What will the Government buy if the F35 is cancelled?

What will the Government buy if the F35 is cancelled?

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Discussion

IanH755

1,849 posts

119 months

Monday 20th March 2017
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That was the "F35 UK access to software" thread I think.

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Monday 20th March 2017
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What would Corbyn do?

Oh, yes, Tiger Moths...

Useless with weapons, but you can lean out of the cockpit and wave a stern finger at your enemy.

Vitorio

4,296 posts

142 months

Tuesday 21st March 2017
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telecat said:
Trump wants more money in the budget for the F-22 replacement so It looks like the Individual services will be going it alone on the 6th Gen Fighter. The USN meanwhile is tuck with it's original budget.
The F22 was always an airforce party, Navy/Marines never had a use for it, same reason the navy/marines didnt have F-15s


As for the F-35 progress, all the recent scuff with turkey (im dutch... erdogan seems to think im a bosnian-murdering nazi for some reason..) and the fact turkey also got part of the maintenance contract makes me wonder if we shouldnt just buy some eurofighters and be done with it, despite our current commitments, and us already having 2 JSFs

Hayek

8,969 posts

207 months

Tuesday 21st March 2017
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Vitorio said:
The F22 was always an airforce party, Navy/Marines never had a use for it, same reason the navy/marines didnt have F-15s


As for the F-35 progress, all the recent scuff with turkey (im dutch... erdogan seems to think im a bosnian-murdering nazi for some reason..) and the fact turkey also got part of the maintenance contract makes me wonder if we shouldnt just buy some eurofighters and be done with it, despite our current commitments, and us already having 2 JSFs
Eurofighters would need cats and traps yes? From my total lay person perspective I think I'd rather we had gone down this route, and then designed and built our own aircraft in future.

DMN

2,983 posts

138 months

Tuesday 21st March 2017
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Trump is also now on board with the F35. According to the man child its a “great plane" that’s "now in good shape.” He is also claiming he got a reduction in the Lot10 planes, despite every follow-on Lot being cheaper than the last, and the contracts been in place for some time.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/trump-l...

aeropilot

34,299 posts

226 months

Tuesday 21st March 2017
quotequote all
Hayek said:
Vitorio said:
The F22 was always an airforce party, Navy/Marines never had a use for it, same reason the navy/marines didnt have F-15s


As for the F-35 progress, all the recent scuff with turkey (im dutch... erdogan seems to think im a bosnian-murdering nazi for some reason..) and the fact turkey also got part of the maintenance contract makes me wonder if we shouldnt just buy some eurofighters and be done with it, despite our current commitments, and us already having 2 JSFs
Eurofighters would need cats and traps yes?
The Dutch don't have any aircraft carriers and are buying the F-35A version not the B wink
(and yes, EF's or Gripens would have been a much better buy option for the Dutch, as well as a few other European AF's)

Halmyre

11,148 posts

138 months

Tuesday 21st March 2017
quotequote all
Hayek said:
Vitorio said:
The F22 was always an airforce party, Navy/Marines never had a use for it, same reason the navy/marines didnt have F-15s


As for the F-35 progress, all the recent scuff with turkey (im dutch... erdogan seems to think im a bosnian-murdering nazi for some reason..) and the fact turkey also got part of the maintenance contract makes me wonder if we shouldnt just buy some eurofighters and be done with it, despite our current commitments, and us already having 2 JSFs
Eurofighters would need cats and traps yes? From my total lay person perspective I think I'd rather we had gone down this route, and then designed and built our own aircraft in future.
The usual excuse is that it would cost too much to adapt the Typhoon for carrier use; however, the Flying Turd isn't exactly the bargain of the year (and costs are still rising) and when we do get it we need to phone up the Septics everytime we want to do anything more than wash and polish it.

Globs

13,841 posts

230 months

Thursday 23rd March 2017
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I'm not sure the F35 can be cancelled (in answer to the original title).
It's only a plane, L.M. has been making planes for ages so I'm sure nothing can go wrong.

Sure it has teething troubles, but so did Apollo. F35, The jet that ate the Pentagon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTF_a1DuIyE

I personally think Concurrent Engineering is a wonderful idea, instead of spending a fortune in product dev. and then hoping someone buys your stuff, you sell the product first, then make the development testing versions and sell them, then the next prototype gets sold while you get paid to upgrade all the other dud ones you sold previously etc.
Say they want to widen the fuselage - that's going to be for more meaningful when you have to retrofit it to 100 planes you've already sold so the designers have to try extra hard to get it Right First Time. It's the designers version of 'Just-in-Time' warehousing, it's brilliant.

Anyway - Trump managed to get a discount for his part developed F35's so perhaps we can too? The key thing for modern warfare is that they are effective against white Toyota Landcruisers in deserts that perhaps we shouldn't be in; so even if the guns don't work the pilot can hit 'auto-swoop' and fire a tommy gun out of the window. Or drop batches of weapons, car spares, leaflets etc. - whatever it is we do out there to get rid of the evil Assad, the last corner of the trinity of evil with Saddam and Gaddafi and make the world a safer, better place for all those grateful people who lived there.

