Like a moth to a flame I can’t help returning to this subject but it’s an elephant sized subject is an increasingly small room and therefore what defence themed blog can avoid it? Let’s remind ourselves of defence planning assumptions, so easily overlooked in conversations about sortie rates, being a proper Navy, reach back payloads, tail hooks, cost inflation and [...]
The first international F-35 Lightning II rolls out of the factory on Nov. 20, 2011. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence will use the short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) jet, known as BK-1, for training and operational tests. BK-1 will be delivered in 2012 except of course, it’s the B model, not the C model we have now settled on after [...]
The F35B is making progress on its trial programme and some of the more grandiose claims of its general crapness being slowly knocked off one by one. I still think the F35B is the most sensible and pragmatic choice for the UK for a sustainale aircraft fleet with location flexibility, a lower overall cost across the joint force and we [...]
A guest post from Chris.B In the coming years the F-35 Lightning II is set to become the latest aircraft to take to the skies as a member of the British Armed Services. There have been few defence procurement projects however that have been as much maligned as the tale of this plane. Ok, apart from maybe the Nimrod MR4A. [...]
Another guest post from Gabrielle Typhoon, the numbers The Typhoon programme, numbers and tranche system is not the easiest of things to follow, so I think I’ll start by making some clarity over the numbers first of all. It is worth remembering that, back in the 80s when the programme was being started up, Germany and the UK were planning [...]
In looking at the subject of carrier strike I am setting myself up, if I agree that they are a good idea then I am deluded or if I think they are not a good idea I am simply an RAF stooge unworthy of taking seriously. In much of the debate around carrier strike there is an absence of strategic [...]
As we loom towards the SDSR publication with decisions possibly already made, Scottish politicians are uniting behind it, various English MP’s are uniting behind it, BAe are releasing stories about how much they have already spent and the mainstream media, it would seem, have a series of ‘senior sources in the MoD’ that have as many opinions on the decision [...]
In the Guardian yesterday was a piece from Richard Norton-Taylor, the papers Security Editor, in which he describes how the MoD is planning to add ‘cheaper plans and catapults’ to reduce cost from the F35B. It’s a rehash of the F18/Rafale/F35C story from a few weeks ago and therefore likely complete nonsense, but in the pre SDSR news vacuum any [...]
No other subject, with the possible exceptions of the Ghurkhas and small arms calibres, provokes as much discussion as the Royal Navy’s future carriers and the aircraft that will fly off them. The recent speculation about a possible F18 buy, instead of the planned F35B, has sparked an avalanche of comment. Of course, a cynic might suggest it was a [...]
Whilst the Lockheed Martin F35B STVOL Joint Strike Fighter is the preferred option to fulfil the Joint Combat Aircraft requirements for the RAF and FAA, replacing the Harrier, the door has long been left open for an alternative. But what alternative? There isn’t really an alternative to the STVOL F35B, unless one considers a redesign of the Harrier a worthwhile [...]
Aviation Week are reporting that Denmark’s Ministry of Defence is gearing up to recommend changing the preferred design to fulfill its fighter replacement programme from the Lockheed Martin F35 Joint Strike Fighter to another design, likely the Boeing FA-18E/F. Seismic news, not so much in the impact on production orders or even industrial participation but because it would be the first of [...]
One thing that is absolutely a racing certainty is that weapon system developments will be more expensive and take longer than the various elaborately constructed project plan diagrams, PowerPoint presentations and weighty definitions documents would have you believe. In this respect I am not surprised about the problems with the F35 Joint Strike Fighter; it’s just business as usual, even [...]
It is hard enough trying to follow UK defence acquisition issues without having to understand another but an interesting snippet from the USA might have significant consequences for the UK’s Joint Combat Aircraft (JSF/F35) As part of the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1982, Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Representative David McCurdy (D-OK) included an amendment intended to limit [...]
And pretty soon you are talking serious money. Revisiting the F35B Joint Combat Aircraft and CVF theme, the true costs have which yet to reveal themselves but to date it is a rough estimate that we have either spent or contractually committed to spend about 3 to 4 billion pounds on the two programmes in design effort, materials, studies and [...]
As soon as anyone questions the utility or cost of CVF and JCA it is as if that person has just bludgeoned to death three dozen baby seals, shit in the Queens slippers and suggested that Dijon mustard would be a tasty accompaniment to roast beef. In an ideal world the Royal Navy would have 3, each with a large [...]
Don't miss it - Subscribe by RSS.
Designed by
Copyright © 2012 Think Defence. All rights reserved.