If the Guardian is to be believed the MoD is considering switching back to the STOVL version of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/01/uk-aircraft-carrier-us-strike-fighter You can have a cheeky snigger at the Cats and Flaps mistake in the article but the story is no less interesting.
Britain’s troubled and increasingly expensive plan to equip the navy with new aircraft carriers has been plunged into fresh turmoil as ministers consider reversing their earlier decision to change the type of plane that should fly from them, it has emerged Now, in an extraordinary volte-face, the Ministry of Defence says the “cats and flaps” planes may well be cheaper but it would be too expensive to redesign a carrier – more than £1bn – to accommodate them. The ministry is thus faced with the prospect of renegotiating a deal with the US, reverting to its original plan – namely buying the short take-off and vertical landing version of the aircraft, even though it is acknowledged to be less effective and more expensive
Its probably a load of nonsense but if true, despite the comedic element of the CVF/JCA omnishambles, it would represent a thoroughly sound decision. In time honoured tradition it could be a Pre PR12 spot of damage limitation and/or shaping, a mischievous leak by someone with an agenda, a discarded option or it could be the end result of the post SDSR decision to switch. A decision that was always done based on incomplete information, recognised by the fact that the MoD then embarked on a study to determine how much it would cost. Given that we aren’t best buddies with the USMC aviation community for leaving them in the lurch I wonder how we would re-generate those STOVL deck operations? Of course the original decision of run Harrier from CVS and CVF, transitioning to JCA, made perfect sense. I wonder in retrospect, the money we have spunked up the wall on studies, contract changes and general pissing about could have kept that original, sensible, plan. File under, you couldn’t make it up! More later but thanks for the spot James
Think Defence 
Given the shorter range and weight on take-off issues for a STOVL aircraft the issue of carrier or buddy AAR would become all the more pressing.
My view is why double up expensive fast jets for buddy AAR when you could have a single work-horse like C2 Greyhound top up a whole strike force of pointy fighers?
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B*gger. Just realised the logical impossibility of this without catapults. Grr.
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wow.
just wow.
i hope this isn’t true because i will have a field day with it if it is.
i would totally agree with the decision but still….
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There’s a horrifying probability that the Grauniad is onto some ground truth, but it is not a done deal yet, and then there’s a whole “presentation” piece for the spin doctors that may take a couple of weeks. BAE also kicking up at a senior level.
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TD please scratch the first sentence. TMI.
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is it possible that we’re seeing some inter service rivalry on display here?
with the B model the joint force established for the Harrier can be revised…with the C model it would probably be too expensive to have Royal Air Force pilots trained to land on a conventional carrier. with the B model you’ll see RAF pilots flying off the flat tops to there hearts content.
are we seeing the RAF gaming the Royal Navy????
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Getting back into Cats and Traps aviation from a zero base was always going to be expensive. What’s more embarrassing for a politician, saying we tried but ‘industry costs let us down’ or covering up the cost knowing the real figures will leak?
At the moment there is probably more risk of the F-35C being cancelled than the ‘B’. The Marines want the F-35B, the USN can live quite well without the ‘Ç’. It would also keep Boeing in the fighter business. Win, Win?
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Win/Win other than the fact that the B variant has a shortened fuel tank for the lift fan and you have to short load it to VTOL. And the fact that other planes use the cat as well, like AWACs and some small cargo/passenger/refueling planes like Peter just figured out. And if you want interoperational capability, you need the cat, provided you’re not only into recovering F-35s, but F-18s as well, just in case some poor aviator gets his fuel tank holed and needs to land somewhere non-hostile. Preferably non-liquid as well.
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interoperability with just the US Navy and the French or interoperability with all the users of STOVL aircraft and with all nations that have big deck amphibs?
you get a much broader use of platforms with the B model and you can slam it in comparison to the range found in the C model but its a tremendous step up from the Harrier.
additionally are you going to fund AWACs aircraft? E-2’s are quite cheap. at least the latest and greatest version isn’t.
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Again it all boils down to money and the lack of. For the Navy the “C” variant is the better solution but we seem to have insufficient funds to meet the aspiration. No change there then. As for interoperability, well yes only the US and French have CTOL carriers but then only France, Italy and the US have large flat top amphibs fitted out to operate fast jets so their isn’t that big a difference, when you look at the number of platforms.
As i have said before the whole CVF/JCA programme has been a complete cock up ever since it was underfunded from day one, and constantly interferred with at a political level seeming to be more about jobs in Scotland and maintaining an inefficient ship building industry on the grounds it is in out national interest. Why is this so when we no longer manufacture the majority of the ammunition we use!?
When are our Lords and Masters going to realise we can no longer afford to sit at the top table and stop aspiring to capabilites that lead to an unbalanced armed forces that do not have the capacity to actually do anythings above very limited operations.
The whole F-35 programme has been a move by the US to grab what is left of the fast jet market from 2020 onwards and stifle any competion from other western manufacturers, leaving it the only game in town, with enough toys and bling to make the top brass swoon and become blinkered into thinking it is the only option. Escalation defence costs are claimed to have forced the USSR to implode ending the cold war (according to some people). The F-35 is possibly going to be the reason the majority of the West’s armed forces implode or bcome so unbalanced that they brecome show piece rather than effective assets, and the CVF will make it doubly like for this to happen to the UK.
We should finish the CVF to the cheapest standard and put them in storage available for sale. Bit the bullet on the cost of the programme as we cannot afford to operate them effectively and eventually buy a replacement for the Tornado or keep it going for as long as possible until new technologies offer vaiable alternative.
I used to think that once we became involved in a serious long term shooting war the Politicians would wake up t the fact the defence cannot be run on a shoestring but I was wrong. Our armed forces have been treated as a PR tool since the end of the Cold War, allowing governments to imply we are still one of the big boys. Politicians should be directly and criminally liable for casualties if these are deemd to have been made more likely through insufficent kit or general lack of resources and manpower
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i can’t reasonably comment on internal British politics, but as far as the West’s economic plight is concerned i can state that its my belief that the rise of the welfare state is the root cause of the problems. compare your defense spending (or the defense spending of any western nation) to that spent on social programs and you’ll see the real villain.
but back to the F-35 and interoperability. only the US and the French have big deck aircraft carriers. THATS IT. only those two navies.
now compare how many nations have what is properly called big deck amphibs. the very type of warship that the F-35B is designed to operate from.
the US Navy has 10 of these ships. with four of them forward deployed or at sea at any time. that equals the number of big deck carriers that the US puts to sea. additionally the Italian Cavour class will operate F-35B’s not C’s.
Spain, Italy (they’re acquiring additional LHD’s), Australia, Japan, S. Korea and probably Singapore will operate LHD’s…big deck amphibs with flight decks capable of operating F-35B’s.
so do we really want to talk interoperability? and lets be honest. this is a capability that is really all talk with little evidence of it actually working. where are you going to surge the personnel that come along with these extra aircraft? if they go out on a regular deployment then the world’s navies will in essence be giving into the bean counters and stating that the aircraft they have might be too many or that any shortfall can be made up elsewhere.
its a fantasy. its jointness without purpose. its a popular talking point and nothing else.
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Observor, the UK picked the F-35B in the first place, yes it has the shortest range, yes it has a smaller internal bomb bay.
It will also probable have a higher attrition rate than atleast the F-35A. Even so a damaged or fuel short F-35B could recover on most flight decks in a pinch. It could also go to sea earlier with QE rather than waiting for a modified PoW…..which I always thought would be a bag of cats. Lets face it Diesel/Turbine electric drive and power hungry electromagnetic catapults were an interesting mix.
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why must it have a higher attrition rate? are we thinking Harrier again or are we looking into advancements made since then?
to be quite honest consider launch and recovery the C should have the higher attrition rate. the C model has bigger wings but will have the highest approach speed of any carrier airplane on US decks since the F-8 Crusader.
and as much as i hate to admit it, the work with the arrestor hook indicates that it will have an incredibly high ‘miss’ rate when making landings. those two things spell bad news for the f-35c.
diesel/turbine electric drive should be a good thing for an electromagnetic catapult. no need to transform power. it just goes straight to the cats. instead of having to be made into steam first. quite honestly it should be more efficient and cost effective…once you get past the initial costs.
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At first I thought I was looking at an LM website as there is so much depth to the specifics, but the data has actually been collated by David Hastings (apparently a UK website) http://www.targetlock.org.uk/f-35/production.html
– the point in the below is that the planned production numbers for “C” are trailing the others
LRIP Lot III
17 aircraft. Includes two F-35Bs for the UK and one F-35A for the Netherlands.
Type Designation Serial Unit Notes Image
F-35A AF-14 Due for delivery early 2012.
F-35A AN-1 For the Netherlands.
F-35B BF-12 Due for delivery early 2012.
F-35B BK-1 ZM135 For UK. Final assembly started 26 Oct 2009. Rolled out 20 Nov 2011.
F-35C BK-2 ZM136 For UK.
LRIP Lot IV
32 aircraft – 11 F-35A (one for the Netherlands), 16 F-35B and 5 F-35C (one for the UK).
LRIP Lot V
30 aircraft – 21 F-35A, 3 F-35B and 6 F-35C.
LRIP Lot VI
38 aircraft – 19 F-35As for the USAF; 4 F-35As for Italy; 2 F-35As for Australia; 6 F-35Bs for the U.S. Marine Corps; 7 F-35Cs for the U.S. Navy
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Wearing my tin foil hat I cannot wonder if a switch to the F-35C was not a cunning plan to find a good reason to get rid of the Harriers, and now they are planning to switch back to the F-35B that they wanted all along. Out of interest was the cost of the design study roughly the same as the money we got for the Harriers.
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‘are we thinking Harrier again or are we looking into advancements made since then?’
As you know single engined a/c tend to have a bigger loss rate, knowing that what advancements have been made since then to reduce that?
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To my mind the move to the C version akes sense for two reasons. Firstly we need to repalce the Tornado at some point. The F35 is the only game in tonw I can see realistically doing that and the C version would seem the best choice. Can we justify having two dedicated strike aircraft and Typhoon. Probably not. I know CVF and JCA are expensive. However much of the cost comes from JCA. If we are going to have strike aircraft and not mahy of them then surely we should make sure these aircraft are as versatile as possible. A carrier aircraft can easily operate from a land base but a land bassed aircraft cannot operate at sea. Also a conventioanl carrier design allows us to operate E2 as AWACS. Obvioulsy the budgte fro this is lost some where at present. However the RAF E3’s can’t go on forever. They will need repalcing. Surely a joint AWACS capability repalcing both Asac7 and E3 is the most sensible option on a budget. The lesson I took from Libya was that the RAF and other Western European countries are now completley incapable of mounting any seriosu operations even when they can fly from EU bases let alone any where else. Fixed Wing Aircraft able to fly off of carriers seems to me the best way to redress this problem and the F35C gives us the best capability to do that. Even just being able to deploy 12 of these aircraft properly backed up with AWACS would give us a capability far beyond what we have ever had in the past.
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“Given that we aren’t best buddies with the USMC aviation community for leaving them in the lurch I wonder how we would re-generate those STOVL deck operations?”
Given that we sold them our fleet of Harriers for a pittance, I guess that has helped cushion the blow.
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Fair one Ace
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‘Surely a joint AWACS capability repalcing both Asac7 and E3 is the most sensible option on a budget.’
I don’t think they will go out of service at the same time to take advantage of it. If they do the technology won’t end up in the same a/c but the technology could be shared.
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@Solomon: I agree with your F35C point.
Regarding compatibility, a CATOBAR carrier is compatible with everything, including CTOL aircraft.
Just buy F18, you idiots 🙂
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As you know single engined a/c tend to have a bigger loss rate, knowing that what advancements have been made since then to reduce that?
the comparison was made between the loss rates between the F-35B and C. i was stating that due to the high landing speed of the C (projected anyway) and the problems with the tailhook, that i can reasonably see the C having a higher loss rate than the B. the advances i spoke about were with regard to the B in landing mode. from all statements made by test pilots the B is rather carefree in this environment and based on those statements i came to my conclusion.
additionally the loss rate for single engined fighter aircraft operating over water is another of those common wisdoms thats simply wrong. if multi engined aircraft were the way to go then our airliners would still be operating with four engines instead of two. its another area where advancements in reliability are being ignored and doing things as we always has is taking over. the F-18 is twin engined but i would bet (and i don’t have the numbers) that its engine failure leading to crashes is equal to the F-16’s which is a single engined fighter. oh and if you do the comparison please compare the latest model of F-16 vs. the latest model of F-18.
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‘if multi engined aircraft were the way to go then our airliners would still be operating with four engines instead of two. ‘
Err two engined is still multi engined.
‘and if you do the comparison please compare the latest model of F-16 vs. the latest model of F-18.’
I don’t have the figures to hand, but it would be interesting. Wasn’t the F-16 nicknamed the lawn dart early on?
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‘Surely a joint AWACS capability repalcing both Asac7 and E3 is the most sensible option on a budget.’
I don’t think they will go out of service at the same time to take advantage of it. If they do the technology won’t end up in the same a/c but the technology could be shared.
If we are back in the world of STOVL then V-22 could perhaps be the airframe to do both?
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solomon, you totally missed the point I was trying to make, and you also misundestood Aussie.
A cat and traps carrier can operate auxillary planes too like refuelers and AWACs. A cat-less carrier can ONLY operate your hobby horse, the F-35B. You going to suggest using an F-35 as an AWACS? Refueler is possible, but buddy storing is much less efficient than a tanker. And if you are going to get a full capability carrier, you might as well get the F-35C for better range and loadout.
The attrition Aussie mentions is not “going into the drink”, it’s maintainance downtime. The C has a fairly conventional trust vectored engine, the B’s entire aft assembly pivots down. That is added complexity and maintainance work, and more parts that can go wrong.
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I suppose you could have a V22 varient for STOVL AAR?
Send up half a dozen V22s full of fuel, then get your F35B strike force in the air with full weapons bays but empty tanks, then fuel up, and then set off.
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‘If we are back in the world of STOVL then V-22 could perhaps be the airframe to do both?’
The range of tasks that is required on E-3 means it needs a large a/c to fit it in. It’s hard to marry that to sharing what could fit on a carrier.
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“Send up half a dozen V22s full of fuel, then get your F35B strike force in the air with full weapons bays but empty tanks, then fuel up, and then set off.”
Very possible, other than the waste of putting another 6 planes for AAR in as opposed to 2 tankers and 2 AWACs.
And I can see the ad for Air Trafic Controller now.
– Capable of multitasking
– Works well under pressure
– Honors degree in juggling essential.
😛
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Does anyone have any firm cost from either the USA or France for the differences I’n training and maintaing naval pilots vs land based?
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Must also have fully integral broom for sweeping the floor 🙂
And I can see the ad for Air Trafic Controller now.
– Capable of multitasking
– Works well under pressure
– Honors degree in juggling essential.
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Palletised fuel tanks – multi role them with option to switch to palletised AWACS, MPA, EW or ISTAR systems or just use them for ferrying boot necks around.
“the waste of putting another 6 planes for AAR in as opposed to 2 tankers and 2 AWACs.”
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@Peter
Get him a robe.. cough..sorry, auxillary multipurpose weather protection device and intergrated floor cleaner.
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Fuel, MPA, EW, SAR and ISTAR are possible, but AWACs tend to require dedicated radar systems that are fairly large and with radomes that go all over the place outside the plane, doubt you can chuck one inside without losing function.
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Going back to the F-35B also means that P.o.W. need not go ahead because Ocean when refitted, could be kept on longer to fill the gap until Daewoo builds us a highly modified container ship that could be used as an LPH suitable for helicopters and F-35B’s. This assumes that we have virtually no ship building capacity after CVF is finished and BAE emigrates most of its assets abroad due to lack of work in this country. I can see perhaps only Barrow left after about 2020.
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Mike, think Barrow would be the 1st to die off, they are pure milit shipyards and cannot take in civillian orders to get over the lean times.
This means no shipbuilding capability….
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Explain “Given that we aren’t best buddies with the USMC aviation community for leaving them in the lurch I wonder how we would re-generate those STOVL deck operations?”
We mustn’t forget that the Italians have their Merlin AEW/ASaC flying.
Couldn’t large UAV’s be craned over the side and launched from the sea?
As always here there seems to be a little appreciation of the fact that hulls have a utility all of their own; it is a bit hackneyed but having several acres of sovereign territory that can be moved around the globe is nothing to be sniffed at. It is all a bit Freudian this obsession some here have with pointy things!!!! 😉 🙂 Helicopters are just as important as FJ in the maritime environment; actually probably more so. CVF would make an ideal TLAM and SeaViper platform.
How important is range? Won’t most air-to-air engagements be over in minutes? Even at the prestigious rates of fuel used in combat does it make that much difference? Especially in the age of BVR combat? What of the opposition? Perhaps we should go out to buy some nice SU30 or Mig29…..?
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Hi Mike R,
pp.59-61 has your conversion plan in rough outline
Click to access 2005_rpt_sea_basing.pdf
As it is a marriage of two best practices (Maersk at sea and Walmart for storing and handling stuff), the SVTOL jets aspect would need further nuancing
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@x
Re: Fuel, yes in makes a difference. Pilots with a bigger fuel reserve tend to manuver more aggresively, while those with lower fuel levels tend to move more conservatively. Similarly, pilots who know that they have AAR available tend to hit the burners more, knowing that they won’t run out of fuel. And this does play a part in missile ranges. A plane that accelerates hard just before missile release transfers the additional energy to the missile, increasing speed and range, which affects even BVR missiles.
