FDR – Air (Fast Jets)
The Typhoon is expensive but is now achieving some level of maturity and showing its versatility, recent trials have confirmed its excellence in close air support operations and its air dominance power, especially when’ the Meteor comes into service, will be more than a match for most foreseeable opponents.
This proposal is a controversial one so we are going to get it out early!
In order to provide economies of scale, a streamlined training and logistics stream it is proposed that the RAF revert to a single, genuinely multi-purpose fast jet for strike, close air support, air dominance and other supporting roles, the Typhoon.
The Harrier should be withdrawn from service as soon as possible and the Tornado phase withdrawn over the next decade as more Typhoons become operational and the Tornado reaches the end of its useful operational life. The exact timescale of this withdrawal would depend of many factors including aircrew, basing, logistics and availability of Typhoons.
This will achieve two things; massive savings and a large hole in the RAF’s capabilities but in the context of this overall proposal the reduction in capability is accepted. There are advantages to reverting to a single, swing role aircraft, training becomes much more streamlined and efficient and the type can be properly supported from an aircrew and engineering perspective.
To support this, the full originally planned purchase should be completed.
Full integration of all weapon types should also be carried out, for example Storm Shadow, Brimstone and others.
Electronically scanned radar and thrust vectoring (which has many more advantages than just combat agility) should be implemented as the technology matures and a clear needs case can be made. The existing CAPTOR radar is very capable and the agility of the Typhoon is not in doubt but as other aircraft come into service the Typhoon should not stand still.
Conformal fuel tanks should be fitted early into the Tranche 3 production aircraft because this will support longer loiter times or greater range. The existing capabilities programme should be extended to bring the earlier tranches to as common a capability as economically feasible.
It is proposed to form 9 squadrons of 15 aircraft each, either configured as air defence or swing role depending on the particular Tranche of the aircraft. Excess aircraft would form an attrition and fleet rotation group in addition to conversion, evaluation and other uses. Each formed squadron will also be allocated two in squadron spares.
5 squadrons would be allocated to UK air defence, Falklands air defence and Quick Reaction Alert obligations with the other 4 acting as our expeditionary capability. Some flexing between these roles may be feasible depending on prevalent threats.
Typhoon
From a full buy of 232 (even though we have only confirmed 160 in 5 squadrons)
Forward Squadrons = 135 (9 x 15)
In Squadron Spares = 20
Operational Conversion Unit = 24
Operational Evaluation Unit = 4
Falklands Flight = 4
This would leave only 45 airframes for attrition reserves and to manage usage across the fleet which is simply not enough if readiness and availability is to be maintained over its lifespan so additional purchases will be required although decisions on this would not need to be made immediately.
An unequivocal commitment to Typhoon will also contribute greatly to its export potential, export sales generate significant revenue for the UK and support the UK aerospace industry.
Arguments rage back and forth across the internet about the cost and capabilities of the F35 or Joint Combat Aircraft; it is in development so the actual final cost and capabilities are not known by anyone but there seems to be no doubt about two things, it will be very capable in comparison with the Harrier and very very expensive.
F35B STVOL Variant
There are many positives to the JCA but quite simply, we must spend our scarce budget on other things. The UK has made an investment of circa £2billion in the development of the F35 in order to secure a high level of work share and whilst the impact on the programme would be considerable it would not be catastrophic.
Cancellation of the JCA would also have significant impact on the Royal Navy future carriers, we will discuss these implications in other posts.
As the types and airframes are reduced it is self evident that personnel and base locations should also be reduced. The principles of basing should be a core location with at least one alternate in order to mitigate concentration risk. Quick Reaction Alert will also demand geographically dispersed basing but it is possible for training to be concentrated at a single location.
Additional airframes may need to be purchased in order to support this increase in planned fleet size.
Looking further ahead, developing a long range autonomous strike UAV system is a sensible goal and worth investing in as part of our long term strategy for a Typhoon replacement.
The one thing we never seem to achieve is economies of scale; this would go some way to achieving this and will leave the RAF with a single swing role fast jet combat aircraft. It is accepted that this single design approach carries risk and yes, this proposal has many compromises but we need the money elsewhere.