I mean the F35 rocks, it's not as if we've spent any money on some eurofighter and should buy locally is it? Best for our independent defence to hand all our money immediately to US defense contractors - that's what it's all about.

So no - we'll be buying LOTS of them. What could go wrong?

Ian Lancs

1,126 posts

165 months

Thursday 23rd March 2017
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Globs said:
Anyway - Trump managed to get a discount for his part developed F35's so perhaps we can too?
Did he? Or was it a case of unit cost dropping as project moves on (as was always predicted)

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Thursday 23rd March 2017
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Ian Lancs said:
Globs said:
Anyway - Trump managed to get a discount for his part developed F35's so perhaps we can too?
Did he? Or was it a case of unit cost dropping as project moves on (as was always predicted)
He simply took credit for something that was going to happen anyway

Evanivitch

19,804 posts

121 months

Friday 24th March 2017
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Globs said:
I mean the F35 rocks, it's not as if we've spent any money on some eurofighter and should buy locally is it? Best for our independent defence to hand all our money immediately to US defense contractors - that's what it's all about.

So no - we'll be buying LOTS of them. What could go wrong?
You mean the Eurofighter that we have a 37.5% work share in, as opposed to the 15% of the considerably better selling F35, and a significant part of the software delivered in the UK and a far greater market for UK made ordinances to be marketed too.

Yeah, I think you need to fact check.

Globs

13,841 posts

230 months

Friday 24th March 2017
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Fascinating.

We had Harriers that worked and we scrapped them because we obviously didn't need them.
Replacing them with F35s would be rather perverted.

You need to realise that we have no carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_car...
You also need to realise that the UK - being an Island, is in fact one giant aircraft carrier and anyone who attacks us will be in easy reach.

Seriously - is everyone here completely insane?

Evanivitch

19,804 posts

121 months

Friday 24th March 2017
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Globs said:
We had Harriers that worked
Not really.

RizzoTheRat

25,085 posts

191 months

Friday 24th March 2017
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DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.
Although bizarrely I believe the decision to build carrier with ramps instead of catapults was made before the final decision on whether to buy the B or C variant of the F35. However I think that might be a bit of red herring as I'm not sure how serious anyone ever was on the C as Rolls Royce make the lift fans for the B.

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
Globs said:
Fascinating.

We had Harriers that worked and we scrapped them because we obviously didn't need them.
Replacing them with F35s would be rather perverted.

You need to realise that we have no carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_car...
You also need to realise that the UK - being an Island, is in fact one giant aircraft carrier and anyone who attacks us will be in easy reach.

Seriously - is everyone here completely insane?
Oh no, he's off again rolleyes

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
RizzoTheRat said:
Nanook said:
So you think we should have bought Eurofighters? That aren't carrier capable. To put on our carriers, that aren't being built to accept CATOBAR aircraft, as we've built a STOVL variant?
Although bizarrely I believe the decision to build carrier with ramps instead of catapults was made before the final decision on whether to buy the B or C variant of the F35. However I think that might be a bit of red herring as I'm not sure how serious anyone ever was on the C as Rolls Royce make the lift fans for the B.
The idea was that the construction of the carrier get started, with the design made flexible so the decision to go STOVL or CATOBAR could be made at a later date with minimal incremental cost either way. However, as usual, the Government totally cocked up the contract. When they briefly thought about going for CATOBAR and the F-35C they found that it would require a major rework of the carrier design, and would add several £billion to the cost of each ship - even with General Atomic offering to underwrite any cost overrun on their quote for EMALS. So they were forced down the STOVL and F-35B route.

TheJimi

24,862 posts

242 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
Globs said:
Fascinating.

We had Harriers that worked and we scrapped them because we obviously didn't need them.
Replacing them with F35s would be rather perverted.

You need to realise that we have no carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_car...
You also need to realise that the UK - being an Island, is in fact one giant aircraft carrier and anyone who attacks us will be in easy reach.

Seriously - is everyone here completely insane?
Ignoring the carriers that are currently being built?

and what the actual sodding hell has Britain being an island got to with whether or not we should have a carrier fleet? Does the Navy have a helm installed somewhere on our island that allows it to be sailed to anywhere in the world?

Carriers = force projection

Islands = not that

fk me. banghead

Edited by TheJimi on Friday 24th March 11:02

Trevatanus

11,109 posts

149 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
Globs said:
We had Harriers that worked and we scrapped them because we obviously didn't need them.
Replacing them with F35s would be rather perverted.
I thought we could not afford them?

aeropilot

34,299 posts

226 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
Trevatanus said:
Globs said:
We had Harriers that worked and we scrapped them because we obviously didn't need them.
Replacing them with F35s would be rather perverted.
I thought we could not afford them?
Not exactly.
We were going to be binning them anyway (as buying F-35B) so the decision was just made to bin them earlier than their original projected OSD (on the grounds that that would save some money which it never really does, as capability gaps always end up costing more, but its classic modern Govt shorterm-ism)


Evanivitch

19,804 posts

121 months

Friday 24th March 2017
quotequote all
Trevatanus said:
I thought we could not afford them?
Some reports it was Harrier or Tonka fleet, not both.

Tonkas have done spectacularly in recent years so probably the right choice. Cyprus has proven to be a rather useful Mediterranean aircraft carrier.