“CVF would make an ideal TLAM and SeaViper platform.”
So another “through deck carrier”? Or if you’re feeling rather Russian “aircraft launching missile cruiser” 😛
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re costs saved by switching back to “b”
has anyone considered that we would have to reinvent the £1b FOAS budget line that the extended range of the “c” version justified absorbing?
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regarding E3 Awacs replacement – Ordered these aircraft in 1987 and took deliver in 1990. Bearing in mind the 707 is a 1950’s airframe design are we going to see these things flying into the 2030’s. We are not planning to have a carrier capability until 2020. I don’t see it as too much of a stretch to invisage a Joint force Lighting and Joint Force Hawkeye as well replacing both E3 and Asac 7 (16 units) with Perhaps 8 – 10 E2’s. Does anyone know which is now the better paltform the E3 or the new E2D? Would we loose any capability with E2?
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@ Obs
I know the arguments. But do they actually stand testing?
@ Jedi
FOAS = TLAM 🙂
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@ Jedi – Don’t think allot of people have taken that into account. I can’t see any point in FOAS or Tornado if we have 100+ Daves. Better to wait until the UCAS work can deliver us something rather than looking at a new manned system.
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Does anyone Know if the F35 C will have any automatic landing systems that might make pilot traing easier. I know the US is not a fan of naything that saves money. What would be the potential for us to upgrade ours with this capability. The aircraft is surley smart enough.
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@x
More than testing, it’s an observed phenomenom in war. If a pilot is told not to worry about fuel, he tends to go a bit nuts.
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@ Obs
I am going to leave it. I am going to end up going down a rabbit hole over this.
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Hi ArmchairCivvy,
This is where I got the idea from, think it could very versatile, practical and cost effective especially if it employed the “mother ship ” idea as well. Far cheaper than CVF especially if the basic ship was built abroad and fitted out in the UK like MARS for instance. Maybe even crewed by RFA/RN together, who knows.
Hi Observer,
Since the Type 26 GCS might have it’s hull built in Turkey, India or Brazil it does not bode well for the future of the British ship building industry. As you rightly mention our yards tend to be geared for military ships only, but I still think that Barrow would survive because of it’s submarine orders present and future. Once Astute is out of the way then probably Vanguard’s and Trafalgar’s successors will follow on. As a European study commented in 2010, the EU has too many shipyards for the amount of work it is doing therefore the weakest ones will eventually close. Because UK’s yards are not competitive for large civilian ships then ours are the most likely one’s to suffer.
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@martin
Automated landing systems work on solid ground with fixed GPS locations, on a ship which can be who knows where, on a deck pitching in weather and with the need to catch a 3-wire? Not a chance in hell. Computers run by rote, they are not “smart” in the sense of “damn, screwed up plan, adjust to fit”.
A high risk situation is NOT something you want a rote computer to take control of.
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Mike, UK yards need to restructure. There is nothing wrong with taking in civilian building and maintanance work as well as military, not to mention there is a lot of crossover in design, eg oil tanker vs fleet tanker or LHD vs container ships. Barrow did themselves no favours shrinking their market, and I believe that if they had expanded to the civilian sector as well, they would have found enough “savings in bulk” to have retained their competitive edge.
Pity.
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Future carrier based UCAVs will of course need an automated landing system.
I did see somewhere that the F35 does have more automation of its landing systems than an F18, although in practice this will be used for giving addtional guidance for the pilot rather than to take control of the plane.
The same article (or TVprog?) seemed to imply that current naval UCAV research builds on the same landing algorithms developed for the F35.
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Carrier landings will still need human input, computers do not yet have the right degree of fuzzy logic to adapt to changing circumstances, like that of a pitching deck, or estimating the need for another go-around. Even current UAVs launch and land from carriers under remote human control, not automated. In terms of calculations per min, computers have us beat. In terms of situational judgement and adaptation, the human brain still has no equal
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This is what your looking for martin http://www.onr.navy.mil/media-center/press-releases/2011/flight-control-landing-carrier.aspx
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@ observer I thought x47 already had landing capability developed. The ship will no far better than a pilot if it’s pitching or rolling and can tell the computer. I would not fancy a humans chances of landing a ucas on a ship via nintendo
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Mark, that’s still human piloted.
Martin, the X-47 series are still human controlled. If you don’t fancy a human’s chances, a computer’s is much worse. You massively overestimate a computer’s decision making capabilities.
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Observer didn’t say it wasn’t Martin asked if f35 will have automation to make landing easier this is what the above is intending to do. F18 flys itself off the deck at he minute this is what’s next. And if it can’t be done uavs won’t be landing on carriers because the delay between what a pilot sees on his video screen making an input and then that being transmitted to a Uav and the flight controls moving will be to long for carrier landings.
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Obs
I totally agree with you, but BAE seem to have the God given idea that they must have all the military work from government and nobody else should get anything, unless they are a junior partner(in UK). Of course they don’t have this, but their attitude is eventually going to drive them out of this country as regards big projects other than RN maintenance and upgrades. I leave everybody to their own thoughts on this one. Ultimately I feel this will close most of our yards unless they go partly over to merchant navy work.
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Hi Jedi,
RE “has anyone considered that we would have to reinvent the £1b FOAS budget line”
– isn’t that the Scavenger
– if it morphs into nEURON (Dassault is the lead for it), the good news is that half of that has already been spent (by others!) and the £10m allocation just announced is for the lawyers fees, for drawing up the co-operation agreement (anew, giving UK some say)
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hey gents … the X-47 is going to have automated landing. its already being tested on a F-18.
my comment on two engine airliners instead of four was in reference to increased reliability of engines.
the F-16 was known as a lawn dart early on. but i asked for a comparison in loss rates from the most modern models because it was to test the theory that two engined fighters are necessarily safer than single engined ones.
the E-2D is a costly bit of kit. besides isn’t EADS roping Europe into using the A330 as the next AWACS?
here in the US boeing is trying to sell the P-8(737) as the next common airframe for special mission aircraft…AWACS, JSTAR and certain recce models.
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Hi Mike R,
RE “Once Astute is out of the way then probably …Trafalgar’s successors will follow on”
– Astutes are their successors
– maybe a month back we had a lively discussion on whether it had been better to have been a bit more modest with the size increase when designing Astutes
=> would have delivered 10+ units, no need to slow down the construction cycle (due to that factor alone we will now get 7 boats for the price of 8!), no need to lengthen the tours at sea to make up for the numbers gap (are we going to start to lose submariners? – very specialist skills, hard and/or expensive to replace)
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Observer,
Firescout can land itself on ships in anything up to sea state 5 (me not being a sailor I had to look up what that means – quite lumpy is the answer). It has a landing system based on lasers projected across the HLS at various angles. It approaches on I think a radio homing signal and then hovers and looks down at the laser patterns for a while to work out how the ship is moving. I remember the system being explained in Powerpoint charts when we were looking at Firescout as a possible for Watchkeeper, but at that stage it had not been fully developed. It has now, appears to work quite well. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxl-ko7Vd64 but that does not show any particularly rough sea.
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@ X – “FOAS = TLAM :)”
The acornyms have evolved over time, so perhaps FOAS is not quite the right one now, but the SDSR did explicitly absorb a £1b budget line for manned long range strike when it swapped the “b” for the “c”.
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The crunch will come soon enough at Barrow. Either orders for a Vanguard replacement, or more Astutes, or pack up the tools lay off the workers and never build another sub in the UK again.
That’s a DIS decision writ very large. Its one of the few areas where our armed forces have a real edge and it could easily go. Its easy to say we’ll stop at 7 Astutes, but if the choice is order 3 more boats or no more _ever_ then we might just get boats 8-10.
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Hi Sol,
On these sorts of lines of development, people have been wondering how could the new bomber be had for three and half bn’s development pot
“the next common airframe for special mission aircraft”
The theory goes that
– the unmanned operation part of the systems will be shared with x-47
– that the Air Force’s black budget has already spent 2 bn on it with Northrop Grumman (explains why the official x-47 programme is going without a hitch… Navy, Air Force = two different budgets, easier to put a third one in-between)
– and the whole exercise is now mainly about reverse engineering the bigger design into using more mature components (pushing the unit cost down, with the bigger size the technology challenge is less than with the carrier-sized long-range penetrator… even though EMALS could throw even the A-12 up, had it been built, as they can handle 25% heavier aircraft for the same size of flight deck)
Landing back of course becomes a challenge if weight goes up (didn’t know about that high approach speed with F-35 – thanks!)
True, or a fairy tale (about the bomber development)?
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Thanks James, but there is a massive difference between a UAV helo VTOL landing and a F-35 carrier traps landing, though it might be possible to guide the plane down with a modification of the current “calling the ball” visual system. Still not something I’d trust to a computer. If solomon thinks it can be done by computer, more power to him, don’t blame others if you lose planes over it. Still sees it as part of the “Shiny new toy” syndrome.
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Hasn’t enough money been wasted already changing to cat and traps? Why waste more going back on a decision? This it typical political meddling that does nothing except incur delay and additional cost.
Anyway, would’t trust the Guardian (or Jim Murphy for that matter) as far as I could throw it…
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@James again
Sorry, noticed something late. Where in the video did it state that was auto-landing and not human operator?
@Mark
Video lag isn’t the problem, Spd of Light is 7 times round the world per second, a paltry 200km back and forth isn’t going to hinder it much. What slows the process down is the bandwidth and encryption. On AJ mode, our radios lag by 1-2 seconds on side by side sets. And yes, this lag is not a good thing for situational awareness and reaction. However if you can increase bandwidth and cut corners on encryption, it is possible for near realtime display. It won’t give the “on the spot” feel, but much higher chance of sucess than a computer programed by rote.
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Observer,
it was designed for autonomous landings from the beginning (why that’s better than a pilot using his xbox controller is not something I ever really thought about). From the Nortrop fact sheet on Firescout:
“The U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman wrote a new chapter in naval aviation history Jan. 16-17, 2006, when two RQ-8A Fire Scout VUASs completed nine autonomous shipboard landings on board USS Nashville (LPD 13) off the coast of Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. This test marked the first time a Navy UAS performed vertical landings on a moving ship without a pilot controlling the aircraft. After it was launched from the naval air station, the Fire Scout flew to the designated test area, where the USS Nashville was waiting for the air vehicle to land and take off under its own control. The flight was monitored from a ship-based control station called a tactical control system, and the air vehicle was guided onto the ship using an unmanned air vehicle common automatic recovery system.”
Click to access fs-fact-sheet.pdf
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I have a link here showing the first automatic carrier landing by an F18 on 2nd of July 2011. Seems to work although it looks like a sunny day. Going back to my original point if we can take out the need for intensive carrier landing training then surley the F35C, cheaper, bigger with more range and weapons becomes the no brainer choice for our Dave version.
@ Observer
“Video lag isn’t the problem, Spd of Light is 7 times round the world per second, a paltry 200km back and forth isn’t going to hinder it much”.
Comms sattelites don’t travel at 200KM but rather 36,000 KM. Not sure if you have ever spoken on an old style sat phone but data lag is a big issue. Not to mention loosing comms signal even for a second would cause major problems for a deck landing. I would feel allot safer having a UCAS land itself with pilot over sight than having some guy in a bunker some where bringing a large piece of fast moving metal near my ship using a 2d camera and a joystick over a sattelite link.
http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/07/look-no-hands.html
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Switching back to the B seems like a poor choice, given Britain’s current plans. The B variant in STOBAR or V/STOVL mode has several shortcomings compared to the C variant – shorter range, yes (which is not unimportant in an era of proliferating long-range anti-ship weapons), but also a lower payload, which limits the sorts of missions you can accomplish (especially if you want to carry a strike package with some self-defense missiles/decoys/jammers/etc). Setting aside the advantages of being able to operate a variety of different CATOBAR aircraft (AWACS, COD, MPA, etc.), a CATOBAR fighter gives you a lot more versatility in terms of mission profile, especially if you’re playing the away game (I’m convinced this is why STOBAR concepts like the “Sea Control Ship” have never really caught on with the US Navy, which is almost always playing on someone else’s turf). If you want to have a credible, independent naval expeditionary war-fighting capability in the 21st century, I think CATOBAR is the only way to go.
The B variant’s primary strengths are its ability to operate from areas where an A or C variant wouldn’t be able to operate. That’s a great capability, especially if you only have smaller aircraft carriers or want to be able to operate from a lot of smaller airfields in your immediate vicinity. However, if Britain is already committed to fielding a large through-deck aircraft carrier as part of a full-spectrum naval expeditionary fighting capability, I can’t see the appeal of operating the B rather than the C.
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While on the subject of aircraft numbers. Can any one here expalin airforce economics to me. For a squadron of 12 planes how many aircraft do I need to have? How many pilots? what exactly are all the planes not in the 12 doing? If I have two carriers and I want one to be avilable at all times with a squadron of 12 planes onboard how many planes do I need in total.
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Just as I’m getting used to the CATOBAR opportunities they flip back (possibly) to my favoured STOVL option. As much as a hate to say it, a swing role V-22 (with dedicated ASaC variant) would help maximise the STOVL CVF’s capabilities.
@ TD – with the Daewoo tankers and the possible return of the F-35B, is it a good time for my guest piece? (If its too rubbish, I will understand)
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Perhaps the “cats and flaps” remark in the Grauniad article is in fact an extraordinarily wise design change? Some catapults up front on an extremely large flat top to launch UAVs / UCAVs, and a large flap at the rear of the ship so that you can launch landing craft. Have a dedicated recovery area at the back of the large flat top for the UAVs, and a through deck lift in the middle for helicopters. Then you’ve got a useful military capability without breaking the bank on some fast jets of dubious development.
I really should have been a ship designer…. 😉
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@ Somewhat re Murphy being thrown
Perhaps when the cat’s are installed Mr Murphy could be used as a test load.
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Observer I wasn’t taking about video lag. I was taking about the lag between when a pilot sees something corrects it with an input and the a/c actually responding to that input. That will be much longer than if its done in cockpit by an auto pilot.
Squadron numbers are more notional. Force elements at readiness are what counts nowadays. The plan says black adder (and this is taking on those proportion) is was 1/3 of both typhoon and f35 at fe@r according to sdsr. Sustaining is counting at 1:5 in the airforce I think as in the army 5 sqns manpower wise to sustain a Sqn deployment. The a/c not at fear will be ocu/oeu maintenance at depth attrition replacement and spreading flight hours out. I think the typhoon force during Libya rotated about 2 a/c per month thru italy.
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Okay ignoring the fact that we have ordered EMALS long lead items, here is my humble suggestion to get around said budgetary problems.
1) Buy a further 20 Typhoon Tranche 3b’s for £73m per a/c (price from wiki) = £1.46bn, as these come online reduce Tornado fleet to 53 aircraft. This allows for 6 operation squadrons of Typhoon, 2 operational Tornado squadrons and 1 large OCU/OEU for each type (16 aircraft)
Therefore there would be 2 “combat” wings for RAF fast jets, No.1 Wing (AD) would have 4 Typhoon squadrons attached and No.2 Wing (strike) would be comprised of 2 Typhoon and 2 Tornado squadrons – enabling 6 of each aircraft to be continuously deployed. If the F-35c does get scrapped then the RAF can buy 53 F-35a’s instead.
Total RAF fast jet fleet = 180 aircraft
2) Go to Boeing and ask for 20 F/A-18 Super Hornets on a 10 year lease with options to then buy the aircraft or Boeing could sell them onto the USN to replace their oldest SH or sell them to somebody like Brazil. If the SH costs £81m (aussie deal), then Boeing may want to charge £810m for 10 years. This would allow for 1x 14 plane squadron to be formed (809 NAS? – return of the phoenix) and several planes for attrition reserves. This would also keep the Boeing line open for another year maybe 2 at the most, by which time we should know if the F-35c is goer or not and we can then buy some more Super Hornets or Rafales (TD you may get that Fiver yet!)
This option costs £2.27bn for the aircraft if we then add on another £1bn for the EMALS equipment for the carrier the total cost is £3.27bn. In comparison the order for the first 40 F-35c by HMG should cost around £3.6bn, saving us £330m. Is my solution 100% ideal? No. Will it suffice for the time being and for the vast majority of situations? Yes.
We could use the money saved on another: 1-2 A400m, one more Type 26 or 200ish Foxhhound vehicles. Hell we could even invest in some stealthy carrier based UCAVs for 1st day strike.
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It could be that they know the problems with the F-35C, catching the arrestor wire etc can not be fixed. If thats the case buy 50 F/A18 for the navy. F35A for the RAF.
Don’t forget the B was having problems bringing back a respectable payload, and trials with shipboard rolling landings did not seem to solve them
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@The Mintcake Maker: a good compromise. Since as I understand it we are only saving operational costs for Tranche 3B due to cancellation penalties, I would aver there is more scope for a larger 3B order, replacement of Tornado before the support runs out in 2015, and a larger lease of F18
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@ The Mintcake Maker
Another forum, by an ex naval harrier pilot, yes him. Claims we can save £10 Billion by buying 80 F/A18 instead of F35. Now the prices may be off but there would be a considerable saving. So we give up stealth or as much stealth as F35 has. I could never see the F35 doing the CAS role like Harrier and Tornado in Afghanistan anyway.
