UK's FOAS project

At the moment the Raptor will be limited to under 200 production units, they will be relieying on the F35 to take up the strain for the units that the USAF required.

As for the Topic. I trully believe that the UK industry would be more than capable at producing a high quality deep strike aircraft. I for one believe that the fact that we haven't is the dependant on the sodding yanks giving us, or suggesting what we need, now I for one will say that the americans sure as hell know how to build them, but I would prefer to put my trust in some thing british rather than foreign, much in the same way that the americans had to do a public ad campaign when they selected the EH101 for Marine 1.

I agree that for a front line fighter the Typhoon is grand, any thing other than that, we are screwed. It just wasn't designed with the legs or the arms for the deep peneration role, sure it might be able to do it with a third world country with tanker support, but once we get into a situation were the opposing forces have some thing newer than a P51 Mustang the RAF are going to have either a operation short fall or a load of tankers and fighters hitting the ground.

I Like the FOAS project so far, although I would still like to see some thing more tangible than pictures.

There is always hope lads.
- Phil

[edit on 3-5-2005 by gooseuk]

this might be picky but DERA and Qinetiq are the same thing (DERA become Qinetiq [and DSTL] when they were privatised)

Yes it's picky and right although bit's of DERA as were are still in government control and it were a little late when it wrote the bit hence the total lack of the ability to spell :-)

While the industrial capability to build a FOAS aircraft undoubtedly exists in the UK there is no political will to commit to such a programme without International partners to share the load. This situation has remained unchanged since the BAC UKVG was forced to become the Panavia MRCA (and then Tornado) in order to get the go ahead. Likewise the Typhoon, I'm not talking about the EAP here but the 'proper' Typhoon which we are getting now. It is unchanged (design wise, not tech wise) from the 1988 BAe P.120 which the company was willing and able to proceed with but the Govt said it was to be 'Eurofighter' or nothing. Once again we will either see a UK design produced as an 'International effort' or sacrificed to become a minor partner in an equivalent US programme.