British defence minister refuses to rule out F-35A purchase

I can't remember who said it, but someone once said that if politicians were given guns to sort out their own problems with each other then everything would work out pretty well. Which when you think about it is a beautiful yet upsetting thing to think about. How many lives would've been saved if it were the man in the suit who went off to Iraq to fight Saddam instead of a group of young men and women?

Anyway, in this situation it would be the right thing to do. Politician has to fly an aircraft from an aircraft carrier, what would they use? Given the fact they'd have to do it, instead of picking something because their friend makes a few quid out of every one sold, they would NEVER have chosen the F-35 and they would NEVER have commissioned aircraft carriers that didn't come with catapults.

why did no-one realise that the carrier would need to operate cargo aircraft and tankers to support the fighters, and they would need cats and traps to be useful?

Because they don't operate that way. If you want to prove me wrong please identify the countries that operate aircraft carriers that can handle cargo planes and tankers, along with the names of the ships themselves.

As it is, the only way to ship cargo, spares, mail, and crew to the vessel is by helicopter, which limits the range it can operate from land based support.

Er... no. Do a search on "Replenishment at Sea" for some clues about how it is done. For the Royal Navy the role is fulfilled by Royal Fleet Auxiliaries; see the relevant Wikipedia page.

I think we became a laughing stock years ago. Now we just keep topping up the hilarity.

"Even if you plan to only operate VTOL / STOL fighters from a carrier deck, why did no-one realise that the carrier would need to operate cargo aircraft and tankers to support the fighters, and they would need cats and traps to be useful?

As it is, the only way to ship cargo, spares, mail, and crew to the vessel is by helicopter, which limits the range it can operate from land based support."

Lucky for us the Falklands war happened so close to home wasn't it. No way we could have sent STOVL-only carriers to win a war 8000 miles away with no friendly territory anywhere close.

We are rapidly becoming an international laughing stock, aren't we.

'becoming'? I was pretty sure that that ship sailed quite some time ago.

We once produced the world's best VTOL / STOL fighter aircraft

Britain once produced the world's only V/STOL fighter/light attack aircraft which actually worked; if anyone mentions Yak-38 'Forgers' I will laugh at them, Forgers could, just barely, get out of their own way. If the wind was blowing in the right direction. And they might, just might, be able to carry as much as a ton of external armament. (Yes, I know, I know, the specs say two tons... but only if they didn't carry much fuel. And it's not like they had particularly long legs even with a full load of fuel.) Forgers were the best of the rest, the theoretically far superior Yak-41/Yak-141 (don't ask, it's really stupid) 'Freestyle' never went into production, and the VAK191 was simply a joke and not a good one. Nothing else even got so far as wasting money on a prototype, unless you count the USN's 'Pogo' planes of the 1950s/early 60s.

If memory serves me right...

didn't the contract stipulate the ability to be able to add cat-trap if it was required? I'm sure I read an article somewhere that went on to say that although that was a part of the design requirements, it turned out that it wasn't done and it would cost a lot of money to go back and do it?

I remember thinking if I'd paid for something and was then asked to pay a lot more cash to rectify the contractor's mistake, I'd be REALLY pissed. Then I remembered I'm one of the people paying for this through my taxes.....

Hornet

Think I might have asked this before, but could an F-18 be launched without catapult from HMS Queen Lizzie? And if so how much would it cost to string the requisite rubber bands across the deck to retrieve said commodity-fast-jet?

Re: A is actually not a bad piece of kit

But the F35 has been shown to be at a severe disadvantage against a 3rd gen fighter like the F16 in visual range engagement. It's advantages come in low observable/stealth - once you're in a dogfight it's been beaten comprehensively in tests.

So your position that it can fill that gap when the Typhoon gets into visual range engagements is wrong.

Re: A is actually not a bad piece of kit

Would the vertical take off version not have to have a trust to weight ratio of more the 1 to work ?

can't see what's wrong with the original article it is simply factual. Some of the "knowledgeable" comments seem a bit questionable though.....

@John Dann

Lewis, is that you?

"Employ a correspondent to write on defence matters who has half a clue what they're writing about."

Are you sure we're all on the same Page here?

Tis a long and sorry tale - have a search through Lewis Page's archive of columns as there are a few on on.

Long and the short of is was the MoD procurement team thought they had written an option on the shipbuilding contracts to include catapults and associated STOL kit if they wanted. They hadn't. When they got a cost to include them I seem to remember it was more than the original cost of the carrier so they gave up.

