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
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?
B*gger. Just realised the logical impossibility of this without catapults. Grr.
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….
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.
TD please scratch the first sentence. TMI.
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????
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
‘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?
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.
“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.
Fair one Ace
‘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.
@Solomon: I agree with your F35C point.
Regarding compatibility, a CATOBAR carrier is compatible with everything, including CTOL aircraft.
Just buy F18, you idiots
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.
‘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?
‘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?
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.
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.
‘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.
“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.
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?
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.
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.”
@Peter
Get him a robe.. cough..sorry, auxillary multipurpose weather protection device and intergrated floor cleaner.
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.
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.
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….
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…..?
Hi Mike R,
pp.59-61 has your conversion plan in rough outline
http://www.nrac.navy.mil/docs/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
@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”
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?
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?
@ Obs
I know the arguments. But do they actually stand testing?
@ Jedi
FOAS = TLAM
@ 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.
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.
@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.
@ Obs
I am going to leave it. I am going to end up going down a rabbit hole over this.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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