Saab offers Sea Gripen derivative of Gripen NG in response to Indian RFI ! See:

http://defense-studies.blogspot.com/2009/12/saab-offers-sea-gripen.html

Personally I would be quite happy if the UK decided to buy a fleet of Super Hornets off the shelf similar to the USN standard and got on with it. Arguably pretty cheap and effective with commonality with the USN so when the treasury won’t pay for the carrier to sail for training we could always join a US carrier for its deployment. Of course we would need to be nice to the USN but if we operate the same aircraft and could use the same weapons I see very little problem with the idea for training. To take things further RN pilots could be carrier qualified in the T-45 Goshawk and then in the Super Hornet which in theory should massively reduce costs associated with operating a carrier air group. Oh! that’s sensible so it has a 99% certainty of never happening.

The Goshawk I’ve assumed we can even build has virtualy no strike capability, a single centre launched 1000lb missile/bomb or half a dozen rocket pods, useful in afghanistan sure, but in a second Falklands, then again, the harriers mostly fought the air war didnt they?

Nice idea – very out of the box thinking there ! A hybrid of the Goshawk, and the single seat Hawk 200 as flown by Oman and Indonesia. It has an APG66 derivative radar (as in F16) but I am sure we could fit a decent modern Selex unit.

Not exactly armed to the teeth for CAP, but 2 x AIM120C, 2 x AIM132, 2 x drop tanks and the 30mm gun pod – better than nowt as they say where I come from !!

People often cite the CVF project as the saviour of the RN but I think the opposite, it has and will continue to hoover up scarce resources and consign the RN to being all fur coat and no knickers because the reality is that everything that is needed to make the CVF useful will not be fully funded so they will be a pair of paper tigers that the RN have mortgaged their relevance on.

At this stage though, there are no good options. However much resource sharing makes sense, in the cold hard world of political reality it just won’t work.

There are still big reservations.
First, I think we would have to use the same weapons loadout as the Typhoon, operating a new family of missiles just for the RN is playing silly buggers again.

The French wouldnt go for a none operational carrier, a sword is useless unless it can be wielded.
Its not so much them using it that bothers me, France can declare war on Russia and deploy tactical nukes from a carrier they lease from us for all I care, its them using it and losing it that bothers me.
What would happen if whilst supporting french operations in Africa, a suicide speed boat sank it, would France buy us a new one?
Or if, in peacetime, a plane landing went wrong, and with a full weapons and fuel load it rammed the tower, would they tow it into Barrow and pay the repair cost?
Or what if the CDG goes in for a 4 month refit, and is still there 14 months later, would they hand our carrier back?

Why 60 aircraft?
72, even if 20+ were mothballed would allow us, at quite short notice, to deploy two full carriers.

I’d be quite happy for a cost effective workable solution that resulted in 3 or 4 joint carriers and 90-120 joint aircraft, owned and maintained as a group by both Governments.
I just dont believe that solution exists, the UK doesnt actualy have a dry dock big enough to handle the carriers yet, but you can be damn sure the government will spend £5billion building one before they let a French yard do the work.
I’d be quite happy for an EU wide equipment pool for all defence equipment, if it bought the best solution, but I know it wouldnt, it would buy the solution that offered politicaly acceptable workshares and maintenaince schedules, and our soldiers would die because of it.

The first ones being built, so we’re stuck with it, the cheapest thing we can fly off it is probably the F/A18, stick a better radar in it, arm it primarily with BVRM’s and hope for the best.