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Observer – ref: “A high risk situation is NOT something you want a rote computer to take control of.”
LOL – seriously ? So you don’t fly in modern Airbus, or Boeing “fly by wire” airliners then ? Where 3 discrete computer systems are “voting” on the action to take with respect to keeping it in the air ?
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lol here we go again…
A lot of thought went into the B, we decided – after a long process – that it suited what we can realistically do, and do well; with experienced pilots in both services of operations from sea and land. Hell, part of JFH was an attempt to continue that expertise… Its what both RAF and RN have had experience of, in small scale and the larger.
I’d love a carrier with hornets/rafale/F35’s along with fixed wing AWAC and dedicated buddy tanker ops… but we never really had that, even in the 70’s, our ad-hoc naval fixed wing aviation wasn’t excatly comparable to the US.
I cant see why we cannot have what we originally planned for, the B – that can, arguably, operate off anywhere – along with AWAC Merlins. Even if you sacrificed Trident, there wouldn’t be enough cash for these dreams, without suffocating the other services of funds or stopping Foreign Aid.
The RN has already sacrificed too much of its other assets…
This whole thing is one big pile of brown… alas, I hear that broken record again, another round of debate!
But I do like MintCake Makers Idea.
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I know i’ll get hated for saying it, but someone has to say it.
“with the C model it would probably be too expensive to have Royal Air Force pilots trained to land on a conventional carrier. with the B model you’ll see RAF pilots flying off the flat tops to there hearts content.
are we seeing the RAF gaming the Royal Navy????”
Likely, yes.
Another factor at play is that the Navy would be perfectly happy with the F/A-18, and some in government might be tempted to bin the F35 and buy the Hornet for real instead if a good deal is offered by Boeing.
The RAF does not want this to happen. They want the F35, and nothing else.
But they also do specifically want the F35C, if possible. They apparently were the ones pushing for the switch the most, and have been pushing at least since 2005 when FOAS was cancelled.
This “revert to B” suggestion is not very plausible.
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What happens post 2030 without F35?
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out of service so soon?
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Typhoon will be.
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Gabriele is right,
F-35 is now the Tornado replacement as well as the future carrier strike aircraft, this whole thing will just be someone venting to the press when they should not be.
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maybe, you think the f35 will be?
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This is fun and all but its incredible hard to take this piece seriously when it has so many basic facts wrong. This will be the a/c for the navy and air force that buccaneer should have been in 1960 before infighting put paid to that.
We will know all in a few weeks as march will have some important things happening. Maturity flights start at eglin next week and partners meeting in canada and then a formal partners meeting in Australia mid/end of month for deliver slot and production decisions.
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gentlemen.
the increased range found in the C model is for want of a better term…paltry. the B has a combat radius of 450nm while the C has a range of 640. both outrange the F/A-18. so don’t think that the larger wings of the C were specifically designed so that it could fly further and carry more fuel. that’s an old wives tale. the US Navy would prefer a fighter that had 9g capability.
the C has larger wings in order to operate off a carrier. additionally the B model and the US Navy and the sea control concept is alive and well. it is commonly touted here in the US that in case of war the US has not 11 carriers but potential 22.
with the F-35B and with the reduced squadrons being carried by big deck carriers the difference between the enlarged USS America LHA and a super carrier are shrinking not growing.
as a matter of fact in the sea control role the USS America LHA comes close to matching the HMS Queen Elizabeth (not if you guys surge airplanes but in normal configuration while the America would be operating in surge mode)
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Lots of interesting points raised.
With regards to aircraft carrier landing. The US has already tested JPALS which is the fully automatic fly home and land system. This was also demonstrated by the UK as the Autoland function on the VAAC programme. However, this depends on GPS which is not infallible.
The UK and US did a lot of work in the VAAC programme to develop a Flight Control System that was extremely simple to fly in STOVL mode. It is significantly different to Harrier and much much easier to use. The US released some information last year on transferring a lot of this work over onto the C variant. This will remove the need for expensive carrier training for the pilots as it will be a lot easier to operate. With a minimal conversion time either FAA or RAF pilots can operate from QEC which gives a much more flexible asset (and saves massive cost).
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awst/2011/11/07/AW_11_07_2011_p76-386903.xml
Now of course, this is being presented by the pro-Navy lot as an evil RAF plan which is complete bollocks.
Since when would the RN be happy with F-18E? You seem to be mistaking the RN with Sharkey Ward’s ravings. The RN isn’t even in this decision making process. This falls under the remit of CAP DTA (Deep Target Attack) and a bit of CAP TA (Theatre Air). It is their job to provide the most cost-effective option for fulfilling UK requirements.
What is important to the UK? Having a long range and endurance strike aircraft. F-35C is much superior at this than F-35B.
This means you can buy less F-35C and get the same capability as F-35B (as well as always having longer range).
F-35C is the clear choice for cost/effectiveness in the long term but requires the cost of QEC conversion up front. We would be stupid not to do this.
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@solomon
The extra 200nm range of F-35C over F-35B means you can cover operate over a much larger area of land inside a country. Especially when you stand QEC a way offshore to protect it from threats.
A good way to look at the effect of this is with Google Earth. See how much of Iran you can fly over with 450nm radius and 640nm radius. Then stand offshore some distance and repeat. The effect is very significant.
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@ Topman
No. I am all for two fleets that compliment each other. Just in case one develops “faults” that ground the fleet. These things are way too complex to have all our eggs in one basket.
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ah right i see where you’re coming from now. I’ve really no idea, give bae a blank cheque and see what they come up with? 😉
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SOMEBODY JUST BUY SOMETHING!!!
Has any other plane invoked so much bile from so many quarters for so many reasons?!
*sigh*
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In an ideal world, we would not start from here, but this is how I would get out of it.
In 2016, buy a dozen F-35B to operate off Illustrious/Queen Elizabeth. QE also loads up with helicopters to become a sea control/assault carrier.
Then Prince of Wales is fitted with cats & traps, plus at least 20 F-35C to become our sole strike carrier.
QE can always be refitted at a later date if we can afford a new Ocean replacement & the F-35B would transfer to the new assault carrier.
RAF needs global reach. A smaller number of regional bombers (21c Vulcans) might be more use than larger numbers of F-35C for the RAF.
Pity we could not save Brough by ordering a few British built Hawk128/Goshawk hybrids For the FAA.
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“RAF needs global reach.” ?
No they don’t.
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John Hartley has this one correct. I believe (if this story is true!) that the gov is worried about the potential of another falklands or similar intervention. If this is true and this is a big if, I bet they will order 10-15 F35B’s and 60 or so F35C’s. The B’s will operate off of HMS Ocean and the other invincible class enabling carrier strike incase the C variant or the carrier manufacture is delayed.
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X
There is no point the RAF having lots of shiny new jets if they cannot reach the enemy. That was the situation with the shiny new Tornado in 1982.
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“In 2016, buy a dozen F-35B to operate off Illustrious/Queen Elizabeth. QE also loads up with helicopters to become a sea control/assault carrier.”
The production line isn’t a supermarket you can’t just announce you want 12 airframes whenever you please. As I understand it.
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@ John Hartley with you up to the RAF point as it being one option. The other option is as mooted and just do both carriers as original intended as sea control / assault carriers – F35b. I think for 99.9% of cases, the difference between B and C will not be noticed. What we should look at is the difference between QE with say 30+ F35Bs and Illustrious with c20 Harriers – a quantum leap in capability and it seems to me we could get far sooner than by going cats and traps. Stick with Typhoon for RAF (keep tranche 1 and upgrade, retire tornado) and make a separate decision on F35B or F35A perhaps – still fundamentally same aircraft
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Actually it is like a supermarket, and generally lots of customers can accomodate other forces orders accordingly in amongst their own. The RAF have done this, when the USAF allowed them to take their positions in the C-17 production line.
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“when the USAF allowed them to take their positions in the C-17 production line.”
Yes exactly. Allowed us to. I don’t pop into Tesco’s in the hope they’ll let me buy 10 tins of beans, I know I can buy 10 tins of beans. It might be all a moot point I don’t know how much slack or good will there is in the production line but looking at the production figures over the next four years there aren’t an awful lot of slots to swap.
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Phil, I am guessing that lots of countries including the US are hurting when it comes to F35 procurement and budgets. I agree it might not be best practice, but I think countries ordering a batch, then later ordering another batch when funds allow might become the norm.
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“That was the situation with the shiny new Tornado in 1982.”
To be fair development had the more pressing need to consider how to help tackle a super-power sat straddling central Europe rather than bombing a peat bog 8,000 miles away.
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I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of the extra range on the F-35C over the B variant. Greater operational range for a sea-based aircraft *is* important, and the C’s extra 200 nm is a potentially huge advantage for a big-deck carrier, for several reasons:
1) First, as Hannay noted, the extra range gives you much greater power projection capability inland, broadening your target set ashore.
2) Extra range improves the survivability of your carrier by allowing it to conduct stand-off operations against shore-based anti-access capabilities. Although stand-off range has not played a very important role in recent conflicts in relatively permissive environments (i.e., Libya), in future access-denied environments the ability to stand off beyond the range of shore-based anti-ship missiles is not an insignificant advantage. Similarly, the proliferation of naval anti-ship capabilities (STOBAR aircraft carriers, more sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles, etc.) makes extra range important in future naval contingencies. Any capability that hopes to be relevant for the next 30 years needs to take these sorts of anti-access threats seriously.
3) The converse of #1, extra range makes you harder to find, which is hands down the best defense for a ship at sea. If your aircraft can only operate 400 nm from their carrier to strike certain targets on land, then there is a limited amount of sea in which your carrier can steam while still fulfilling its mission. Enemies could work backwards from the targets you strike to figure out where to concentrate their search, making it easier for them to locate your carrier (even if they have relatively limited ISR capabilities). The more you extend the range of your aircraft, the harder it becomes for enemies to even find you aircraft carrier, much less try to shoot at it.
In addition to the advantage of range, a CATOBAR aircraft has the further advantage of a heavier payload, something that is not conveyed in the 400 vs. 600 nm figures. A C can carry a much heavier payload to the 600 nm limit than an B can carry to the 400 nm limit, if the B is conducting short take-off from a carrier deck.
None of that necessarily means that the RN needs an aircraft carrier with F-35Cs on it – that’s a bigger strategic question of where the RN and Britain want to fit into the world order in the 21st century. However, if the RN is serious about pursuing a big-deck carrier capability, CATOBAR is definitely the way to go.
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It takes on average about 24-36 months to build a jet dependant of rate. So unless you can wait that long you have to ask permission. There is around 40 slots annually avaiable at present apparently of which the us will take 30 the 8 overseas partners and 2 non partner customers can buy the other slots. Its all about rate tooling to really get an idea of what’s planned for this a/c you have to look at large scale civil a/c such as 737/a320. modern European military jet have never seen such rates indeed the current jsf rate is about equivalent to typhoon and rafale combined and their from 5 production lines. Support/spares weapons holding thru life cost and total allied interoperability with a common platform is the goal this a/c will achieve. We often fail to see the total life cost of things the cheapest unit price doesn’t mean cheapest program life cost ect. This jet is often derided for that too yet those that too fail to mention it calculated over 50 years life and no current fighter has ever had such a measure used for it. I really do despair with the nonsence written about this program but I guess that what happens when you develop a program in the Internet world that people love to hate and not matter what said no on ever believes it.
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Mark, thats true, but there is also a production line almost finished in Italy and potentially another in Japan. I am guessing that will speed things up a lot on the allocation front.
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Steve that is true the line in Italy does offer additional capacity in the rate build up plan for 3 years time delivery but there’s no point paying for very expensive assembly tools when you don’t need them it drives up non recurring costs when don’t need them the whole rate build up is very complicated when it comes to timing and costings. Italy will only produce the majority of jets for Italy and the Netherlands not sure if norways included. It more a Mro site for the future. Japan’s a difficult one due to its export restrictions and I think the initial jets will come from Texas.
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@ Mark
Is the UK getting a F35 production line?
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@ x
No, the UK won’t have a F-35 production line. However, instead of putting some F-35s together, BAeS are making the aft fuselage, vertical and horizontal tails for all F-35s at Salmesbury.
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What Hannay said. The uk was offered refused and Italy volunteered.
This may have changed but while the uk was responsible for the tail design I not sure but I think the vertical tails were going to bae austrailia for manufacture.
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@ Mark & Hannay
Dare one ask why our beloved BAE didn’t want to build the blessed kite here?
I thought UK Plc was 1st junior partner on the project? Surely we should be building big chunks AND screwing it together?
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@Jed
I already said that from a fixed airfield, autolanding systems are common, it’s from an airfield that has a tendency to move (and move away) that problems can arise.
@Mark
Think a lot of the hate came from words like “cost overrun” and “delays”. Frankly, if they had delivered on time and on budget, even if the plane had a bit of undercapability, I won’t mind, but stretching development time and cost and people start wondering if the project is going to survive. Too many cancelled projects happened this way.
As it is, with all the excuses of development problems, we currently have a plane overbudget, overtime and possibly less capable than expected. Triple whammy. And it isn’t even in deployment yet. (Deployment, not test flights)
You know what they say about 1 in hand better than 2 in the bush.
Wonder if they were overambitious in the B variant, without it, the design might have been much easier to come together.
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x
In my view bae wanted out of a/c final assembly saw no future in it. Rather build lots of sub systems. We are a first tier partner we contributed about 2b dollars to a 50b dollar development program and we get 17% build of all jets bae is one company of numerous uk company’s but granted a major part.
Observer it’s more fundamental than that. There’s plenty in the us that can’t stand the fact Boeing are being left out of the future fighter market. Coupled with them losing significant grip in civil and miltary transport just look at the us tanker deal. Shedule cost of these programs is always hopelessly optimistic and we really need to just wait on cost till we get a purchase order signed by someone outside the us. Austrailia bought 24 hornets and to operate then for 10 years will cost them 6b dollars total and recent media reports they spend a further 300m to upgrade 6 pre wired a/c to growler status yet this a/c is often quoted as being the cheap alternative.
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Gents!
Italy does NOT have a production line. they have a maintenance facility. BIG difference. all jets will be assembled in the US with parts manufactured in different parts of the world.
that’s what i mean guys! basic facts are getting flubbed.
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I always wondered why private companies are getting governments to pay for their research, then keep all the profits for themselves. Shouldn’t the investor get a cut of the profits back in proportion to the investment? And having non-company sources of funding for research is like handing wackos a blank cheque. There is no firm need to keep cost down and come up with something that has to work, after all, it’s not their money!
If companies had to pay for their own research, maybe we might start seeing cheaper and more timely products come to the market.
On a more out of this world muse, wonder if the EMALs system can be run in reverse and used to “catch” fighters coming in for carrier landings. Not saying take out arrestor wires, but as a supplement.
If I sound grumpy these few days, ignore me, I’m stuck in bed with a flu bug and fever, so not really coherent.
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solomon you ultranationalistic goof, Italy is one of the final assembly F-35 plants since years back. Go wiki F-35 assembly Italy and see aviationweek’s report.
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Phil
F-35 orders keep chopping & changing, but if we say in 2012 that the UK wants 12 F-35B in 2016, I doubt we would be turned down.
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I’m not so sure. Disrupting US F35B production at such an early stage would have to severely disrupt their training and evaluation and weapons development programme. Later in the production maybe but it would seem very disruptive considering the small numbers of F35Bs being built up to 2016.
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@ Observer re backwards EMALS
I see a bright for you in the concepts division of CBX Defence Corporation…….
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21 B’s vs 12 C’s (if you look at my LRIP post) funded, and funded means by the US within each LRIP tranche
– all the overseas contracts have no visibility about what the firmness and timing of them actually are; even though they are reflected in the above numbers (and are by gvmnts that normally stick to what was said)
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‘I believe (if this story is true!) that the gov is worried about the potential of another falklands or similar intervention.’
I don’t believe that for a minute, I think its more likely that the government actually do now want both carriers in service. That they think spending £7bn on 1 carrier is expensive, but they’re worried about the costs of converting the second carrier eventually.
F35B would mean it would be a LOT easier to bring QE into service should they so wish.
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ultranationalistic??? i like that? goof? not so much but you’re right….Italy gets a FINAL ASSEMBLY plant! big whoop. that was the same deal Airbus was offering the US with the A330! i laughed at the deal as crumbs from the plate.
the UK gets a maintenance and upgrade facility! that’s where the real money will be. WE’RE TALKING ABOUT A STEALTH AIRPLANE! MAINTENANCE IS THE KEY TO IT MAINTAINING ITS STEALTH.
you guys got hooked up but are too daft to know it.
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ehhmm…
Howabout that stealthy and only optionally manned bomber (budget)?
Sol, am I high on tea leaves, or reading them right?
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never underestimate the right wing of the United States to force defense spending when the left wing is pushing hard to support social programs.
add to all this the gifts that keep giving to our defense budget…there always seems to be a rogue nation that the UN is incapable of dealing effectively with and we always find a peer competitor thats seeking to destroy our way of life…thank you China for unveiling the J-20 while our dignitaries were in your country meeting with your president…
long story short that stealthy optionally manned (probably fully manned now—they want to keep costs down) is going full speed ahead.
the problem for our good allies is the fact that it’ll get the F-22 treatment and won’t be available for export.
