I agree completely about the Harrier. It is still a very good aircraft and they should still be in service with the RN until the F35 comes on line and with the RAF for the same reason. As for the F35 being late and over budget. How is that any different to any other recent aircraft. Tornado was late and over budget, Typhoon was late and over budget. Rafale in France was delayed. In the USA F18 was late and over budget, F22 the same, F6 in it's day the same etc. It always happens, initial costings always fall short. There are always unforeseen problems with technology or engineering, specification changes and over optimistic initial estimates. Harrier itself took longer to develop than estimated. it's better to get it sorted in development than to have whole squadrons grounded for some major flaw that has been overlooked. As it is there are still problems to sort when they go in to service
Absolutely. To design, develop, build, and introduce into service a new plane/ship/rocket or whatever, with performance far superior to anything which has ever been built before, is fantastically complicated and ambitious. At the outset, costings are necessarily speculative. It is a very feeble criticism of anything like that to say it is late and over budget. A project for building something well-known and commonplace (e.g. a block of flats, a motorway) is very different - it should be costed accurately and the budget adhered to.
The harriers were sold off yes, but to save money no. The USA bought the harriers as they are a valuable source of spares, which the cost of which far outweigh the production cost to buy new. The harrier sell off is the result of a long standing rivalry between RAF and NAVY. For many decades now, infact since the falklands the navy has taken part in an active operational combat role far more than the RAF, who have in many respects been used as glorified taxi drivers, that's why they always make a big thing about RAF tornado's blah blah. In most of these operational roles the ground crew and repair crews have also been navy personel as the RAF crews are not as skilled at repairing and maintaining aircraft in confined or harsh environments - whereas navy crews by their nature have limited supplies and their platform is always in a state of turbulence. By comparison RAF crews are used to a nice fully equiped hanger with plenty of space by comparison, and superior logistics to support them. Unlike a navy ship which might be in the middle of the pacific and have to 'make do'. Becasue of this, the RAF have managed to convince the government that the F35 was the answer and they would be the ones to run the operational side of things. This had a two fold effect in that it would work on the premise that the carrier borne aircraft would also be piloted and run by RAF flight crew and supported by the navy, thus rendering the navy as a delivery platform only. BAE systems in their infinite wisdom, built the carriers to spec - to handle one type of aircraft, hence the lack of steam catapults (which are quite frankly awesome). Now the sting in the tail is this; the RAF pilots may be the ones manning the aircraft, but Navy regulation says that to command the tower on a carrier the officer must have been in charge of a ship to start with, as lets face it you wouldn't let any numpty loose on anything of that value and importance unless you thought they could do the job. Which came as a bit of a surprise to the RAF who thought that they would be running the show where carriers were concerned. Historically there's a bloody good reason why the navy drew its officers from the ranks rather than selling comissions as the army did. A ship of the line was and still is just far too valuable to entrust to a man who's only quality was being a toff and getting bummed at Eton. The F35 is more sophisticated, but don't forget that it does have three variants to offer - conventional, carrier and short take off and vertical landing. However it can't do a true static take off like the harrier due to the way that the thrust vectoring works without dumping a truck load of fuel compared to a harrier, and not to mention the way it incinerates carrier decks (current thermal issues are still a problem - the carriers' decks cannot cope with sustained F35 activity , and all three aircraft need to be adapted to fit their roles designated - which as yes the UK hasn't defined. The F35 isn't an out of the box solution and its combat radius is only 450 miles, less if it launches from near vertical (unless it has a refueller on hand once in the air). The harrier is best tasked as a close air support asset, and to use the F35 in the same way is just bonkers, at 150 million a pop they have to be more than just 'nice' harriers. What the harrier can't do however is penetrate air defences and trike in low and medium counter class environments in high threat scenarios - they're far too tubby for that. But the thrust vectoring technology even now on a harrier is far better than F35, which makes it a perfect ground and close support weapon, the vector nozzles and thrusters can be used whilst in flight to enhance manouverability, whereas on an F35 it used very much the same system as the early russian Yak VTOLs, which rely on lots of blanking panels and firewalls deploying, and the rear nozel vecorising and redirecting a forward fan. ( google one taking off and you'll see what I mean). But that's the price you pay for modular design. Britain has a problem in that it can't afford dedicated aircraft to do aspecific job like the US, so we have to compromise with multirole. Which is why we're still delivering bombs with Tornados. They're old busses but they can lug a shed load of baggage with them. The typhoon is hugely capable but its still no interceptor, and the F35 will be really the closest thing we will have to near stealth capability. but in a nutshell the RAF got the hump because the navy are far better at doing this stuff than they are, so they made sure they had their footballs taken away.
