 of the aircraft over the lifespan of the US-led programme is seen as unlikely to be fulfilled, defence sources said.

The 138 figure was confirmed as an ambition in the UK defence review in 2015, but the Commons defence committee noted later that this decision was taken “following some hesitation”. Britain is not contractually obliged to buy any more than 48. It is understood that as part of the foreign policy, defence and security integrated review due to conclude in November, military chiefs have discussed the figure of 70 F-35s as a credible minimum total order.

Discussions are said to be continuing about how to balance investment in the American-designed jets that are state-of-the-art and in production, with channelling funding into Tempest, a next-generation fighter jet programme led by the UK that is at an early stage. A third factor in Britain’s combat air-power funding equation is a scheme to upgrade the RAF’s Typhoon fighter jets with the latest technology.

In the longer term the aim is for the Tempest jet, which is due to come into service from 2035, to replace Typhoons when they are phased out of service from the late 2030s.......

Tobias Ellwood, Conservative chairman of the Commons defence select committee, urged ministers to think carefully before slashing the number of total F-35 orders. “In the first Gulf War, we had 36 fast-jet squadrons; we are now down to six. We’re getting close to having a niche combat capability. We can’t keep eroding our spectrum of capability in this way,” he said yesterday.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, former head of the RAF, said: “Am I happy with the idea of cutting F-35s in the long-term? No, I’m not, because it would undoubtedly leave us even shorter of frontline combat squadrons.”

However, Justin Bronk, a research fellow in combat air-power at the Royal United Services Institute, said that although a fleet of 70 F-35s would be “on the lower end of expectations”, it “makes sense”. At that number, the RAF would be able to keep 60 in service, with ten held back to replace any aircraft lost to attrition or age-related damage, he said.

Mr Bronk suggested that investment in Tempest may create British jobs, but was sceptical that the resulting jet would outperform the F-35.

“Even in an optimistic scenario, the UK and Italy with potentially other partners such as Sweden will be able to contribute a fraction of the investment in both development and acquisition of the US to a next-generation fighter programme,” he said. “So it should be admitted up front that the overall capability is likely to be behind what the Americans are producing at a similar point, making the arguments for Tempest primarily sovereign industrial arguments rather than operational capability ones.”

Francis Tusa, editor of the Defence Analysis newsletter, said: “It’s obvious 138 is a vaporous figure, unless you were to say, ‘Let’s scrap the army completely and spend the money on the RAF’. Support costs of F-35s [are] eye-watering and the availability rate is poor because of the waiting time for spare parts.”.......

I'll still be surprised if we end up with more than the 48.

You are probably not far from the truth!

tempest is just another gravy train for BAe shareholders TBH - vast amounts of money spent to produce something less good that we can buy of the shelf.

All this could make the block 4 upgrade numbers more critical.

UK may not upgrade all F-35Bs to Block 4 standard

I wonder if the level/tier 2 & 3 partners will demand work share is revisited if the 138 commitment is explicitly abandoned?

Workshare was negotiated at the time the UK became the only Level 1 partner on the basis of the initial funding to the programme.

But if you buy it off the shelf you destroy your home grown industry and disperse that talent meaning you become beholden to other Countries to arm you and you cannot guarantee you will get the latest variant nor a full technology transfer. It’s a sad state of affairs, but we have been tied to that route since the about the sixties.

"you cannot guarantee you will get the latest variant nor a full technology transfer."

Nut - I'm not sure the UK can afford either for a significant fleet of modern combat aircraft. Most countries in the world are beholden to others to provide arms - especially combat aircraft - I'm afraid the UK would rather be bankers and media folk than have a decent sized engineering capability - you make more money that way . It's part of a long and steady decline, which as you say, goes back well over 50 years

And yet you spend so much time slagging off BAe. You really don't know what you want.