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@solomon
It would have gotten the F-22 treatment. The Global Strike exo-atmosphere module, the one you were mentioning as the next gen bomber broke up during tests. The US gets 1st dibs on the remains! 🙂
“the gift that keeps giving”? You make US defence companies sound like herpies. 🙂
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Hi Observer,
That hypersonic programme is different from the bomber that finally got a go-ahead in the budget (it used to be called the 2018 bomber, but got cancelled because costs went sky-high)
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@ACC
Hush you, I was trying to do solomon a favour by taking some starch out of his pants so it doesn’t act like a rod up his arse.
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The J35 project has been a dog from start to finish. It will be ridiculously expensive per aircraft and technical problems seemingly arive every day. What concerns me is this focus on stealth where to the non-technical eye surely most of this will go when a useful bomb load is added externally? And can the J35 be considered an air superiority fighter?
If we stay with CATOBAR, why not look to work with the French on a Rafale enhancement – maybe with AESA radar, EJ200 engines with thrust vectoring and stealth enhancements deriving from UCAV work – Boeing are able to make the 70s era Eagle and Hornet stealthier.
Or speak to BAe again about how realistic the SeaTyphoon is – I cannot believe BAe would have pitched this to the Indians without considerable work done. If as previously stated the RAF were pushing for comformal fuel tanks and thrust vectoring, which could make a STOBAR variant more realistic, additional costs would be slightly offset by having a pilot pool familiar with the aircraft, a better air superiority aircraft better than the F18, weapon systems already integrated. It seems that LM are having as many problems developing an aircraft designed to be used from carriers as it would be to convert an aircraft to use from carriers. The Russians dont seem to be having so much difficulty with the SU33, and Mig29/35
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Hi Dave,
The India bid already included AESA for Rafale. When that was still on the drawing board, the re-engine-ing and AESA together were offered to the UAE against a $2bn contribution from the buyer.
Some contributers have categorically stated that one cannot build stealth into a non-stealthy airfame. This piece is almost two years old, but would run counter to that view:
“Aviation Week’s Air and Cosmos reports that France is developing active stealth for the Rafale F5 (2 versions hence). Bill Sweetman explains:
“Active cancellation means preventing a radar from detecting a target by firing back a deception signal with the same frequency as the reflection, but precisely one-half wavelength out of phase with it. Result: the returned energy reaching the radar has no frequency and can’t be detected. It’s quite as difficult as it sounds…. This may not be the first French attempt to implement AC on the Rafale. At the Paris air show in 1997, I interviewed a senior engineer at what was then Dassault Electronique…. [DID: which became Thales, then Dassault became Thales’ largest private shareholder]”
Sweetman goes on to explain that Moore’s Law of improved processing power may make the project more achievable now. MBDA and Thales have since confirmed that they are working on active cancellation for missiles as part of the Rafale’s SPECTRA defensive suite, and research in this area is underway in several other countries.”
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Dave said “I cannot believe BAe would have pitched this to the Indians without considerable work done.”
Bless your little cotton socks. 🙂 😉
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@ Dave – STOVL is a personal favourite of mine due to its flexibility in basing but if we do continue with the CATOBAR route I believe the aircraft chosen has to be a fighter first and foremost. The carrier will be responsible for fleet air defence, gaining air superiority over any amphibious landing, or enforcing no-fly zones like Libya. Although not ideal for the strike mission, they can perform it better than strike aircraft can perform the fighter role. They also can perform attack/CAS reasonably well (I am a fan of dedicated attack aircraft but having a carrier-capable version, let alone a RAF one appears extremely slim).
Rafale is a 4th (?) gen carrier capable fighter.
Super hornet is upgraded 3rd (?) gen attack aircraft which allegedly was beaten badly by Rafale in dog fighting exercises.
However, medium range simulated missile range engagements where roughly equal.
So it comes down to two questions; can the F-35C dogfight (better than a Rafale)?
Or, does its stealth give it a significant advantage in BVR engagements meaning it doesn’t need to dog fight?
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One issue with trying to purchase extra early F35 B’s (although I believe we already own 3) is the higher cost caused by the Low rate Inital production of the early aircraft. Not to mention the higher cost of fixing any associated flaws.As the USA has opted to slow purchase and as far as I know LM has not closed any facilities I believe we could get the extra slots if needed. However If we really desperatley want carrier capability now then why not simply bring the FA2’s back out of stoarge. The fact they have been tucked away means that the corrosion worry that put them into retierment is no longer an issue. They will easily lst until 2020. We have the aircraft and pilots all ready to fly them. We still have Illustrious and we can finish QE in the ski jump configuration (which I think they are planning to anyway) until POW (which will probably be renamed Ark Royal) is finhished in its CATOBAR configuration. Cheap and easy solution that could get us back in the game tomorrow with an excellent aircraft all for less than £ 1 billion.
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Another thing. The US FJ inventory is already under some strain due to Afghanistan and Iraq. What would a campaign in Iran do to their fleet hours? Surely they don’t think UAVs can carry more load? I wonder if this has been factored into F35 production timetables?
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For everyone who has talked up the much vaunted F35B’s ability to fly from amphibious big decks, really? If we needed a ski jump on the CVS to loft Harrier with a reasonable weapons load (and a similar jump on the STOVL CVF), how are the USMC going to launch the B variant with even a half way useful weapons/fuel payload (same question re OCEAN; at least CAVOUR has the jump already). F35 is much bigger than Harrier, and I have yet to see a convincing argument that says that it will be a useful force multiplier for the cost per airframe. At least the C variant can catapult with a heavy external weapons and fuel load.
The European alternative, should such a possibility become inevitable (i.e. if we continue dicking around with F35 choices and the USN gets fed up and tosses us out) would surely be an enhanced Rafale, with BAE’s advanced EW and EO subsystems and new engines. The stealth argument has surely gone out of the window anyway with the apparently poor stealth performance of F35, and it would not be beyond the wit of Dassault and BAE to develop the Super Rafale. That at least would be in the best interests of both the UK and France, once again public best buddies.
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or a sea griffin, rather see that than a rafale, i just don’t trust the frogs, call me shallow if you like. Anyhoo griffen is already cleared to fire a lot more of our stuff off it’s wings and the 2 seater has been designed to carry out AAR, would make a decent CAS aircraft so could be transfered over to RAF if and when the 35C’s arrived, smack in the thrust vectored EJ200 and there’s a 2 plane fleet with a common engine. BAe used to have an agreement with SAAB, get round the table again and if anything go for final assembly in the UK, better than a smack inthe face with a wet kipper.
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@Dave
“The J35 project has been a dog from start to finish. It will be ridiculously expensive per aircraft and technical problems seemingly arive every day. What concerns me is this focus on stealth where to the non-technical eye surely most of this will go when a useful bomb load is added externally? And can the J35 be considered an air superiority fighter?”
“If we stay with CATOBAR, why not look to work with the French on a Rafale enhancement – maybe with AESA radar, EJ200 engines with thrust vectoring and stealth enhancements deriving from UCAV work – Boeing are able to make the 70s era Eagle and Hornet stealthier.”
First, you are contradicting yourself. Rafale is no air-superiority fighter either. What is required is an multirole attack-fighter having a carrier capable variant.
For the record: we have air-superiority fighters in abundance, we have actually more than we require to ditch sub-peer adversaries.
If we compare the A2-A-capabilities, the question is not, if the F-35B or C is more maneuverable than a Rafale or Typhoon. The question is, who kills it’s adversary first in an all-out A2A-engagement.
Low Observability, not ‘stealth’ is the game in town. Stealth is just a reduction of radar signature, but any other emission of an aircraft needs to be reduced, too. Rafale is one and a half decade backwards in terms of sensor-fusion, which is the main part of LO.
@all
In general I tend to think, that it really doens’t matter what version. We will once end with an F-35A+B + UCAV fleet or a F-35C + UCAV fleet.
I like the Bravo a lot, as it would not only provide a carrier capability more or less regardless the platform. It would also improve our capability to operate in adverse expeditionary environments using make-shift runways.
When we finally need to look for a Typhoon-replacement, I’m quite sure the whole air-superiority-game has changed.
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Landing an f35 at sea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17238393
x there doing a life extension on about 300 f16s. But the us is still buying several hundred f35s by 2017 not the 400 odd initial planned mind.
F35 has been to 43 000 ft 9g and 20 deg aoa. It has experienced higher than planned buffet in there and some work will be needed prior to further stressing high g aoa conditions are flown probably with a slower build up but it’s about the same as experienced on the early hornet.
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@ Somewhat
I have been thinking similar. But wouldn’t the USN have added a jump to Wasp when she was refitted to trial F35b if they thought one was needed?
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@ Mark
Thanks. Just asking. US defence bloggers bang on like it is raining F15s!!
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“We have the aircraft and pilots all ready to fly them.”
Nobody has flown a Harrier for what 2 years now, and nobody has flown a Sea Harrier for going on 6. And are there even any spares?
I can easily, in fact no, I’d bet the farm that re-generating FA2 would cost a bomb, would take years and years and is already obsolete and pointless and will only be more so once we get a few airframes back into service at considerable cost and expense, not only to the wallet, but the other RAF operations that would suffer to bring on line a dozen, obsolescent little fighters.
It’s drivel to talk of bringing them back. They’re gone folks. They weren’t enormous cop when they were around and they’d be less cop in 10 years time.
LIVE IN THE NOW!!
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“US defence bloggers bang on like it is raining F15s!”
The US desperately needs new air frames. The F15s are creaking and have big fatigue problems, as do huge numbers of F16s.
Whatever they end up being, the USAF needs new planes. Badly.
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Like the early hornet? Now that worries me.
My guess would be most countries would wait a while more to see if there is any development on the F-35, while doing upgrades on the side, like the Viper mod to the F-16 and the SE mod for the F-15 as backup just in case LM drops the timetable ball again. And again. And again.
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They will bang on about f15 and f18 because Boeing make it. F35 was never meant to replace f15 the f22 was. The us are looking at a next generation air dominiance a/c around 2025 time line as both Boeing and the us services expect the teen series to become obsolete from that time frame. They need to close the 2015 expect end of legacy production to 2025 that’s what Boeings attempting nothing more.
Why would that worry you? This is a very common problem on fighters particularly twin tails it mainly effects the vertical stabilisers and is usually linked into some tail strengthening or some simple methods to help flow separation on the main wing and flight software tweaks as this can excite the problem depending of structural resonance freq.
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Phil
If the UK got 8 F-35B in 2016 + another 4 early 2017, it would not be the end of the world.
I doubt the SHAR F/A2 would make a comeback now, but iy is a shame the 16 new build from 1996 were not kept in service, using the 1980s grounded planes for spares. Copy the Indians & use water injection rather than a new engine, then swap the heavy Amraam for the lighter Derby.
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Hi McZ,
RE: sensor fusion on Rafale. the Swiss seem to differ with you, after their evaluation (being the Swiss, we can trust they were thorough?)
– it is on the first text page of this leaked report http://files.newsnetz.ch/upload//1/2/12332.pdf
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You’re talking about taking around 33% of the F35B production up to 2017 and giving the slots to us. Having 33% of your aircraft diverted somewhere else must have a dramatic effect on your training and development programme which is a critical phase, the effects of which would cascade right down through the programme.
I can’t see the US being very receptive to such a relatively dramatic diversion of production slots at such cost to their training and evaluation effort.
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Phil
There is enough production slots available over and above what the US has ordered we could buy those slots and get f35b in those numbers I wouldn’t do it but it is possible.
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Phil
As they are scared we will not buy any F-35, I think production slots would be found if we wanted them. Remember production rates were planned to be much higher by then anyway.
The Yanks are pushing hard for F-35 exports or they would not have sold them to Australia & Japan.
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@ Phil – Not that i am a fan of the idea but the UK was slated in to get more production slots for F35 B up until just over a year ago. What happened to these slots bearing in mind the US has already announced slower purchase levels.
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If we look at both the F15 Silent Eagle and F18 Super Hornet, both have low observability enhancements over their original 1970s designs. Is it too much to think BAe/Dassault couldn’t make similar enhancements to a generation on aircraft where so low observation characteristics were included? Whilst clearly not officially created there are images around of designs were the Rafale has received some ‘stealthy’ angling of its airframe for example the air intakes etc.
As an air to air fighter I think it either evenly matches the F35C at least if they got into a dogfight whilst a number of munitions are already incorporated.
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Going back to the point about F35C being more costly in terms of training. Does anyone have any hard facts on the cost of maintaing a naval aviator verses an airforce pilot? The only information I can find from the US says its more expensive to train naval aviators but the more intensive training and strickter selection process leads to pilots spending longer with the service. The net effect canceling out the higher traing cost. With a smaller budget like that of the UK’s it would be great if all our pilots and aircraft could operate both from the Sea and land bases. I would really love to know what the extra cost is. I know naval pilots will need traing in carrier landings however its not like airforce pilots don’t do a lot of traing themselves.
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Woh, woh, woh! According to ACC’s link inthe Swiss trials the Rafale beat the Typhoon at strike, recon, AND air to air! The only criticism the Swiss pilots had was it didn’t come with a helmet mounted sight.
They liked Typhoon for its supercruise and the only thing they liked about the Grippen was its EW ability.
The F-18 was twined engined; do the Swiss have a bias for two engines over one?
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@ martin – “With a smaller budget like that of the UK’s it would be great if all our pilots and aircraft could operate both from the Sea and land bases. I would really love to know what the extra cost is. I know naval pilots will need traing in carrier landings however its not like airforce pilots don’t do a lot of traing themselves.” – You would have thought so wouldn’t you? However, the last time RAF “swing-role” CATOBAR squadrons were suggested (1960’s/70’s) the RAF hated the idea so much they actually got their Phantom’s carrier landing capability removed before delivery, at extra cost, just so they couldn’t operate of carriers.
The Joint Force Harrier was more successful (but I have heard the RAF personel did complain about long stints at sea). However, STOVL does make carrier landings easier.
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The leaked (Swiss) report is a fun read as normally you get to read about what the plane is good for from pieces that have relied heavily on manufacturer’s input
And before anyone asks how come Gripen got selected; that report covers only the pilot’s view (60% weight in the total criteria):
1. operationelle Wirksamkeit (60 %)
– Luft-Luft (50 %) air2air 0.3
– Aufklärung und Luft-Boden (je 20 %) A2G/ recce 0.24
– Wachstumspotential (10 %) future potential 0.06
(to meet the criteria in the future, if not today)
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@ Gareth – I would not be suprised if the RAF did the same again. Not sure why our politicians let the forces behave like children. I don’t think JF harrier was any better as the RAF put it up as a cut to save the Tornado. maybe transfering deep strike role and all F35c to the FAA is the answer.
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It would be easy ” transfering deep strike role and all F35c to the FAA is the answer” doing it now as the current capability is only verging onto deep strike and is more at interdiction level
– then again when we talk about precision strike, it is not just about planes
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@Martin
Rather than continuing the RN/RAF loathing, it’s better to invest in the technological solution alongside the USN. Applying a lot of the technology the UK developed for VAAC and STOVL into Dave C will massively reduce the training burden for carrier operations. Hence you’ve made it possible to truely surge operations onto QEC at short notice, and operate from land the majority of the time to save on airframe life and operating cost.
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F35C represents FAR less risk than the F35B. If for some reason F35C dies (which I am certain it won’t) there are several other CATOBAR a/c options available.
There are precisely NO STOVL options available if F35B goes tits up.
And its far less likely that USN carrier strike is going to be binned than USMC STOVL capability so we know we will have a well supported and developed plane for as long as the USN has super carriers.
People are like teachers, trying to fail the student on the drafts of the work rather than the finished product. And people with no engineering or aerospace knowledge (sorry, reading lots on the internet doesn’t count) cling to whatever negative bit of tittle tattle comes out of the programme when nine times out of ten the problems are not in the slightest bit unique or unusual.
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As for the arguments about cost, speculating on them just produces more heat than light. Doesn’t matter what anyone says someone accuses them of lying or covering things up.
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@ Gareth Jones, I’ve heard other reports that the Rafale is a pilots aircraft, and at 9,500kg carries a big load for its size. Its also compatible with most UK munitions, which will be extended if the French buy the Brimstone. Though they don’t use PavewayIV, they are compatible with earlier Paveway systems. Not sure about ASRAAM, but of course they are getting Meteor and Scalp EG (Storm Shadow)
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@Phil
True about the accusations and counteraccusations.
Also true about the system development problems. Actually what pisses me off the most is the amount of marketting they are doing on a product which is still in testing. It breeds overexpectations and causes long waits which in turn produces impatience and makes the manufacturer look incompetent. It might have been better imagewise to complete the plane, THEN market it. This is hardly limited to planes, if you ever walked into a shop asking to buy X and was told it would only be out in 2 years, what would your reaction be?
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@Observer
But is the marketing in response to the unprecedented level of interest, speculation and analysis (often by half or completely uninformed persons) both in the media and on the internet?
The whole thing has become over politicised. And way over analysed. It’s got to the point where an informed opinion is almost impossible to gain. And then there’s an even more vicious sub-model argument that just adds another layer of hot air and tedium.
