Tag: RAF
The Future of the RAF 19 – Vertical Lift #04 (A Radical Future)
In the previous post I came to the conclusion that the future of rotary lift was pretty much as planned by the MoD, Merlin utility to CHF, more Chinook/upgrades for the RAF, upgraded Puma’s, Merlin HM2 upgrade, Wildcat and a big question mark over the Sea Kings. As I noted, for this to work, the [...]
The Future of the RAF 18 – Vertical Lift #03 (A Sensible Future)
As with other posts on the subject, I have lumped this one in the RAF section for convenience, I think one commenter made the point that it would have been better to bases these series of posts on capabilities rather than services and this is a very god point but at this stage I want [...]
Simply Not Good Enough
Tribes of Amazonian indians as yet untouched by western civilisation will probably still have heard of the adverse press the RAF and MoD are getting about Typhoon. And rightly so, whatever the capabilities of the Typhoon, and lets be absolutely certain here, they are significant, the programme has been a complete cake and arse party In [...]
RAF Sentinel on Operational Ellamy
A great video on a soon to be withdrawn system. No doubt this is part of a concerted effort to stop the SDSR mandated withdrawal of this brilliant system, either that or it is an unofficial sales pitch. Next to MRA4, this was the SDSR’s most inexplicable decision.
RAF Squadron Manning
In an effort to provide more fact based information on which to discuss, a contributor has sent me this. A fictional and relatively small RAF fast jet Sqn is equipped and manned as below. I have tried to keep everything as simple as possible in order to keep this as short and clear for non-military [...]
A Fact Lite Factbox on Typhoon
In an effort to keep its readers educated Andy Bloxham has written a fact box article on the Typhoon. It starts by calling the Tornado the RAF’s workhouse jet, a simple typing error of course, but things don’t get any better after that. The article states that Typhoon; Has a wing span of 37ft, [...]
The Future of the RAF 17 – Vertical Lift #02 (Basic Requirements)
When considering what type of equipment or organisational structures are relevant to the future vertical lift (including attack) the first step is to look at basic requirements. Be it weight class, mission, payload or other factors there are clearly different types. One size does not and cannot fit all. This is where an interesting discussion [...]
The Future of the RAF 16 – Vertical Lift #01 (Introduction)
Helicopters are noisy, expensive to buy, fuel inefficient, poor at altitude, difficult to fly, slow, don’t lift much, have very short range and quite ridiculous maintenance requirements yet we put up with all their foibles for two simple reasons, they can go places and do things other aircraft cannot. Being able to deliver and retrieve [...]
A spare £3.47 and an IOU for MPA’s ? What shall we buy then…
Jed’s previous post on sensible alternatives to the Nimrod in light of rumours of a spare billion pounds being found down the back of the MoD’s sofa generated some interesting debate but I still find the very notion of getting back into the proper MPA business after spunking £4billion up the wall on MRA4 and [...]
A spare billion for MPA’s ? What shall we buy then…..
With all the rumour around at the moment about a spare billion being spirited from somewhere, I just thought we should have a little look at some of the possible alternatives for a new Maritime Patrol Aircraft. Just to provoke debate, I thought we could split this into high, medium and low risk. I suppose [...]
The Future of the RAF 15 – Tactical Transport
Tactical transport typically involves moving stores, personnel, equipment and vehicles from an established airhead to a forward operating location and is usually characterised by a combination of short ranges, outsize payloads, defensive aids, low level flight profiles and the use of unprepared or austere landing locations. They might also be used for air drop delivery [...]
A400 News and Updates
EADS and Airbus Military have reported to have made yet more progress on an agreement with OCCAR. EADS and Airbus welcome the conclusion of negotiations with OCCAR and the seven A400M launch customer nations. The agreement, finalised today in Toulouse in the presence of the French Defence Minister Hervé Morin, the national armament directors and [...]
Recent Comments