@OP: UK military procurement has always been about what some pompous prick coated in medals who's never been in a skirmish wants and never about what the cannon fodder actually need to get the job done. One of the only parts of the military where this doesn't apply (as much) is the special forces who are a bit more forthright in demanding access to better kit than the rank and file but who still get short changed nevertheless.

The new ships don't have ramps.

The Harrier doing a VTO would burn lots of fuel and require refuelling again once it was airborne (or have its range greatly reduced).

Perhaps someone with greater knowledge of the Harrier could confirm this?

"They still make Harriers for the Yanks (or the Yanks make 'em) why not just buy some of the buggers back?"

The Yanks don't make them any more, that's why they bought all of ours to cannibalise for spares.

They don't make them. That's why the Americans sensibly bought up our entire stock of Harriers, plus spares for less than the cost of an F35. They aren't operating them, just keeping them to break for spares as it's a lot faster and cheaper than trying to get the parts fabricated when required. The USMC therefore manages to keep their harrier fleet flying cheaply until they have a delivered and working replacement.

The electromagnetic catapults do work, and were offered them (IIRC) for a $200 million fixed price, with the Americans covering resolution of any faults that came up at their expense. The problem was that our ship designers had pencilled in a bit saying "these could go here", but then didn't do any design work for putting in wiring etc, meaning that the ship would have to be extensively modified at a greater cost than the original price for the carrier.

We are now likely to end up in a position where we have the carriers, but no aircraft. We stand a good chance of being in the unique position of being the only country that operates a carrier for another country to fly the aircraft off of!

Frankly, I think we ought to dig up the designs for the last generation of prop based aircraft which didn't need catapults or (complicated) traps. The Sea Hornet (a development of the famous Mosquito, with folding wings for carrier ops) would fit in the hanger of our new carriers and took off and landed from the smaller carriers we used in WW2. It's got a similar payload for ground weapons at the F35's maximum range (which should be compared to that of the Sea Hornet for a serious WTF?! moment)

> They still make Harriers for the Yanks (or the Yanks make 'em)

""" in 2003, the 72nd and last AV-8B to be remanufactured for the USMC was delivered. ... which marked the end of the AV-8B's production; the final new AV-8B had been delivered in 1997"""

I don't get why we didn't go for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with cats n traps from the start...

Cost would have not been too much higher, we already have the nuclear power knowledge (our subs use nukes). Plus with cats n traps we'd be able to use any aircraft we wanted, the Eurofighter typhoon

could have been updated to a carrier version fairly easily....

It's all about politicians' self-esteem

It's really all about prestige, being seated at the top table, "punching above our weight", and getting photo-ops with the top Yanks. (Not to mention maybe a few plum sinecures in the political afterlife). This well-known vignette illustrates the syndrome perfectly:

==================================================================

Michael [Portillo]

Bevin also supposedly comes back at one time from a meeting with the Americans, when an inner group of ministers is discussing whether there should be a British nuclear deterrent.

Denis [Healey]

Oh yeah.

Michael

And Bevin says, apparently, “I don’t want an American speaking to me again like that, we need to have an independent nuclear deterrent".

==================================================================

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/more-warlike-wed-think-the-labour-government-1945

Re: So nearly $15 billion WITHOUT engines...

It's 138 right now but, just like every other customer, I believe we will never take the full compliment - or full shovel of shit to use the correct term. They're over cost and underperform. Scrap the order and just get some super hornets and various other bits of kit to keep the US military industrial complex sweet.

Re: Ugh not that debunked thing again

"How about articles from people who are actually flying it to fight with it?"

Haven't they all been suffocated while trying to fly it?

Re: Bah!

"The Grand Design" … where quite memorably Trident was "the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you"?

Why cannot the Royal Navy use the Lightning II C.

Because we don't have a carrier that can accommodate it.

Could this aircraft take off from a ramp and land using arrestor gear?

Yes, but you'll need a catapult as well. We don't have any carriers with catapults any more.

Could the angled deck have an electro catapult so it could operate more types of aircraft?

Yes. But BAe Systems want as much money to convert the current carriers to use EMALS as we paid to build them in the first place.

We haven't got that sort of cash to throw around at the moment. And even when the next election comes around, I don't think Maidenhead has enough to do with ship-building for it to happen.

Vic.