The thing is getting built, there are about 19 of them cutting around now, the training and development programme at Eglin and Nellis has either started or is about to be started. In just three or four years there will be more of them than there are F22s and those definitely exist.
It long got past the stage where this thing is more useful as a political weapon than a military one.
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Phil
Agreed there is too much waffle on the internet.
Everyone has their pet ship/plane.
I would not start from here, but this is where we are.
We need to figure an affordable, realistic solution to the mess the UK has got tangled in over CVF.
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@ Phil – I agree about all the speculation. Imagine what would have happened if the spitfire had undergone the trial by internet that the F35 has had to endure.
The US has enough money to through at this aircraft to make it a success. With the rapid deterioation of there exisitng teen series aircraft F35 is the only game in town. Given their $500 billion dollar a year budget it would seem unlikley to me they would be prepared to get out of the fast jet buisness. I feel very confidnet that F35 will be an excellent aircraft.
I think now that the UK has made the descision to swicth to F35 C we really need to run with it and stop dicking around. Making another switch back to the B variant or F18 should be unthinkable. God only knows how much we have spent on EMLAS.
We can also look for cost saving and interoperbility factors such as replacing E3 with E2d and automatic landing systems so RAF pilots can fly off of the carriers with little extra training cost.
CVF has only tunred into a mess because the government keeps changing the goal posts. These vessels would have come in at £4 billion for two which in my mind for such a large capable vessel is a good deal. Delaying construction for two years added just over £1 billion and now EMLAS and the CATOBAR config are going to add another £1.2 billion. Even at that price though I don’t think its a disaster. We spent £ 4 billion on MRA4 and did not get a single plane. How much has goen on FRES and previous programs.
Our economy will not always be f**ked and we may be able to afford a bigger purchase of F35 C in the 2020’s than we can envisage today. F15 was seen as way to expensive when it first came out. Now it’s seen as a bargin option. No reason why Daves can’t be the same in a decade or two.
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There seems to be an enduring myth around CVF/JCA that it is all those evil politicians fault and it is a theme that the military and civilian leadership is only to happy to promulgate.
I call bullshit
The MoD’s budget has been largely known in advance for decades and for these decades CVF/JCA was escalating quite predictably in cost but what did the MoD choose to do. It initiated that well worn activity of implementing a head/sand interface and hoped for the best.
The decisions made to extend the build time were 100% made by the MoD because they were unable to live within their fixed budget.
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All
Surely we are reaching the stage with this we are with Nellie and Dumbo.
There are F35 junkies for whom it will never be too expensive, to late, and it will always be worth it and waiting for.
There will be those for whom it has become another over budget, over time under-performing joke.
For the record I am in the it seemed to offer serious capability improvement, for a real price that was comparable but bearable too say an upgraded F18. But know I’m very worried I’ve been had.. Camp
Given that:-
Trying to price things like F35 are impossible. But people who pretend to be in the know, or are in the know, quote unit costs in the £150 million – to £200+ Million.
There are similar problems in pricing say an f18 upgrade.
Much of our problems involve the dicking about by our govt.
All these super dooper fighter jet problems have been over time and over budget, and never quite perform as advertised. F18 included.
Rather than slagging everybody off, shall we just see what happens? And assume it will all be F*ckup as usual…..
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@martin
Even with autolanding, which I have severe doubts re practicality on carriers, pilots will still have to train for manual landings. It would be terribly funny and tragic to lose a CAP just because some wrench monkey dropped a spanner into the approach radar and no one knew how to land on a carrier manually. It’s like parachute training. You don’t eject every day from a plane, but when you need to and don’t know how, you’re F**ked. So I don’t see much, if any, training savings in that area.
Oh, I admit the F-35 will be produced. Question is: What’s the end product like? Will it be able to take on J-20s which are it’s most likely competitor? Or conventional fighters once anti-stealth systems become common? These are important questions, and honestly, ones that we don’t have the answers to.
@IXION
The prices quoted are by Lockheed Martin themselves to other governments. The problem comes because they have kept revising cost figures upwards that people no longer trust their estimate. Best we can say is Lockheed believes that it can deliver at that price “at the current time”. (BTW Canada got a 80M per figure quoted at it. May be too optimistic?)
I believe that the biggest problem stems not from the plane itself, but from the company designing it. It’s continual backtracking and excuse making has eroded public trust in them and carried down to cause a lack of trust in the F-35 project as well. Image is very important in a company and the premature marketing hype killed a lot of good will.
@ Phil
Think the hype came after the project announcement when the F-35 was touted as a cheap F-22 for everyone, hence the huge interest. Then after that, report after report of overruns and delays. They should have just held off on the anouncement. In fact, having the first announcement NOW, when in the flight trials phase, is actually more ideal as it skips past all mention of the dreaded “O” word or “D” word, and looks close to being deployed.
You remember your fire and movement drills, 1,2,3, down. Same in the internet. 1,2,3, out into the market. If you do 1,2,3,4,5,6,7… some blogger is going to fill your position with holes.
Internet. It’s worse than war. 😛
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No No and NO!!!! This has to be utter BOLLOCKS…
The Carriers were always designed to be of an “ADAPTABLE” that were designed to be easily converted to enable conventional carrier based fixed wing aircraft to operate from them.
Below are a number of links I have searched in the last 10 minutes. I have noticed that some of the earlier MoD sites that made a big play of the Adaptable design have been closed down. There are still enough sites to prove the point that these bloody things were designed from the outset to be either STOVL OR CATOBAR!!!
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvf1-13.htm
“The ‘adaptable’ CVF design will thus include provisions for the retrofit of catapults and arrestor gear at a later date. Before the main landing deck is laid the necessary systems for steam-catapult launches and arrester-wire landings will be incorporated, so any later rebuild becomes easier and less costly. The ski-jump will be of something of a “bolt on nature”. There will be voids where the cats and arrestor gear would be fitted, and although marked out for STOVL operations the flight deck form will effectively incorporate an angled deck – which could be easily modified in to a landing lane for arrested aircraft landings. If the decision is eventually made to convert the carriers to CTOL type operations (including to support UAV’s or UCAV’s), the CVF’s will return to a dockyard to have their ‘top’ taken off and remodelled during a major refit. A new flight deck will be fitted with catapults, arrestor gear and angled flight deck all in place. The command centres will also need to be be altered, and appropriate provision for this will be incorporated into the initial build.
As a result of Secretary of State’s announcement on 30 September 2002, the baseline design used for planning and budgetary purposes changed from STOVL to a Carrier Variant (CV) based Adaptable Carrier design for the operation of STOVL JSF and rotary wing aircraft for MASC.
While the ‘adaptable’ decision will involve some increase in ship acquisition costs compared with selecting a purely STOVL CVF design, it will safeguard the investment in the two platforms (CVF and JCA). It will also leave the UK well placed to adjust its programme in light of any changes to the USN’s and USMC’s JSF acquisition plans, or a disastrous technical problem or cost over-run associated with the F-35B.
The selected approach terminated the previous twin-track procurement strategy, whereby the CVF IPT has asked BAE Systems and Thales to develop CVF designs specially optimised for STOVL and CV air groups. In effect, the decision to adopt a future proofed ‘adaptable’ design has de-coupled the carrier platform from the choice of JCA, resolving an obvious paradox: that a carrier optimised purely for fixed-wing STOVL and rotary-wing operations would clearly lack the flexibility “to be able to operate the largest possible range of aircraft in the widest range of roles”. “
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/cvf/
CVF hull
The Maritime Group at QinetiQ have developed a suite of advanced modelling and simulation programmes that are being used by the QinetiQ and DPA teams with BAE Systems and the major contractors to characterise the hull, flight deck, hangar deck, internal carrier design and other features.
The hull designs are being planned for a 50-year service life and are currently being configured with a ski ramp for short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) operations. The carrier’s service life is substantially longer than the 20-year service life of the selected F-35 STOVL carrier aircraft. The DPA has decided the carriers will be upgradeable to a conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) design, so the option will be available to operate conventional maritime aircraft. The hull will be nine-decks deep plus the flight deck. Corus will supply the over 80,000t of steel plating required for the two ships at an estimated value of £65m.
A number of protective measures such as side armour and armoured bulkheads proposed by industrial bid teams have been deleted from the design in order to comply with cost limitations.
From current MOD CVF Page
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Ships/Future-Ships/Queen-Elizabeth-Class/Design
The carriers have undergone a lengthy gestation period (more than a decade) and numerous design changes before the vessels were ordered in 2008 to accommodate the jump jet version of the F35 Lightning II. But in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review the plug was pulled on the expensive and less potent jump jet Lightning II in favour of a traditional carrier version requiring ‘cats and traps’ – and that meant redesigning the flight deck.
http://www.armedforces.co.uk/navy/listings/l0012.html
note: Some of the innovations in the design include:
• First adaptable design that, while configured to operate STOVL aircraft, can be altered later in its projected 40-50 year service life to accommodate catapults and arrestor gear to fly conventional CV (Carrier Variant) aircraft;
Right, that’s cleared that one up then. It should NOT be costing a fortune to convert to a CATOBAR design, certainly NOT the PoW as it hasn’t been constructed yet, so can be built as a CATOBAR from the outset!!!
Now for the JCA/F35 bit. As you know I have never been a fan of the F35. The whole programme has been one gross US over-hype. It has stifled, no killed off any European next generation fighter development. Fuck me it’s even killed off the existing Typhoon development. For what?
An OVER-Hyped, OVER-Priced and OVER-due and hopefully NOT OVER-here pile of crock!!!
Of all of the versions, the B variant was the weakest. IMHO it is deficient in so many ways (Range, Payload, Bring Back Payload, Agility). I am still of the opinion that the downwash issues may still prove to be unsolvable, or at least will severely restrict where it can operate from.
The switch to the C version was sensible, A. as it was the lesser of the two evils, but more importantly gave us options i.e. F18s or Rafale. Hey, we could even grow a pair and build our own carrier based aircraft (using much of the Typhoon technology – engine, avionics etc.)
This has to be a wind-up, to switch to that flying brick will be the biggest cock-up the MoD has ever made and that’s saying something.
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Hi Phil,
A good piece on the carrier design proofing
RE “Right, that’s cleared that one up then. It should NOT be costing a fortune to convert to a CATOBAR design, certainly NOT the PoW as it hasn’t been constructed yet, so can be built as a CATOBAR from the outset!!!”
– what you missed dout on (before coming to the strong conclusion) was EMALS vs. steam catapults
– Beedall’s site deals with the incorporated options for upping the power (should that prove a problem) so that shoots down the argument that Aussie Johnno has made (perfectly logically) several times
– but overall, putting in steam catapults or EMALS at a late stage are not 1:1 as for what changes are forced into the design, and deck arrangement at various levels
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As far as I can remember EMALS was the only way the carrier was ever going to reach a CATOBAR capability. Very difficult to put a steam catapult in a vessel that does not make steam. It’s all speculation at this stage about how much it will cost. However it it is as reported £1.2billion per vessel bearing in mind construction cost for POW is just under £ 1 billion that would be very dissapointing.
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As everyone has pointed out the F35 programme is drawing a lot of criticism. It’s actually only right that a review be carried out irrespective of whether a decision in PR12 might or might not be taken. The review will probably encompass every option from cancelling the whole thing outright to full CATOBAR and everything in between. The common sense result of such a review should be to continue the current plan, but with revisions here and there, decisions made for future procurement and force structure, etc. Nothing should be excluded.
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Martin, I’m sure the Nimitz class would agree that running a steam cat with nuclear power is hard… not.
With a large supply of electricity, it’s actually easier to desalinate the water needed for the catapult, and heating it too, and one thing nuclear reactors produce in abundence is electricity. I doubt that the Kitty Hawk pipes steam from it’s own turbines for the cat, more likely for the system to have it’s own supply of water and heated on the spot.
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Meeting of partners took place in Canada last friday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/03/lockheed-fighter-idUSL2E8E2CLL20120303
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@ Observer – The Kitty Hawk used 8 steam boilers and was propelled by steam turbines. Steam is a by product of the Nuclear Reactors on board a nimitz class. The Queen Elizabeth Class is powered by a gas turbine supplying electricity to electric motors. This means that the ship would have to use electricity to boil enough water to power the cats or else use another fuel source which would potnetially be dangerous. In addition space would have to be found on board for all the extra boilers and tubing. Very expensive and not something the QE was designed with in mind although the French design PA2 was suppose to incorporate this.
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@Observer: with a nuclear reactor it’s certainly easy to get the steam for a cat shot (all 600kg!). But the associated high pressure steam piping was considered a damage control hazard, the cat’s required a lot of maintenance, and the inability to regulate a shot during firing was a major disadvantage for airframe life, hence the USS Ford having no provision for steam cats. The CVF fall back was to fit an auxiliary boiler for the cats alone I believe.
Of course, Top Gun 2 won’t be the same without the steam blowing across the deck..
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There is also a difference in the time needed to get back to “full charge” between steam and EMALS, not to mention bigger throw-weight for EMALS and the regulated acceleration to spare the airframes for longer (landing is still a very violent coming-to-halt)
– ie. how fast you can get a strike package up makes quite a difference in available fuel (and evens out the differences between planes on the same mission)
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@martin
Sorry read your intention backwards from your original post.
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@wf
There was a 2??..
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@Observer: supposedly Cruise is onboard now. Perhaps he can be officially gay for this one 🙂
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So when TG3 comes out, we’d have a 50 year old piloting an F-35. 🙂
wf, he broke up with Nicole Kidman. He’s officially gay. 😛
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WF, “Of course, Top Gun 2 won’t be the same without the steam blowing across the deck.”
….we could always fit a dry ice machine for effect!
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The U.K. is reconsidering its 2010 decision not to buy Lockheed (LMT) Martin Corp.’s F-35B jet, said U.S. Navy Vice Admiral David Venlet, program manager for the Joint Strike Fighter.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-09/u-k-reviewing-lockheed-s-f-35b-model-u-s-official-says-1-.html
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Mark, with some research done and costings any potential problems of switching to Cats and Traps now more apparent; as well as the progress made with the B variant. I argue that it would be a dereliction of duty for HMG not to make a final assessment of all options prior to any binding deciduous/spending commitments.
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APAS
I agree with that BUT and its a big but they’re bold statements about a complete change of a/c type should not then have been made and as an aside image this was an a/c being designed by the uk this flip flopping of fundamental design changes is what drives prices up, we’re very luck this is such a wide program that we have this luxury. This will open the whole harrier debate up again.
Further comments by the admiral
http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/08/f-35-program-head-expresses-great-confidence-in-stealth-senso/
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Mark, The statement we were definitely changing horses in mid stream to the c variant was possibly a mistake but it could not be covered up as the research into cats and traps conversion would be noticed. Nobody from HMG as far as i am aware has said anything official about changing back so at least from a PR outlook this is being handled better.
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It does not get any better: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9139029/Cost-of-refitting-Royal-Navy-aircraft-carrier-trebles.html
There is part of me that has done the Whitehall battles and empathises with those good-hearted people who find themselves making practical decisions about the way forward, in the absence of political direction.
And then there is part of me that is a taxpayer, and supportive of all 3 of our forces, and that is really fucking angry with this total shambles our politicians created.
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James, do you think it is rather too convenient to blame the politicians though. Have those in uniform no culpability whatsoever?
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Telegraph must have a source for this, the statement is so specific ” Mr Hammond’s decision, expected at the end of this month”
However, at the end of the article they’ve printed the $90 a piece, so some of it has been written on the hoof, just to fill in around one new piece of information (calculator job on the budget allowance, divided since long abandoned intention as for numbers?)
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Surely the decision will be made as part of this time table (Guardian, of today) “Cameron and Osborne, who fly to Washington on Tuesday for a three-day visit to the US, are due to hold a telephone “quad” discussion with Clegg and Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, on their return to Britain on Friday. The ministers will then hold their final meeting on Monday, 48 hours before the chancellor delivers his third budget.”
– gives ten days for writing up the rationale, for the announcement
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Partner nations will formally meet in Australia this week to discuss purchase and production. So I’m sure if it will either leak or be announced.
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@ ACC/all
I think more than a bit of it maybe slightly off and made on the hoof. AS for the news itself i can only find mention of it in the Telegraph and Guardian, those to great bastions of defence reporting. For the cost its self I was always under the impression that the cost of retrofitting 1 carrier was about somewhere between £900m and £1.2/1.3bn (approx $2bn) when Fox was in charge with the emphasis on the higher price. Therefore the cost increase would be £500m not the supposedly 3 times increase.
Indecently IF the original price was supposed to be £500m then £1.8bn is nearer to 4 times the original cost than 3, which surely would be a better headline? Unless of course somebody read the leaked info wrong and its only gone up by £500m.
One thing that has been mentioned in all the current press releases/articles that only certain elements of the carrier strike are being re-evaluated. Since Long lead EMALS sales have been noted, according to the latest USN Paddles monthly publication the flight deck arrangement has been more or less sorted, half of the conversion fund study budget spent AND the big one – the carrier sharing deal with the French signed could it be that we might defer our purchase of F-35 for several years saving money now for later? It is one part of carrier strike package.
If we cut the planned initial buy of 40 to 22 (enlarged OCU squadron and spares only) and differ it a few years the money saved would be about £1.8bn if the conversion cost figure is accurate. Plus the French have offered to loan/lend us some Rafales if we need to bridge the gap?