Don't agree about the RAF - RN thing. It was purely short sighted money pinching by the Tories that lost the Harriers. As for the RAF providing the air squadrons for the Carriers it makes sense. Why have duplicate logistics, training etc? it costs money that can be spent elsewhere. If I was in charge I would do away with a lot of the old 'regiment' crap as well. We have all these Regiments of only battalion strength because crusty retired Old Etonians who served in some regiment or other want them preserved for tradition. It's bollox. Money is wasted on dozens of Staff officers and admin and HQ Companies rather than frontline troops and equipment. How many sets of regimental Silver Generals, Colonels and Bands does the Army need? OK, some say the the Esprit De Corps is better when you have the tradition of the old regimental structure behind you but the Americans seem to do alright. Their Infantry and Rangers etc can fight as hard and as well as our troops, better in fact in a lot of cases. We get all dewy eyed about what some regiment did at Waterloo or in India massacring natives in the 18th Century rather than what we need now. Canada has one Command the 'Canadian Armed Forces' they faught their way to Berlin in WW2 and took a lot of the fight in the Battle of the Atlantic escorting Convoys against the U-Boats. Australia is the same, they faught hard and well in Burma, Africa and later in Vietnam without all the tradition and Old regimental badges weighing them down like an Albatross around their necks.
You see? This was what I was ranting on about the other day. All Britain really cares about is stuff that is more than two hundred years old! To the exclusion of doing what's right today! /muttermutter
Yes, the "hundred year experiment" will be over soon, so the RAF can be split back into the RNAS and the RFC - problem solved !
I claim no expertise about the F35 but a quick google search on the shortcomings of the F35 and particularly it's short takeoff F35B variant makes for some disturbing reading.
Sev, you have some very funny ideas about RN history and regulations... Historically very few officers came "from the ranks" - and to this day General List officers can progress far further up the promotion scale than Special Duties (ie promoted from the ranks) officers can. And in nearly 33 years in the RN I have never even heard of an SD officer commanding a ship... Also - I have never heard of a Fighter Controller officer having to have commanded a ship. Incidentally BAE Systems built exactly what the Aircraft Carrier Alliance contracted them to build - their "infinite wisdom" had nothing to do with it. The "cats and traps" (catapult and arrestor wire) option was ditched purely because the decision was made to go with the VSTOL aircraft. As I understand it the catapults were to have been electric anyway, not steam - where would the necessary steam for a catapult be generated anyway? I do agree about the RAF though - having worked in a tri-service environment for the last two and a half years I have to conclude that the RAF do far less work with far more resources than the RN do... And the Typhoon is "no interceptor" - really ? WTF is it then ?
It is n It is now 50 years since the old War Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry were amalgamated into a single MOD. Given that the total serving personnel of Army, RN & RAF combined is now less than 150,000 it is becoming ever more absurd to maintain three expensive separate structures. Amalgamation has been an option on the table for years, and sooner or later it will have to be implemented, obviously. Whoever are the politicians in charge at the time will have to take a great deal of flak, though. The "noble and gallant" retired generals and admirals will give speeches in the House of Lords complaining bitterly.
Transmission – BBC Top Gear Top Gear in Argentina: what really happened « - BBC Top Gear Believe it, or believe it not... As a longstanding Top Gear fan what I find most disappointing about this episode is that they went to Argentina in the first place. They would have been welcomed with open arms in the Falklands, but instead chose to go to a country that still pursues an illegal claim over British sovereign territory...
yp, deffo the way to resolve differences. shut them out. am no talking to you by ra way. na,na,nana,na. saying that i am still not so keen on talking to people that keep weaving there union jacks in my face ether.
On the matter of the Union Jack Fin, you were out-voted in a consensual democratic process. To alter the result of that process over time you have to win people over to your point of view and you do that only by talking to them. Argentina does not seek any kind of democratic process when it comes to the Falklands. They have no interest in international law nor in canvassing or respecting the opinions of the lawful inhabitants of the islands. They seek to expel the citizens of a sovereign territory to which they have no historical claim and annex the land for themselves. As they have done in the past with other neighbouring territory. You don't talk to people like that, you arm yourself against them. You don't need to fight NO voters and their Union flags, you have to recruit them through force of positive argument.
tell it to the hand.:Smuggrin::smile: positive and accurate information.deffo... and a little bit of guilt thrown in for good measure.
The people of the Falklands also had a referendum - you may have seen it on the news. Their result was a little more conclusive than Scotland's : over 99% of the vote rejected any change. The people of the Falklands might be a bit more inclined to talk to Argentina if the Argentinians made any effort to clear the minefields that they laid that still litter the countryside... As someone once said - it's amazing how many Argentinians claim that they would die for the Falklands, and yet how few actually want to live there...