QUICK SUMMARY
1. Cancel JCA
2. Withdraw Harrier as soon as possible
3. Withdraw Tornado when its out of service date is reached (circa 2018)
4. Consider extra Typhoon airframes to maintain availability
5. Continue with weapon integration and improvement programmes
6. Support ongoing development funding for UAV based strike platform
7. Consolidate basing and training
6 comments
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Dominic yup the Treasury is “penny smart, pound foolish” but to the tune of possibly Billions of pounds in the defence budget alone. What you said about runways was a fair point but you need materials to build runways in a hurry. One thing the USAF looked at was land based ramps all over the airfield so that the runway and taxiways would have to be cut in many places to take the base out of action. The Eurofighter can get off the deck in about 300 metres with a light air to air load so that could be shortened with a ramp maybe down to just over 200 metres.
Wow, we’ve bought more Blue Circle Radar, awesome.
“Not that shocking really ever heard the line “don’t waste ammo, that bullet costs 50p you know” there must be a reason that things like that appear there is no smoke without fire, maybe that’s enough sayings for one day.”
Whats really galling is that the Treasurey saves that 50p at the cost of £100k.
Instead of adjusting to the fact that the Afghans, knowing are weapons are useless over 300m, are engaging us at 900m, and increasing the numbers of LSW variant rifles carried, our forces are instead using anti tank weapons to engage single Taliban at long ranges.
Anyway, on post.
Cancel the JCA, indeed, I dont get why the RAF usualy has 3 combat aircraft and usualy wants 3. Ok, there are advantages inherant in different platforms, but at the end of the day, BUILD A BLOODY RUNWAY, its a long strip of concrete, it cant be that difficult, especialy since you;ll save a small fortune, more than enough to have an entire battallion of engineers who’s only purpose is to build a runway very quickly.
2. In theory yes, in practice, its porbably all we’re going to have to operate off those big shiny carriers any time soon.
3. Now Tornado, ok, they arent brilliant aircraft, but they are pretty decent BVR Interceptors, theres going to be a limited export market because (I assume) they have restricted radar, however, selling them off now could get us some extra Typhoons.
The Ozzies have a fighter gap dont they? And there airforce is primarily suppoased to engage incoming aircraft beyond visual range?
4/5/7 should just be standard practice really.
6. Although I agree in principle, I think we’re going to have different idea about what that means.
Armed Predator Equivilants are quite cool tools.
But it is pretty limited.
I was going to give examples, but they were long and boring, so, networked cruise missiles.
“Every little helps” or “Always rolling back capability” these are the new mottos of the MoD and treasury. Not that shocking really ever heard the line “don’t waste ammo, that bullet costs 50p you know” there must be a reason that things like that appear there is no smoke without fire, maybe that’s enough sayings for one day.
Just picked up this months AFM, good article on Typhoon, apparently non of the new ones being delivered to the RAF are fitted with the PIRATE EO/IR search and track sensors, so score another bloody saving for the Treasury !
My thoughts on this are very similar although I disagree with regarding the JCA and the RN but I think I’ll comment on that later when it’s posted about in more detail.
The RAF using one fast jet type is the most logical and sensible thing to do in a time of stretched budgets and manpower. Concentrating on the one type will bring all of the benefits pointed to by the author which invariably is good for the Armed forces as a whole. One problem that is rapidly approaching the RAF Eurofighter fleet is the accumulated flying hours will approach the airframe life far faster than previously thought. This will either cause the fleet size to drop or would mean more airframes would have to be ordered to fill the gap, the most likely choice for bean counters is to shrink the fleet although this will have knock on effects in training and deployment. Although hopefully UCAV’s will come online in time to replace retiring Tranche 1 Eurofighters.
I feel that the Eurofighter should be aggressively updated over the coming decade to include AESA and other sensor systems, TVC, conformal fuel tanks and many other things. This should help its progress in the export arena as it should be the best or one of the top few aerial dogfighters on the market. There could be a bright export future for the Eurofighter if progress is made soon possible customers could be Japan and Greece but possible sales could be threatened if the F-35 shows to be anywhere near the hype.
My original thinking for organising the typhoon fleet was as follows.
8 Squadrons of 14 aircraft = 112 airframes. These would form the UK air defence fleet with 4 operating bases although this might be prohibitive from a cost and support point.
4 Squadrons of 18 aircraft = 72 airframes. These would for an expeditionary air wing and would be equipped with the latest mark of the aircraft for deployment abroad.
This would leave 48 aircraft to be used for an OCU and 1435 flight. I’m aware this means there are no designated attrition spares but these could be taken from the large OCU and new aircraft could be ordered depending on the timeline.
This is spooky – do we have a psychic connection ? Your article above is almost exactly what I have written to submit to you guys to post for me ! I will finish of my piece as it is a bit different, and I will provoke some discussion by including the naval element, but “great minds think alike” ?