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TD,
you are right. I would exonerate the SO2s and SO1s and equivalent civil servants who operate within strict parameters. I can understand how ministers make decisions based on briefings and cannot be expected to know the details. In between there are 1, 2 and 3 stars (and equivalent civil servants) who have less excuse to avoid blame. They have oversight of enough detail and their own personal experience on which to make judgements, and also visibility of enough “big picture” to identify the context, but yet relentlessly we get these sort of foul ups.
I also do not excuse the defence industry. Having worked in it for nearly ten years after leaving the Army I know enough to suspect that cost estimation is often inexact, and even when exactly known it is financially convenient to expose those costs only after Whitehall decisions are made. Particularly when you are “on contract” and there are no realistic alternatives.
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@ TD
perhaps it would be fairer to fulminate against “the total fucking shambles our system has created”, rather than politicians, although they remain ultimately responsible.
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MM, it has also been reported in the FT, which has a pretty good track record.
When it appears in the economist you know its a done deal !!
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A quick look into the brand new Maritime Doctrine (only been out for two quarters of a year) has a revealing use of *singular* form all through:
“Beyond standing commitments, the fundamental
operational expression of British maritime power is the Responsive Force Task
[p.3-20 of British Maritime Doctrine]
Group. Centred on the Royal Navy’s very high readiness major surface unit,
either a landing platform helicopter or landing platform dock (or, in future, the
Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier), this task group will be established from
an appropriate mix of very high readiness surface, sub-surface, air and
amphibious forces.”
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How many times were we told theses ships were designed to be converted to cat and traps at some future date. I just don’t understand how its costing as much for the conversion, surely if that was true the plans would already have been laid down and only the added equipment needed (cats and traps etc) should have added to the cost. The extra bit of flight deck on the side, can not cost much more in steel than the deleted ski ramp. It about time BAE, Thales and the Aircraft Carrier Alliance come clean.
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TD
Your probably right about the ft even though they have a gripen as the picture for the story. Can’t wait to hear the politic with the u turn about to happen bet Libya mentioned somewhere in the statement I did wonder were David Brent went when he left the office I guess he joined black adder at mod procurement.
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You guys need to be a bit realistic. At a point a few years ago the design of your carriers was such that you could go either for a ski jump or catapults and wires. You selected the ski jump and the F-35B. From that point all the detailed design work would have concentrated on the ski jump regardless that space and weight (and that is all it would have been)was left to retrofit a catapult and wires at some point in the carriers life. In the circumstances ìt is hardly a surprise that the redesign to actually fit catapults and wires is more expensive than the original estimate.
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@ TD
Found the FT article intresting read
@ All
What happens to the RAF FOAS requiremnet if we dont buy the C? RAF to get F-35a and FAA to get F-35b?
One way or another we will get the carriers I just wish we’d stop d8cking about with them. If the turned into over sized USS Americas that wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing we could probably get some where between 800 to 1000 marines onboard without being in overload conditions
We could even probaly form 2 semi permanant task groups/battle groups (1x Type 45, 2x Type 23/26, 1x CVF, 1x LPD, 1x LSD, 1x RFA 1x SSN) and air wings (12x F-35b, 3x Merlin AEW, 3x Merlin ASW, 10x Junglie Merlin, 4x Chinook, 6x Apache 2x Wildcat)
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I’m with AJ on this one. Situations change and sometimes plans have to change with it. The redesign and repeat work is bound to cause prices to go up, and while it is nice to blame it “on the system”, we got to keep an eye out on WHY they had to change the plans. As it goes, my take on the issue is that the current comedy/tragedy skit is an effect, not the cause. For the cause, you have to look for the reason why they had to redesign.
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@MM, multirole carrier? If you have extra space, I’m more leaning towards increasing capacity and capability in flight ops or fleet C3, not trying to graft amphibious capability onto a carrier, though a “small” heliborne marine contingent might be worth having for boardings and security, just not too much. Fleet carriers should concentate on being fleet carriers and try not to become a second rate LPH, it lacks the landing craft to do it right. Leave the amphibious landings to the Albions.
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If, and it is a BIG if, we revert to F35B you all realise I am going to be completely insufferable with a haughty air of I told you so for some time 🙂
Although my outside bet on a CVF/Rafale swapperoo might still be an option!
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Well… as long as they don’t end up with the F-35D. 🙂
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@Observer
The Multi-role (it gets every where doesn’t it?) carrier was an idea i had before the SDSR as a way to replace ocean and maintain capabilites to a degree
@TD
Agree with the BIG if. Like i said going back to the B throughs up more issuses such as the £1bn FOAS budget
As for your bet i think you could probaly get £2.50 of your £5. I personaly think the F-35c purchase should be pused back a few years and cut with the funds released to pay for CATOBAR conversion of PoW and an interim loan of spare french Rafale M (possibly Super Hornet on a lease and buy back to USN?)to cover the gap especially since the USN F-35c IOC date has been pushed back
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@MM
It’s a good idea in a pinch, it’s just that somehing about using a fleet carrier as an amphibious ship really bugs me. Maybe it’s just the constant idea that carriers are protected assets.
If I had extra space on a carrier, I would have gone for UAV/USVs for ISTAR on the airstrike role. They have the space for the operator modules and it improves their functionality to their core purpose.
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The French have no spare rafale m. It’s was almost like saying we could loan them some typhoon to cover there air defence gap as they’ve only been able to build 110 rafale total so far.
The length of cvf was partly driven by the srvl bolter requirement I believe. This technique however does mean the uk could return a b version at a higher landing weight than the us marines v landing on the America. This could mitigate and further weight growth on the b version if the switch back takes place.
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MM said “We could even probaly form 2 semi permanant task groups/battle groups (1x Type 45, 2x Type 23/26, 1x CVF, 1x LPD, 1x LSD, 1x RFA 1x SSN) and air wings (12x F-35b, 3x Merlin AEW, 3x Merlin ASW, 10x Junglie Merlin, 4x Chinook, 6x Apache 2x Wildcat)”
Look you keeping on talking common sense there will be trouble….. 🙂
For a while now I have thought about CVF more in a supporting role than a US style forward deployable
asset. If the guff in today’s papers is to be believed will we be sitting on the US’s coat tails for a long time to come. Too many here underestimate the utility of the hull itself and concentrate on the pointy fast things far too much. If the UK in support of a coalition (read US adventure) can bring an extra 4 acres of flight deck, hangar facilities, CCC, hospital etc. those attributes aren’t without considerable merit. In that context going back to F35b if it supports USMC operations won’t be a bad thing at all. Isn’t one of the re-occurring themes that we will always work in a coalition? So would it be so bad if CVF turned up with an F35B air group made up of FAA and USMC airframes? I think the USMC would be glad of the opportunity to move FJ operations to another platform if it allowed there rotor craft more room to operate off their LHDs. The next war won’t be fought in a land locked country.
My current hobby horse is the RN being able to sink ships. 12 x F35 with an ASM capability, a flight of Merlin ASW (ASM equipped too), and a flight of ASaC platforms (Italians have their Merlin ASaC flying) would be quite a potent sea control group.
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@Observer
Fully agree with not using a fleet carrier as an amphibious ship, however i think the politicians would be persuaded into thinking that a 65k vessel although fleet carrier size with 12 jump jets is not a fleet carrier and instead is possibly a task group escort carrier and then you mention the cost of an ocean replacement and bang you have a 10k heavier British USS America type vessel and usage.
As for UAV/USV unless they could take off from a ski-jump and either hover-land/or land in the sea and be craned up then all the Drones would have to be VTOL limiting endurance (I suppose you could have a seaplane type UAV launched from EMKIT like WW2 Crusiers but that sort of defeats the cats “n” traps argument).
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Your Uav on such a ship would be of the hummingbird variety.
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Given ever increasing missile ranges is the Merlin’s 4,500m ceiling high enough in the STOVL ASaC role?
The V-22 will go up to 7,600m which gives a greatly expanded horizon. However given that Merlin is nailed on for the ASW role can we justify intoducing another type of airframe just for that?
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Scan eagle can be operated and recovered from a PB. Canadian Frigate operating one as part of a NATO group at moment.
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Scan Eagle information on this post
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/01/learning-lessons-from-libya-isr-and-maritime-land-attack/
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At 4,500M the radar horizon against a sea skimming target is 150NM.
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…
You got a ready made runway that can launch FJs, and you say that the UAV has to be a helo because of lack of runway?…. er… Words fail me…
It’s a UAV, not a 30 ton FJ, you don’t need a jumpramp, and a lot of plane type UAVs recover at sea by crashnet. Or since you already have a runway, land it conventionally. A destroyer can do it, and a carrier designed for aircraft cannot?
Maybe a look at the US Scaneagle might be in order.
USVs I’d agree that they need to be divoted up, but UAVs??!!
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@ Peter Elliot
I mentioned the Italian Merlin ASaC more because it was in the air and not on some CAD screen.
As you say there are other platforms available. I quite like the idea of craning an amphibious UAV over the side but I am slightly eccentric. I think MV22 look spectacular and they are an engineering marvel but I just don’t like them.
As for RaDAR horizons I use this rather crude but effective tool,
http://www.mar-it.de/Radar/Horcalc/horcalc.htm
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In support of my last post, that is when it would physically appear over the horizon and detection range would depend on RCS, atmospherics, radar type and power etc. You can of course station your AEW assets “up threat” to improve range.
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@ Observer re runways and UAVs
I also like the idea of mini-catapults of the type that were found on cruiser and battleships.
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Its a bit off topic but I think the future for AEW is lots of small UAV’s data linked together. Instead of 1 or 2 platforms with high performance radars you have 10 or 20 with lower power radars, much more resilient and able to launch and recover to multiple surface vessels.
Anyway, back on topic
Lets have a straw poll
Who thinks there is a good chance of the switch happening, not should it but will it?
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I’d say B. There is a lot of popular pressure, especially with the sale of the Harriers, for a like replacement.
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I think it will happen. If some sites are to believed (Hello Solomon!) the F35B progress is snow balling. The catapult is so much vapour ware. And I will finish by saying I think the RAF want F35b. I think by the end of the decade Typhoon will be looking old. I think we will have to been to war somewhere far afield where the maritime flank was important and the RAF want to sat relevant. Pilots may be pilots and young, but I think those now flying desks and older are interested more in defending their service.
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One of more twists and turns before these ships turn up. I’ll bet, if this is true, there’s some unhappy navy chappies.
One thing it will be easier to do is add extra pilots and a/c the cost of keeping people current. The cost of keeping enough people cleared to use the F35c would have been very high. It’s much cheaper to use the B for that purpose and keeping a few onboard will be the norm. So keeping the ability to surge and keeping the costs down make sense.
Just thinking outloud, I wonder how much the USMC had an influence in all this? Although being the smallest service, they are said to have the largest clout on the hill. They tend to get things the other services wouldn’t, I wonder how much they pushed for this?
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I’d agree with x, there is much more R&D poured into the B than the C and with more participants, the cost per unit goes down. It is the “safe” option and these few days, it’s all about conservatism.
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I don’t think the RAF were too fussed either way. C gives replacement to GR4, B means Harrier replacement and easier to surge. FAA on the other hand would be disappointed with this move.
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@Top
I’d say VERY hard, they are the ones who need the B variant the most, and if the Harriers aged any more, they’d be left with only helis. The Air Force has F-15/16s and Navy has F-18s to fall back on. The Marines have…. AHs…
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The USMC have got their own F18? But yes they will look on this if true as a helping hand to them.
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The problem I have is that if the B variant is the answer then a 65K tonne carrier is not the question. The B variant would be the answer to 2 or 3 45K tonne LHA(R).
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I vote for more messy fudge.
I expect them to buy 20 F35B to get QE up and running as soon after 2016 as possible. All decisions about POW will be deferred again pending further studies into whether Converteam’s EMCAT might be cheaper to buy and install than EMALS. Consequently a lot more time and effort will be wasted and people still won’t know exactly what’s happening and how best to train for it.
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@ x, thanks for the horcalc site. Very useful.
In terms of future-proofing I think you can’t get too much radar horizon, which is another reason why I personally would stick with CATOBAR over STOVL for both QEC.
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No to the switch, too big a U turn for any government.
If they had not sold the Harriers I think they could have changed as they would have formed an air group from day one.
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Apats said “The problem I have is that if the B variant is the answer then a 65K tonne carrier is not the question. The B variant would be the answer to 2 or 3 45K tonne LHA(R).”
Dude! DUDE! I can’t believe you of all people said that!!! I am so upset with you right now I just can’t tell you. 😉 🙂
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RE ” You can of course station your AEW assets “up threat” to improve range.”
– if you’ll ever have enough, to be able to do that
– I think TD has got it right with lots of networked UAVs (it must have been a decade ago when they trialled this, with the control being with an airborne Seaking, and the benefit being in reaction time (first vectoring detection assets and then allocating interception assets)
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Not to mention the multiple radar angles tend to defeat LO “stealth” measures better.
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Well for them to have a capability they need 2 ships 1 doesn’t work for me. So if they won’t spend the money to convert both ships then they’ll go back to the b now it’s off probation. Theyll claim Libya showed the utility of us amphib groups and need to reintroduce the capability earlier than 2020. Can you have an f35b IOC on qe around 2016 yes depending on what software block your prepared to declare IOC on.
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TD
The Torygraph story is scary.
Feasibility exercise to cost £80mill – for what?
£40mill – 400 man years of designer time at £400 per day contractors rates?
£40mill – BWoS’s profit margin – sorry house and equip them for 3 years?
The whole issue is a scam, organised theft from the working class.
What are the issues?
1) catapult integration into the flight deck?
The flight deck should be 3m thick so it shouldn’t be a biggie.
2) power supply for steam generation / capacitor filling?
More of an issue as the design is underpowered but as always there will be a way.
Industrial kettles – you get them out a catalogue.
Bigger diesels – talk nicely to Wartsila.
All the talk about the QE x 2 is that is all about ship assembly.
Why not build bigger / extra sections to locate the extra kit?
15m extra length shouldn’t be an issue unless the curse of the Warspite / QE (1912) has struck again.
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@ FBOT
I guess its all about attitudes to risk. If it was being done on a wartime / UOR basis then I’m sure it could all be put together for a lot less than the figures being quoted. As we know however UORs can go wrong. Can we afford even a 5% chance of that happening with such a project?
Since these boats cost a fotune anyway and are supposed to last 50 years they have probably gone too far the other way and gold plated every little piece of risk assessement and design detail just to make sure that: “we are not at home to Mr cock-up”
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Items bearing on the topic:
– what’s the point of having the first carrier in sea trials for 4 years (other than having a ready-made crew for the one that would actually have planes on it)
– it is probably the overall RN headcount constraint (and the cost of the crew) that makes the references to the future carrier to be to one, rather than to two
Now, the fudge of the fudges would be to get some B’s for operational trials. Say, swap the two we already have with USMC and order 4 more, to make it six onboard.
– that would give a huge boost to USMC’s own credibility on the Hill (so they would give up some of their slots, and get plenty of those that were already reserved for RAF/FAA a little bit later on
– commit to spend half a bn in this Parliament, rather than the rumoured £ 1.8bn extra
– the real issue is in the slots for A (and by when will anyone be feeling secure enough to place C orders, us included!).Nobody seems to want Block 2 and hence the Canadian and Aussie plans to take delivery of Block 3 are for 2019. Israel and Japan are keen to get to the front of the queue… and so on, we don’t have to be in suspense for too long (as the partner meeting is coming up shortly, and “the lines” were already rehearsed in the Canadian embassy in DC)
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Acc I think 2 or 3 would be enough for trials, 6 would be too many.
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This could all be the normal government smoke screen. Everyones talking about returning to the F35B, so when they announce going down the F/A18, Frogphoon or GripenNG route no ones prepared. It also makes sense if moneys the problem I have seen one estimate that claims buying F/A-18e instead of F-35 saves £10 Billion. More than enough for both ships converted, and the air group with E2 AEW included.
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PE @ 12.58
The MOD / RN are being run by pacifists.
First you make them a laughing stock …
Then you make them useless.
£80mill would get you a 10 yr old second hand Maersk / MSC big boy to bodge as a mild steel prototype.
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X @ 11.54
The 45K ton LHA(R) is history once the USMC work out what they are building in Panama.
They willrobably move to a 40m hull rather than the 32m stuff they have now.
This will totally transform the USMC carriers to something useful rather than the modern day Essex class they have a the moment.
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FBOT of course because nobody in the US military are aware of the ongoing widening of the Panama Canal.
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Hi Topman,
WE have three now, for one type of trials; RE “I think 2 or 3 would be enough for trials, 6 would be too many”
– I was talking about tactical trials: 1. gives the smoke- and -mirrors carrier air, 2. gives a legitimate reason to look at cats&traps again only when these trials are on-going, 3. with all of that on the go, deciding on the extra build costs only in the next Parliament (to be “paid for” by going from four SSBNs to three as the replacement fleet)
The commonality between B & C is high enough to make trying the above on credible, when it is actually all about deferring expenditure (and thereby, capability)
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@ FBOT
I hear what you are saying. We live in an age where chip designers have software that can place millions components and route connections yet a ship takes as long to design now as it did in the early 1900s. We can tank test virtually to a greater extent than ever before. Modern materials, steel cutting apparatus, and welding light years ahead of 1950s. Yet we seem to be no further ahead
for all his tech. HMG is in the business of gathering revenue and spendng it not producing.
