Due to budget constraints, the Royal Navy 'Queen Elizabeth' class future carriers have been reduced from two full carriers to one carrier and one commando carrier with helicopters only, and the JSF buy has been reduced from 138 to 60 or less.

More to follow (including a link when made publicly available).

So our government are happy to bail out the banks with our tax money,but yet again piss on the honour of our service men and women by refusing to get them the best most up to date equipment.

Send the cabinet to Helmand in open top landrovers with inadequte body armour I say.

Maybe the reason for this is connected to the fact the Government know they have given away our soverignty to the EU,and soon there will not be a "British" army,just a Euro army...

Time to convert to CATOBAR and buy the Rafale.

ha ha...

I'm sure none of us could see that coming...



They should have ditched the JSF ages ago and went Rafale (which incidentally proves the French were right to insist on carrier capabilities when involved in the pre-Eurofighter program - ECA was it?)


Anyway. In truth they'd be better off getting rid of the carrier air wing completely - it will stop the politicans getting involved in stupid military adventures which are usually unwinnable.

Time to cancel the F136.

It's not nice when your partner backs out, is it? (If it was even in the MoU, last time someone said to "read between the lines").

I guess I was wrong.

[edit on 27/10/2009 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by C0bzz
Time to cancel the F136.

It's not nice when your partner backs out, is it? (If it was even in the MoU, last time someone said to "read between the lines").

[edit on 27/10/2009 by C0bzz]

The F136 was dead anyway, and this is probably a result of that.

Though the F-35 is distinctly starting to smell of the F-111 RAF purchase in the 1970s/1980s...

take the F35 and kill the Sea Typhoon.

can you say ` white elephant`

Originally posted by Harlequin
take the F35 and kill the Sea Typhoon.

can you say ` white elephant`

Huh? The 'Sea Typhoon' was a paper project, and not even a serious one at that.

A naval Eurofighter would probably take off in the same manner as the Su-27K - STOBAR operations not CATOBAR.

Of course, a navalized version of the F-16 was proposed as a (losing) competitor to the Hornet in the 1970s. The Boeing X-32 also had an intake mounted nose gear. I suspect that an intake mounted nose gear can withstand the forces of catapult operations. Perhaps the cost in terms of structural weight is prohibitive, though.

Due to the advantages of the canard delta, you wouldn't need a main landing gear of F/A-18 proportions. Keep in mind that if you have a flat AoA on approach and a low approach speed, the sink rate (and the stress on the main landing gear) is also relatively low.

Navalizing the EJ200 with salt-water resistant materials shouldn't be too difficult. Keep in mind that R-R has plenty of this sort of experience from the Pegasus - not to mention the T-45 Goshawk's Adour.

Of course, there are always nasty surprises when it comes to structural corrosion. The issue with the P-3C fleet comes to mind.........

Strengtheing the rear fuselage and wings - bring back weight and hook - not as complicated as first thought , as quite frankly even the RAF are surpried just how strong the `phoon is turning out.

As a canard delta approach speed and AoA on final`s are slow enough and flat enough that a `big` tail wouldn`t really be a huge issue - something i think overlooked for the navailist X-23 , whilst it also has a big tail the approash is alot flatter than the super fries and tomcat thump downs.

avionics - whilst the job requires hard work and is quite diverse the systems on the `phoon are very adaptable.

low delta on the ramp - armourers wouldn`t have a breakdown. and why?
the trend is moving away from the large and expensive munitions; when your using 20 a week @ £1 million each the costs rapidily increase , I doubt that Britain will ever buy "large PGMs" in large enough numbers for a militarily significant role. Forget about the Storm Shadom - it's already obsolete from the standpoint of cost. The future lies with munitions in the cost and weight and performance class of the American "Small Diameter Bomb" and JDAM-ER.

A naval Eurofighter would be an expensive proposition - not to mention entirely obsolete by the time it reached service.

Of course, there is deep regret in Britain regarding the size of the Eurofighter buy. Due to force reduction, the RAF has absolutely no need for 232 Eurofighters. The last 50 or so of Britain's Eurofighters will be redundant as soon as they role off the assembly line.

The concept of "Naval" Eurofighter is a very cumbersome political solution to a politically inspired dilemma. Britain can't reduce its Eurofighter buy because of the penalties agreed to at the time Germany wanted to reduce its financial participation. It would be far easier to cancel or defer the purchase of the F-35B.

Replacing 50 land based Eurofighters with 50 navalized Eurofighters makes sense from a political viewpoint.

Reducing procurement from 232 Eurofighters and 60 to 150 F-35s to just 232 Eurofighters looks like a tremendous cost savings.

Originally posted by Harlequin
A naval Eurofighter would probably take off in the same manner as the Su-27K - STOBAR operations not CATOBAR.

Nah, the Navy don't want STOBAR. The deck management issues are too restrictive. It's bad enough with a handful of Harriers! Sortie gen would go way down.

Originally posted by Harlequin
Keep in mind that if you have a flat AoA on approach and a low approach speed, the sink rate (and the stress on the main landing gear) is also relatively low.

But a Typhoon (more so for an 'N') has a high alpha at such an approach speed. The canards would block the pilots view of the deck. Unless your planning to bring it in at 200kts onto a three mile long deck. ;-)

Originally posted by Harlequin
Strengtheing the rear fuselage and wings - bring back weight and hook - not as complicated as first thought

Glad you think so! Re-designing the tooling is a job and a half.

Originally posted by Harlequin
avionics - the systems on the `phoon are very adaptable.

Just not for naval operations. ;-)

Originally posted by Harlequin
The last 50 or so of Britain's Eurofighters will be redundant as soon as they role off the assembly line.

You always build more than you operationally need. Flying is a game of attrition. :-)

S