Oh the myth of ‘dispersal’.

I did 14 years in the RAF and never made it to an operational unit, so what would have happened to the sharp end I don’t know about.

However, arriving at Linton as a QFI. War and we would take all the aeroplanes to West Freugh.

10 Months later I arrive at Cranwell to QFI and in the event of war we would take all the aeroplanes to West Freugh.

6 months later I arrive at Leeming to QFI, and in the event of war we would take all the aeroplanes to West Freugh.

1 year later I arrive at Finningley, and guess where we take all the aeroplanes in the event of war? You only get one guess.

I often wondered what W.F. were going to do with a few hundred aeroplanes and the aircrews.

That is one of the funniest posts I've read for a long time.

Maybe there was a secret hangar at WF filled with JP to Strikemaster conversion kits? Use the 3's as the first wave as decoys and then hit em hard with a second wave of 5's armed to the teeth?

That would teach em.......provided they were in JP range.

and isn't West Freugh closed now anyway (as an airfield) ?

Arc

Such an odd article.

I’m sure that if Russia attacked a NATO member state, NATO might have something to say about it.

Staircase, brilliant post Sir! It underlines the need for a PPRuNe 'like' button. In the absence of which, I have great pleasure in awarding it (and you) Chug Post of the Year! :ok:

Mahog B

Good to see that you are still alive and kicking. Hope to see you here again one day!

The idea behind a lot of these articles is that the United Kingdom is the only nation to have pared back its forces since 1989. Show me a NATO air arm (or a former Warsaw Pact one for that matter) that is not a shadow of its former self. And everybody has consolidated their forces in a much smaller number of locations. Even the Russians.

Isn't the UK one of the few NATO members to be spending >2% of GDP on defence? If so, the military forces of many of our European neighbours must be in an even worse state than us.

Even 30 years ago we were running out of runways. Come tea time it became a very difficult to book diversion airfields. If you didn't book Marham by 1700 they would stack.

We could not get two sqns out of 3 to nightfly on the same night. We often held Manchester with the assumption, use it once and they would say never again. At least today civil airfields might be happy with the landing fees.

Best laugh I have had for ages-just imagining the JP3 constant thrust/variable noise special in combat..

Indeed Martin, but its all relative, Russia has long since reversed its move to a smaller military force. Under Putin, the last five years or more have seen increased orders for new assets, among which about 1,300 aircraft and 1,800 Drones. Since 1990 and Options for Change, most NATO countries have continued, to various degrees, trying to find substantial savings in their respective defence budgets. This is perhaps one explanation for why British Governments have long since entered into the realms of capability holidays. Pre Tony Blair I don't think I'd ever heard such a phrase. Wallace will make all the usual verbal tributes to our wonderful servicemen and women. Then Cummings will look for savings as a priority, it will be impossible for anyone to make their case for anything other than Cyber Space etc. Interestingly, I believe the Dutch have actually quite recently increased their purchase of F-35s. They had cutback their original requirement to 37, this has now been increased to 46. Norway, given its tiny population of scarcely 5 million, has on order 56.

FB

Have we checked Ascent haven't done this with MFTS?

Space Port infrastructure and investments will become more important in the future as the full capabilities of the X-47 program become known .
Space defensive systems will be more important in a missile exchange scenario against hypersonic weapons .
Everyone else is getting a space force and improved missile capabilities. The new Mitsubishi rockets that launched the Mars probes look promising for space payloads and delivery. The new missiles will have a bigger payload than the Mars rockets.
New Big Rockets are being built by the Russians , Chinese , Japanese , Americans , Not counting the smaller contributions of North Korea , Iran to Global threats . Threats that can only be countered by creating a balanced space capability for the RAF .
The big danger to the RAF in space would be how flammable brylcream is in a oxygen rich environment. The first task is to find hair care products that would allow them to do their job and look good doing it .

Perhaps the manufacturer could find a way of making a Brylcream which isn't flammable in an oxygen rich environment? Or perhaps hair coverings like a bathing cap or something? Certainly I can't see the RAF being hauled out of the Space defence game just because Brylcream could prove to be dangerous under certain conditions!

FB

Yet another con, include the cost of pensions for long retired members of the services so they not out of general pensions but MOD budget, keep adding in any "potential" expenditure that "looks" military so get to the number. It wouldn't surprise me that the resurfacing of roads close to a base get lobbed into defence spending.

That brought a smile to my face . A bit like the supposed funding going into the UK space launch facilities . Europe (ESA) , India , Japan , China et al are going full steam ahead .. Meanwhile , the UK spaceport program is stuck in a political time warp . ( Yes, I know , we have a great micro satellite industry . Pity they have to be boosted into orbit by other players .)

Same reason that drove the West to ramp up defence expenditure during the Cold War only to find they had grossly over estimated the numbers /capability of the opposing forces . Money needs to be spent on defence , but please explain what exactly you are going to be doing with 80 million quids worth of F 35 in a typical combat environment these days where the low tech guy in the field with his bog standard AK or SAM could quite easily ruin your day . . Ok , this subject has been beaten to death in other threads , so enough of that .

But as I say , nice toys for the boys ( and I have enjoyed playing with them in bygone times ) ; great technology ( essential for future progress ) . The question now is how to get good value out of those tax payer dollars/pounds.to meet the new threat , which is inevitably going to be high tech cyber .

The problem is, Joe Public want to see fast jets / heavy bombers blasting overhead even though history has shown these assets often do not perform as effectively as advertised .
But they do impress / terrorise the "natives ", even though the cyber hacker can do far more damage . Silently .

2% GDP is an excellent example of Goodhart's law - as soon as a metric becomes a target it ceases to be a useful metric.

In my experience, increased spending doesn’t necessarily mean increased capability.....

I wonder how much of our foreign aid goes to Indian and Chinese space programmes??