For me in some ways CVF shows a failure of imagination and appreciation of “our” situation. I would like have CVF to be a “mega” Cavour. We knew Ocean proved that the UK needed a second LPH and helicopters are expensive. Surely space could have been found for 350 marines (two companies plus a HQ)? Destroyers numbers are shrinking so surely space could have been found for SeaViper? Similarly TLAM has been a feature of every campaign for every 20 years was this considered? (Of course that is a light blue conspiracy! 😉 ) I know the best ships are built for one purpose. But a hull of the size has so much utility why not make use of the space? Look at Cavour and look at CVF there is 30,000t of difference. Or another way surely all those extras I mentioned could have been fitted in the 20,000t difference between CVF and CdeG?
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‘I was talking about tactical trials: 1. gives the smoke- and -mirrors carrier air, 2. gives a legitimate reason to look at cats&traps again only when these trials are on-going, 3. with all of that on the go, deciding on the extra build costs only in the next Parliament (to be “paid for” by going from four SSBNs to three as the replacement fleet)’
‘Tactical trials*’ will be done a lot later, and possible with a lot less input from the UK than normal. We don’t really need that many right now. 3 is enough. I’m nearly always against such ‘smoke and mirrors’ and am still. Either way we need to stick to it, buying more to leave a choice later on would be folly.
By that I take it you mean OEU work?
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TD et al
Some basic stuff on the cat issue –
What are we trying to achieve?
What weight of aircraft?
How many – how quickly – cycle time?
If we are struggling for power to meet the needs of a surge launching session – any thoughts on providing the QE x 2 with a power buddie to supply extra electrical energy as required RAS style?
Is microwave power transmission sci-FI at the moment?
I’m sure Daewoo could rustle up a sprint version of the RAS tanker to do the honours.
No issue if the link falls, just a case the cycle time doubles.
What can the USN achieve with its new sand blasted Nimitz class –
Do they have 2 or 4 catapults?
How does steam compare to the electro unit?
How much steam do they use for what outcome?
What is the scale of a catapult – length / breadth / depth?
Steam vs electro?
Surely adding one to the hangar / flight deck slices / chunks we are building is just a bit of angle iron engineering?
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Hi Topman,
I wasn’t suggesting, just writing down a recipe for the “fudge-of-fudges”, as for “I’m nearly always against such ‘smoke and mirrors’ “
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ACC sorry if I was a bit sharp, I misread your post.
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I would say I’m surprised. But I’m not.
That is all.
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FBOT, Not sure anyone on here has that sort of info, The EMAL catapult is slated for use on The Gerald Ford Class. Interesting article here http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/EMALS-Electro-Magnetic-Launch-for-Carriers-05220/. For a steam catapult you really need to go Nuclear.
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X @ 2.02
We have been here before.
However an £80mill feasibility study is excessive even by recent BWoS / MOD standards – just what are we getting and by whom?
Do we have a spare 200 NA contractors sitting about twiddling their thumbs waiting for the phone to ring / ready to add intellectual power to the needs of the MOD damsel in distress?
Do we have BWoS sitting on 2000m2 of Grade A office space and 50 high end UNIX WS’s waiting for the signal to get up and go?
Just what are we getting for our £80mill?
A fag packet analysis should take 3 months tops.
The longer it takes the more re-work will be required.
The self licking lollipop looms large.
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All PATS @ 2.24
Really how did the JFK + 7 manage to survive so long?
There are catalogues full of industrial steam generating kit.
All it takes is a bit of retained industrial knowledge, a sense of urgency and a desire to sort out issues rather than generating future income streams.
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@FBOT
One of the advantages of EMALS is that it is said to be 25% more powerful than the Nimitz class steam catapult. Broadly they are said to be able to lauch 45T inestead of 35T. Unlike Steam its also more delicate and can be dialled down to launch lightwight UAVs without ripping them apart. The new American carriers are said to have 50% more electical power generation capacity than their installed systems require. This is after providing energy for EMALS and is in order to have juice to spare for future lasers, rail guns etc. That sort of generation capacity’s easier to afford with a Nuclear reactor on board. For QEC it is 2 catapults instead of 4. I’m guessing a couple of extra engines / generators will do the trick. This will however mean more fuel is burned so conventional tanker RAS will be needed more frequently for the CATOBAR version.
One stated advantage of converteam’s EMCAT design (as opposed to the American EMALS) was that it used some of the same equipment set for Arrested Landing as it did for launches. Done right this would be like regenerative braking with the energy from the landing plane being used to charge up the launch system or even feed into the rest of the ship. EMCAT however seems to have gone very quiet since the decision to purchase EMALS was announced.
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FBOT, They had steam turbines! Just not nuclear powered ones. CVF does not produce steam, it produces electricity, also the increased size and piping requirements of going to steam now would make costs of EMAL look tiny.
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@ FBOT
I also look at how well QM2 turned out and how quickly she was designed. Yes before somebody pipes up I know there are all the electronic gubbins to consider. But that aside QM2 propulsion system is just as complicated as CVF. The weights and dimensions of the aircraft are known. It isn’t as if plans of other aircraft aren’t to hand so considerations such as magazines and RAS stations can’t be referenced. I wonder how quickly the actual broad stoke design of CVF took and much that has just been tweeked and fettled in the intervening time. The trouble is the longer there is between design and build the more time there is for other considerations to be taken into account ie. messing about. I am starting to rant.
Some nice pictures of Cavour. For reference CVF is 40m longer and 40m greater in the beam at flight deck level.
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@ Mark/all
Don’t know how reliable the source is but apparently the French wouldn’t mind lending us some Rafales for a short period.
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/132961/france-could-loan-rafales-to-royal-navy.html
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I think we discussed this story when it came out. The bit about Rafale comes across as French wishful thinking to me.
>“If one day we have to lend Rafale Ms to the Royal Navy, why not? Personally, I’d find that very pleasing,” Collet-Billon said.
The bit about the contract for an anti-ship missile should make @x happy.
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Tmm
A sales man trying to sell planes. France has about 120 rafales total they still operating etendards they don’t have the planes to lend. That whole thing was keeping the line going at min production as they don’t really have the cash to maintain the 11 per year there currently building.
As an aside is rafale cleared on emals or any uk weapons holding targeting pods coms ECM or drop tanks?
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@Mark
Just to make it clear, is the French comment from Dassault or from their Air Force? Big difference when an airforce lends planes and when a manufacturer lends planes.
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Lauren Collet-Billon, head of the Direction Generale de l’Armement.
Sounds like a government procurement bod to me.
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Observer
It’s from this organisation “Speaking during and after DGA’s annual results press conference, Collet-Billon and other DGA officials provided details on ongoing armament programs. ” I think this is who buys and sells French hardware abroad. It was not from there airforces
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Exactly, so air force numbers don’t come into the picture, the “possible” leases are coming from their factories.
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They do they’re producing 11 per year you don’t just click your fingers and increase the rate to 13 that a 2-3 year process.. And of that number they need to be m models which is at about 1 or 2 a/c per year. So if you want them early they need to come from the French order currently there. Not Happening.
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2 years to start production on facilities that are already installed but mothballed? Where the hell do you get your figures from? Either that or you should really stop hiring workmen from african tribesmen. And an additional TWO fricking aircaft from your MINIMUM rate of production is considered your MAX rate??!!
You really need to hire staff that are not from Darkest Africa. Those figures are more like reasons to fire someone.
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RE ” if you want them early they need to come from the French order currently there. Not Happening”
Even though I agree, let’s play Devil’s advocate
– the navy needed the air-defence version rushed into service
– those 10 F1s have been sitting in storage for a long time; now there is a decision (and a spec)to bring them upto F3 (multirole)
…so suddenly there is not only the trickle of Ms coming through the production line, but 5 year’s worth of machenes that can be done on the side, quickly
How this would relate to the Indian contract, to ramp up for it… don’t know
– did I read somewhere (maybe just a rumour) that only the first 8 would come out of the French production line?
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“Lets have a straw poll
Who thinks there is a good chance of the switch happening, not should it but will it?”
Until the story came out in the press, I could only hope for such common sense from the MoD as the F-35B is the obvious choice (even if I started off being pro-CATOBAR until persuaded otherwise).
I also think that they got rid of the Harrier’s so sharply as they wanted to make the change back to the F-35B and they wanted to save money by canning the Harrier fleet, and if they had made the change back before now it would be politically difficult to sell off the Harrier’s.
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Given the length of service of other platforms the RAF will have the Typhoon in service up to 2030 and beyond. IF we need a “Day one” attack platform it should be taylored to RN needs even if operated by the RAF. The RAF will also need to ensure any training programme dove tails into the need to operate off the CVF. This will mean the availability to operate the F-35 from land on operations maybe reduced but for any persistent operations the Typhoon should suffice.
Anyway this all is dependant on the economy picking up substantially over the next 3 years to allow the 1% per annum increase as without this eveything positive in the 2010 SDSR is simply a paper exercise, especially the 2015 decision as to whether the second CVF gets Cats etc. The next election is probably going to be fought on home conomic grounds with defence way down the priority list. We are on the same old ground with our aspirations far in excess of our means, just now we don’t commit funding that appears unaffordable
The one hope I see is that when the first carrier is launched to balls up regarding which and how many aircraft it will operate will become to hot a potatoe and will have to be firmly dealt with finally.
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Maybe they should just get on with Carrier 1, leave the ramp on and launch the F35C STOBAR and worry about the catapult later. Surely the F35 can ramp launch with a run up from the aft end? If the Su-33 and Mig-29K can do it…
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@ACC
18, not 8. And I do believe the Dassault slowdown is only temporary, they have firm commitments of almost 100 planes in country and out. Guess they’re trying for a “sustained” production capacity without surging then having to fire people afterwards.
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I wonder if this story is part of the behind the scenes manoeuvring going on right now: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/307674/Fighter-jets-contract-to-boost-jobs
It basically extols why the F-35 is good for the UK economy and has the intriguing sentence “The US is spending 50 billion dollars on the programme and the UK is expected to take 138 of the jets, primarily the F-35C”. Now I strongly suspect a typical journalistic misunderstanding, but I wonder if we may be about to copy the Italian’s and be looking at a split buy. What’s the smallest number of F-35B’s we could get away with to operate off the carrier while leaving the RAF the option of buying F-35C’s to replace the Tornado. I suspect if we still had the desire to buy 138 F-135’s the split might be something like 40-50 B’s and the rest C’s (so around 90 – 100 F-35C’s).
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RAF would be going F-35As I would think? They don’t need to do carrier landings or VTOL
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Scratch that, F-35Cs, they would have to work with carriers… 😦
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I was more thinking that the F-35C’s have a longer range than the F-35B’s, which is key to RAF requirements.
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Observer
It takes 24-36 months to build a plane bits have to come into the production line to go out other end if you were starting the facility from scratch it is considerably longer. You dont increase production over night. No company is going to ramp production labour, tooling ect for a small order of a couple of dozen a/c for that to stop abruptly after 2 years. So by 2020 we should have 20 rafales what we do then? ring up US DOD and say would you mind stopping all your clearing tests for emals at Lakehurst and let us borrow the facility to clear rafale. Then we go to the french navy and say you wouldnt mind stopping your pilot training for a few years we need to clear 30 pilots say about 4 year no bother. Then of course we need to go about clearing raptor pod, paveway 4 brimstone,asraam, and a lightning targeting pod to allow them to integrate with uk logistics. Sure why not that wont cost to much im sure.
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Lockheed Martin Awaits U.K. F-35 Decision
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/asd/2012/03/13/02.xml&headline=Lockheed%20Martin%20Awaits%20U.K.%20F-35%20Decision
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Heres an Intresting article about the projected costs of LRIP 5 aircraft. Apparently the average F-35 cost is just under $200m
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/133433/f_35-unit-cost-tops-%24200m–%3Ci%3E%28updated%29%3C%C2%A7i%3E.html
Also another intresting though that has been brought up on other forums is that we should just build the carriers then put out to tender the fitting of EMALS (some people think that Newport News may be able to fit it cheaper).
Another question was it not only last week that Hammond gave the green light for integrating a whole host of weapons on Typhoon, the Type 26 bought another C-17 and so forth. Maybe if we cut back a bit on that list we could have found the cash to pay for the convertion? Also with quite a few of the weapons going to be integrated onto typhoon could we see a Tornado reduction to help save some money (pay for conversion?)
The onnly thing for certain is that it will probably end up as one hell of a big fudge as per usual with the MOD.
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Just thinking out loud here but I don’t see why the MOD couldn’t do something a bit more radical. Let’s say that the F-35c will cost £90m therefore the first 40 that would be a cost of £3.6bn. However since the IOC date is being pushed back then why don’t we buy some Tranche 3b Typhoons for the RAF? According to wiki the unit cost of a Typhoon 3b is £73m
So we have 40x F-35c @ £3600m
Or
18x Typhoon @ £1314
16x F-35c @ £1440
TOTAL cost = £2754m saving = £846m
The extra 18 Typhoons would allow for 6x 12 plane frontline squadrons, FI flight and a 16 plane OCU/OEU with a 1/3 of the force kept in reserve. Reduce the Tornado force to just 2x 12 plane frontline squadrons and a 16 plane OCU/OEU. The Tornados could then be replaced with F-35c later or stealthy Taranis UCAVs. Allowing the RAF to keep 8 frontline fast jet squadrons medium term.
The 16x F-35c form an 8 plane squadron for carrier trials, 4 spare frames and 4 planes for aircrew/ground crew training.
So 6 planes less than the 40 F-35c order however we have saved somewhere in the region of £850m to £1bn which would pay for the bulk of the CATOBAR conversion costs.
Sorry for more mad ranting guys 🙂
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I still feel that one of the most sensible suggestions on this thread so far has been made by John Hartley (March 2nd)
“In an ideal world, we would not start from here, but this is how I would get out of it.
In 2016, buy a dozen F-35B to operate off Illustrious/Queen Elizabeth. QE also loads up with helicopters to become a sea control/assault carrier.
Then Prince of Wales is fitted with cats & traps, plus at least 20 F-35C to become our sole strike carrier.
QE can always be refitted at a later date if we can afford a new Ocean replacement & the F-35B would transfer to the new assault carrier.”
Wouldn’t the purchase of a small number F-35Bs in the short term and postponing the fitting of “cats and traps” to “Prince of Wales” to a much later date get us out of this mess? I should reduce the cost considerably.
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Kind of what I guessed at 11:48. Trouble is until the POW bit of theplan is properly tied down the uncertaintly will continue.
This will paralyse other decision making (such as on AEW&C platforms) and lead to more time and money being fudged away.
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Seriously, an F35C at the aft end of the old STOVL plan flight deck has a 170m takeoff run. The Kusnetsov has three takeoff spots, the longest of which is 208m, the shortest pair are just 120m. If she can get fully laden Su33’s airborne, why not launch the F35C STOBAR on the old flight deck until the cats are ready/affordable/proven? No harm in a few years of F35C operational experience – even if the payload is limited. Still got an air superiority fighter in clean configuration. It’s an option, surely?
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Well, SI, do we really want to get to the spot they (and the Chinese) are desperately trying to get out of “Chinese ship, like its Russian sister ship Kuznetsov, uses an elevated ramp to help boost planes into the air. Ramp-launch, while less complex than a catapult, doesn’t impart the same amount of energy. That means ramp-launched fighters must be relatively light. The British Harrier, which used a ramp, weighed just 7 tonnes empty. The Su-33 weighs 20 tons *empty*.
In Russian service, the Su-33 has been restricted to short-range patrols carrying just a few air-to-air missiles.”
So, the Russians are changing over to Mig29s and the Chinese are trying to do something with their Su33 copy to solve the weight/ payload problem; more in http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2011/07/15/the-limits-of-chinas-fighter/
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SI, Fat Bloke on Tour will be able to tell us how to weld an extension to the flight deck on to the stern.
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It’s a neat solution to the issue at hand, allowing us to continue with the F35C whilst allowing time to resolve the flight deck design and catapult development issue. It is not ideal, I grant you, but neither is umming and ah-ing about which variant to get. F35C is the preferred variant for both FAA and RAF, is it not? So a STOBAR arrangement would allow a a few years of ops with the aircraft of choice whilst the flight deck issue is resolved.
A very quick canter through a handful of websites suggests the F35A can achieve anything between 93% – 107% thrust to weight ratio (worst case guesstimates). The Mig29K has a similar figure. The best I could do for the Su33 is 83% TWR (Wiki I’m afraid). So the F35A variant, without the larger wings, has a performance figure close to that of the Mig29K.
Let me be clear – it is not a preferred result. But it would get the right aircraft into service at the earliest opportunity. We will have made do without Harriers for nearly 10 years by then; I’m sure we can make use of a lightly loaded F35C for the first few years of conventional carrier ops before we get the catapults and start throwing our weight around.
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The catapult isn’t the problem though it’s the landing which requires the main changes to the flight deck and the additional systems installed and the training effort. F35c has had multiple emals shots already so I don’t see what going stobar achieves.
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Trying to second guess this decision is futile – the government will toss a coin two minutes before the announcement, and one minute later will decide to go best of three.
Following from what Mintcake was saying about a Tornado reduction – how soon could we get the Tornado out of service altogether to save some cash for F35 and QE? This is the government that pulled the plug on MRA and Harrier, surely they’ll ground Tornado as soon as Afghanistan is over. Typhoon alone can cover our basic defensive needs
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Mark @ 9.39
Any info / detail on why the arrestors are the bigger issue than getting the aircraft airborne in the first place?
Would the flight deck need to be strengthened?
What changes to the size and shape of the flight deck would be required?
The arrestors themselves are interchangeable between the plain vanilla in use just now and the upmarket exotic stuff being planned for the “Non Elected President” class.
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As an aside must every GOP ex president get a carrier named after them?
CVN 78 / CVN 79 / CVN 80 – all Republicans.
Surely some naked political bias at work.
Poor JC – what happened to him – and even poorer BC.
Wins two terms and still they refuse to honour him.
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All the stuff I have read about the move to CATOBAR has getting the aircraft airborne as the difficult bit.
Looking at 20MW of installed power.
Looking at a 90m launch trench.
Looking at 4 fancy flywheel energy storage devices – 100MJ + capacity.
All to be able to launch every 50-60 seconds.
One question would you need two separate launch rails to meet the launch rate?
100-120 seconds to get the plane into position and ready to go compared to the energy recharge cycle being half this?
Does all this mean the QE x 2 is underpowered?
72MW of GT prime mover
40MW of Med speed diesel economy power.
Would the loss of 20MW slow the ship by 2 knots?
Would it matter as the launch performance would be so much improved over ramp and steam?
Now what are we spending £80mill on just now?
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BB @ 11.39
How much do we spend on the RAF and how many planes does this amount support?
The unit costs are horrific, huge amounts of money for ever decreasing outputs. Where will it all end?
The Typhoon will end in a whimper, underdeveloped and unloved.
The F35 will end up being so expensive that we will be quantifying them in flights rather than squadrons.
Remind me, how many Harriers did we sell to the US and at what cost?
We buy dear and sell cheap and claim success – who is the fool?
Those who push the lie or those who believe it?
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@Fat Bloke on Tour: I doubt the deck is much of an issue. Installed power and fitting the flywheels somewhere is going to be more of a problem. I understood that there was space for another MT36 turbine in the design..
That being said, the issue may be the F35C’s wind over deck requirement. Supposedly 32 knots, even a small reduction in overall power and hence carrier speed can greatly reduce the usability of the carrier
You never want to have just one catapult. What if it fails?
There is a USS Jimmy Carter already, it’s a Seawolf class SSN
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FBoT @11.55. I think I pointed out sometime ago that the problem with the QE/PoW design is what happens when one of the gas turbines goes U/S. Those 2 G/T’s represent the carriers ability to launch conventional aircraft rather than cruise and mimimally launch Harriers/F-35B and helicopters. That is an a lot of eggs in just 2 baskets.
The more you look at your carrier design, the more you realise that the F-35B was the objective. Look on the bright side, without the cost of cats and traps you might end up with 2 carriers in use.
A future power projection RN, 2 carriers (1 operational; 1 training/refit) 2 LHD’s (replacing Ocean, Argus, the Albion’s), 3 Bays. Doesn’t sound too bad.
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The UK sends India 250M per year which they say they don’t want or need. Problem solved 🙂
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Hi SI,
This “A very quick canter through a handful of websites suggests the F35A can achieve anything between 93% – 107% thrust to weight ratio (worst case guesstimates). The Mig29K has a similar figure. The best I could do for the Su33 is 83% TWR (Wiki I’m afraid). So the F35A variant, without the larger wings, has a performance figure close to that of the Mig29K.” means that we could get them up, but not down (cfr. C’s much larger wing)
– someone (Solomon?) already stated that not since the Crusader has there been a plane that needs to touch the deck at such high residual speed (as the C, A would be much worse)
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Turbines have been mentioned a couple of times now
– there is place for 2! more in the design (Beedal’s site has a good write-up)
Speed and deck wind? Why did the previous RN carriers need to be so fast? Both the ship and the catapults were running on the same steam, so over a full launch cycle you would lose 5 knots (as you don’t want those up already to be burning up the mission fuel)
Also, why did the FAA choose to re-engine the Phantoms in a way that made them slower than the standard issue? Wiki tells us “Re-engined with the more powerful British Rolls-Royce Spey 202 turbofan engines which required an enlarged fuselage but gave more power taking off from smaller carriers” But with all versions, even for the large US carriers, throughout the different versions there was a struggle to find ways to bring the approach speed of such a heave plane down, by various modifications to the design
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Politics, RR were struggling at the time so then Gov gave them a contract to help them out.
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ACC, the problem is not with the carrier’s speed, it’s with the speed of wind over the fighter’s wing, which gives it lift. The slower the airflow, the harder it is for the fighter to climb. Below stall speed? You end up with the world’s most expensive catapult stone. 🙂
Though I doubt it would come to that, but still, more speed = more safety.
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The two “not with the carrier’s speed, it’s with the speed of wind …” somehow related?
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@ACC: fixed wing aircraft take off distance is affected by how much wind there is (Wind Over Deck). On a carrier, the catapult track length and the acceleration is fixed, so you can easily know what velocity the aircraft is at the end of the track: if there is an additional WOD required, it can be gained by either steaming faster or into a wind. Normally, it’s landing WOD that is more critical, especially with the F35B having hard limits on bring back weight: hence all the cobblers about rolling landings to allow the wings to provide some lift for landings.
Not a fan of the B option, because there’s really very little margin even with rolling landings. But then I’m a “buy the F18E/F you fools, the F35 is jam 10 years from now and will probably be so expensive we can never afford it” guy…
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Thanks wf, I was gently trying to get Observer to this ” if there is an additional WOD required, it can be gained by either steaming faster or into a wind. Normally, it’s landing WOD that is more critical” and also there was the earlier part why the bigger wing is important (or rolling them; BTW, do you know if the 17m paid to LM to improve the software in this respect ever produced anything?)
– “steaming faster or into a wind” but running out of steam in the process; that was the historical example… luckily the ships propulsion and the EMALS energy source are not coupled anymore (yes, they are, but there is a storage and recharging buffer)
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ACC @ 7.56
If the solution is so simple why do we need an £80mill feasibility project?
Beedall’s site is a mine of information .
Catobar has been on the agenda for 10 years.
He talks about the design being flexible to accommodate the tech at a later date.
Not quite the dreaded “fitted for not with” but very close.
Consequently why are we now talking about £1.8bill to do the work?
Why are we paying £80mill for a feasibility study?
How much did we pay Corus for 80K tons of structural steel?
Somewhere between £70-90mill plus paint?
How much does it cost to keep workers idle on full pay?
£40mill per thousand per annum including EmpNI?
Just where are these ridiculous costs coming from?
At least DT and Bess wore a mask.
Organised theft from the working class doesn’t do it justice.
At what point will the whole rotten edifice collapse?
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Looking at the power output figures you have to ask why more is needed?
Looking at 110MW installed power – 2x36MW GTs / 2x11MW + 2x8MW med speed diesels.
Feeding 80MW of tractive power – 4x20MW main motors.
Consequently what is the issue if the power demands of the fancy electric cat are in the region of 20MW?
Are the MOD pushing for belt and braces to provide corporate welfare to BWoS ‘s profit margin?
The quicker we sell for scrap and go Maersk the better.
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@ACC
Were you not asking about why carriers were fast?
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Possibly someone mentioned it above, apologies if it’s an old hat comment – the plus side of a switch back to B is with the second carrier. Under current plans the second carrier is to be built and if not sold or scrapped, held pending a spending decision to fit cats and traps which it would need to fly C. However, if there is a reversion to B then the second carrier will be fine as it is initially built and without any extra cost. Switching to B is a big step towards a two carrier navy (on a rotational basis).
Despite the enthusiasm with which the RAF requirements are being debated, I do not think the RAF figures in this decision. My recollection is that the F35 purchase being considered now, irrespective of type, relates to a bare minimum purchase to see at least some aircraft operating from a carrier. I think in the SDSR Dave mentioned a figure of 12 aircraft by 2020. I just can’t see any funding for RAF aircraft until well after then.
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Putting together hundreds of sources, including the Parliamentary Committee sessions, this “My recollection is that the F35 purchase being considered now, irrespective of type, relates to a bare minimum purchase to see at least some aircraft operating from a carrier” is my recollection, too.
– there was one slip of the tongue remark “are you now planning to buy 6” which of course would relate to the readiness figure, but take any multiple and we are somewhere near twenty (initially)
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The takeoff speed is no necessarily a simple question to answer. It depends were and in what configuration and with what safety margin the a/c is operation. As with the range quoted for this a/c it will be calculating with an a/c engine on its last flight prior to major overhaul. But for the benefits of a simple discussion a takeoff speed of 145knts would be a ballpark .
Wf as your a superhornet proponent can you explain why you want an a/c that both the us navy and Boeing believe should be replaced from 2025 especially as we will have no carrier to launch them from until pow is in service in 2020. And to buy 24 basic hornets and support them for 10 years will cost about 4.6b us dollars at 2008 prices.
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Out of interest, if we went with the F-35B, and the RAF got back their £1 billion budget for FOAS, could they get a reasonable replacement for the Tornado by using the FOAS budget to clear Typhoon for conformal tanks and develop an extended range version of Storm Shadow? (would it be Storm-ER Shadow or Storm Shadow-ER 🙂 ?)
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RichardW All the aircraft will be owned by the RAF, same as the Harriers. So don’t be surprised to see that they could now spare 12 etc for the navy
Tubby extended range Storm Shadow, that would be the French Missile de Croisière Naval expected to have a similar range to the Tomahawk.
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Hi Jim,
Presumably Missile de Croisiere Naval is SCALP-N? Would it be air launchable? I heard that we were pursuing our own programme to fit current Storm Shadow with a light weight RR engine which would have extended range over the current kerosene based engine and that we were considering a two way data link, presumably this is all part of SPEAR 2 Block 2?
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@ Tubby, that sort of stuff is beyond block 2. There’s no money for a lot of it, the spear program is pretty wide ranging but a lot of the more ‘outlandish’ stuff will be on the drawing boards still. Any concepts will be paid for by MBDA. Some of the later stuff is so conceptual it hasn’t even got an PT to look after it.
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Tubby said “I heard that we were pursuing our own programme to fit current Storm Shadow with a light weight RR engine which would have extended range over the current kerosene based engine and that we were considering a two way data link,”
Have you a source? How many TLAM could we buy for the budget for that? The money would be better spent on Typhoon SS intergration or even dare I say F35 SS integration? The mind boggles…..
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How many TLAM could we buy for the budget for that?
No-one will have any idea it’s years away if ever to happen.
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@ Topman
It was more of “I can’t believe it” moment than a reasonable request for information.
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@Mark: you and I know the F18E/F is going to be in service until 2040 minimum. It’s costs are fixed (last multiyear USN contract was capex of 5.3B USD for 66 E/F and 58G), it’s running costs are lower than the F35. Saying it’s obselete is nonsense since the majority of USN carrier wings will be composed of the Hornet until 2030, and the Typhoon is probably even more obselete by this standard. We should have made the decision to buy back in 2007
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Plus China is still seeking Russian help with its FJ programmes. It seems air warfare won’t be moving forward by much of the next 15 years.
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Have to agree with WF should buy the F/A18, put Meteor on it for a BVR air to air missile would extend its life and we could possibly sell the missile to the USN.
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Does anyone know if the Meteor will even fit into the smaller internal weapons bay of the F-35B?
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Hi Jim,
There is a prototype, but it is not a funed programme (ASRAAM it will be, to start with)
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…funded …
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wf
Still stands that both the navy and boeing intend to replace it from 2025. There is not point using figures for what the US buys things at. The only way you can get an accurate idea is what they sell them overseas for. That means the 2008 aus deal is baseline. We don’t know what f35s running cost is and we don’t know what the cost of upgrading superhornet is either. We need to order a total super hornet buy now as the line closes in oct 2014 which means long leads most like close end of this year. also adm venlet in the pentagon guarenteed Japan there f35s in 2017 at 121m dollars per a/c this week for what it’s worth.
X as I’ve said if you integrate storm shadow on typhoon you need conformal tanks integrated too. Also remember due to the stunted growth of typhoon ramp up and no reduction in committements typhoon has been averaging about 30hrs per a/c per month and typhoon has a 6000 hr fatigue life. With a 2003 entry and 2006 IOC you can work out when money will need to be spent on typhoon also.
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@mark: agreed re costs. But I’ll bet you that the E/F line closes quite a bit later than Oct 2014 🙂
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Hi Mark/wf,
Even the most ambitious/ parsimonious users of C/D Hornets plan to retire them by 2030. What will be the infrastructure be like for the late additions, from there onwards?
RE ” adm venlet in the pentagon guarenteed Japan there f35s in 2017 at 121m dollars per a/c ”
– more interesting than the price (can be twisted) is the impact on the slots (A is starting to get crowded, the two others will need takers)
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@ACC: who cares about the C/D? We’re talking about the E/F here
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@ Mark
As I said to Topman it was more a “I can’t believe it moment” more than a genuine proposition. I wish had just put “wtf?” now instead of trying to be polite. I will be honest and I say I still struggle to know what will fit onto Typhoon and when or if ever. If SS integration is a long way off and F35 doesn’t get purchased what happens to all those SS? Tornado stays in service? On that time interval it would be like having Lancasters to carry TLAM back in the late 70s……..
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Jim
Think I read in some F-35 bumf, that a version of the Meteor (smaller fins) will fit in the weapons bay of the F-35.
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Hi wf,
I have failed, not once, but more times today in trying to be subtle:
Past 2030, if you are not on a USN carrier, do you think there will be a global infrastructure to support you (like with the F35s)?
– or are you betting on the E/F to sell like C/D, worldwide?
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it wouldn’t be that bad the germans are looking to keep theirs out till 2030. Mind you they like to get full vfm they’ve still got phantoms flying.
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and don’t forget we had shackletons till the 80s 😉
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@ Topman
Ahhh! Yes but the Phantom is a proper aeroplane.
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X
Just for you ive scoured the internet and come up with what seems to be the latest plan. P1E should be the latest software standard on the Jets it was expected at some point last year hopefully Libya didn’t delay its testing. SP12 due this year should add the Paveway 4 capability. SP14 is intending to clear storm shadow, brimstone and start off meteor integration. To allow proper range with 2 storm shadows IMO typhoon needs conformal tanks.
ACC
Lockheed has say 42 slots per year avail on f35 at present. The US are currently taking 31 the rest are available for any variant you like to buy, to take those slots you place an order 2 years before you want a jet. As we progress the slots increase to around 30 per month in the early to mid 2020s.
The road shows in town. I think F35b is probably the biggest engineering achievement since concorde.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/03/london-struck-by-lightning-ii.html
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nothing wrong with the mighty tonka. Yep we got quite a bit of use from them about 30 years, the navy used them for a bit as well.
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Hi Mark,
All those who enthuse about early Tornado retirement should remember this “To allow proper range with 2 storm shadows IMO typhoon needs conformal tanks.”
RE F35 : 42 minus 32 = 11, put in the units for Japan and Israel (they were not there when the Intergovernmental Agreement was made, so they can push past the queue… joke-joke)
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Hi x, only a secondary source, found it here: http://www.vectorsite.net/twcruz_5.html not sure where they got it from
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@ Tubby
Thanks. I am looking at it now.
@ Mark
Thanks too.
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Hi, ACC. With regards to early Tornado retirement, would losing the ability to throw StormShadow at folks for a few years be critical to the nation’s defence?
We’ve taken other capability holidays in order to balance the books. And in this case, sub-launched TLAM could fill at least some of the holes.
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The whole JS F-35 is now so outdated we should in fact scrap the whole deal as by the time the aircraft arrive they will already be obsolete. The whole programme may well be scrapped anyway due to its extreme cost over run and 10 years of delay.
It may be better to look at getting the F-22 Raptor and adapting it for carrier landing – it seems a more than capable option – hell the French have done it with the Rafael.
We need to get the two new carriers built and operational with the latest cat & traps technology sooner than later so we have independent flat top air support capability wherever its required.
The new carriers should be viewed in the same way as the US carriers, as tactical integrated delivery platforms that can be deployed around the globe to support our forces. Have we really learned nothing in the last 30 years from the Falklands war!
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Personally I love the idea of a CATOBAR CVF, unfortunately I think building it as “adaptable” was proof that no-one knew what the hell they were doing.
We should have built jet capable LHD/LHA these would have replaced Vince, Lusty, Ark and Ocean on a one-for-one basis and meant that we didn’t need to replace Albion and Bulwark – cheaper, more effective and mitigates the “egg on face” if F35B got cancelled – change LHA to LHD.
However, the RAF would then have wanted their “long range” strike capability because F35B didn’t have the legs.
One last thing: does anyone know what the F35B mission profile for 450nm (now dropped to <400) actually is? The reason I ask is that I don't really think it offers much more than Harrier II other than stealth, which is pointless in low-level CAS.
Cheers.
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Furthermore, if the UK government want a cheap solution then why isn’t there more talk about STOBAR (STOVL with traps). It’s the EM cats that are expensive not the wires and drives!
This puts us in the same league as Russia, India and China BUT still allows Rafale/F18 to land, be serviced, fueled and probably takeoff with no ordnance.
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