What will the Government buy if the F35 is cancelled?

[Mojocvh]

Tango13 said:

Basically build a Super Harrier in the same way the Pentagon bought Super Hornets? Be gone from here with your straight forward, joined up, coherent thinking!!

If Whitehall were to tell BAe that we need X number of all new Harriers of Y weight/drag/payload/range etc and we will pay Z million pounds, any cost over runs/weight gain etc are your problem and we want them by Christmas then I think we would get a very, very good aircraft.

BUT

BAe will do the sums for a quantity of aircraft and Whitehall will order half which will then screw up the R&D budget.

The MOD will move the goalposts regarding what they need from the aircraft twice a week apart from any week with a Bank Holiday when it will happen three times. This will delay the delivery to the point that the carriers will have long since rusted away.

EFA

Anyway the plan IS to sell off the carriers. Why would they build them without aircraft, crazy, just crazy....

[MartG]

Hooli said:

The Don of Croy said:

Go back to Buccaneers - get Blackburn Aircraft out of mothballs and just do it.

If the ships were CATOBAR converted, then this would be ideal. There was nothing aerodynamically wrong with the Bucc for its role, just the airframes were old & tired, and renewing their avionics would also have been expensive - there's also the 'man maths' aspect of MOD wanting new shiny planes, even if the new design doesn't actually carry out its task any better than the old one. I can easily imagine a Bucc updated with composite structure, new engines, new avionics, and maybe a few tweaks to reduce radar cross section ( e.g. revised engine inlets, and a bit of RAM in strategic places ) doing a very good job indeed.

Max_Torque said:

So, hypothetically speaking, how good would a re-imagined Harrier for te 21st century actually be?

If you took the GR.9 as a starting point, with forward fuselage based on the FA.2 with a newer multimode radar but also including GR.9-style ground attack sensors/avionics, then I suspect it could be very good indeed. Initially you'd probably still just have the Mk107 Pegasus engine, as no development has been done on it since it ceased production in 2008, but engine technology has moved on a bit since then so some improvements could probably be made.

[Hooli]

MartG said:

Hooli said:

The Don of Croy said:

Go back to Buccaneers - get Blackburn Aircraft out of mothballs and just do it.

If the ships were CATOBAR converted, then this would be ideal. There was nothing aerodynamically wrong with the Bucc for its role, just the airframes were old & tired, and renewing their avionics would also have been expensive - there's also the 'man maths' aspect of MOD wanting new shiny planes, even if the new design doesn't actually carry out its task any better than the old one. I can easily imagine a Bucc updated with composite structure, new engines, new avionics, and maybe a few tweaks to reduce radar cross section ( e.g. revised engine inlets, and a bit of RAM in strategic places ) doing a very good job indeed.

Basicly - if it looks right, it is right

MartG said:

Max_Torque said:

So, hypothetically speaking, how good would a re-imagined Harrier for te 21st century actually be?

If you took the GR.9 as a starting point, with forward fuselage based on the FA.2 with a newer multimode radar but also including GR.9-style ground attack sensors/avionics, then I suspect it could be very good indeed. Initially you'd probably still just have the Mk107 Pegasus engine, as no development has been done on it since it ceased production in 2008, but engine technology has moved on a bit since then so some improvements could probably be made.

What was that supersonic version that never got built? P1127? Sounds a good starting point.

[tdm34]

Hooli said:

What was that supersonic version that never got built? P1127? Sounds a good starting point.

Iirc it was the P1154, the P1127 was the Kestrel

[motomk]

This was on recently on the tv down here, as Oz is buying them too.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/02/18/...

Edited by motomk on Sunday 17th March 09:46

[aeropilot]

Z06George said:

I take it they fixed the arrestor hook problem on the "C" then?

New design is currently being tested, but it still has issues.


In the recently released DOT&E report on 2012 F-35 testing and development it says:-

Carrier capability is currently nonexistent: the F-35C is therefore unable to perform carrier-based missions for which it was designed.

• Arresting hook: not operational could not catch the cable and had to be entirely redesigned. A basic design issue is that the distance between the F-35Cs main landing gear (MLG) and the tail hook is too short, providing insufficient time after passage of the main wheels over the wire for it to bounce up and be snagged by the hook. The new hook, with a sharper point, is now being tested on an arresting cable-equipped runway simulating a carrier deck. Unfortunately, these tests have been less than fully successful. In addition, the situation has now morphed into a systems engineering issue in that a recent study shows â higher than predicted loads (39) being passed from the hook to the airframe. Will further cracking soon occur in key support frames to which the hook system is attached, requiring additional redesign of basic structure and adding yet more weight?

[Z06George]

Well that doesn't sound too promising. Whilst I'm no designer/engineer I would have thought with the amount of navy jets America has produced that getting such a vital thing as the arrestor hook right to be pretty simple.

[TheLastPost]

Previous said:

...we should buy lots and lots of microlights.

You are Bob Diemert AICMFP.

[MartG]

Z06George said:

Whilst I'm no designer/engineer I would have thought with the amount of navy jets America has produced that getting such a vital thing as the arrestor hook right to be pretty simple.

It could be down to inexperience - IIRC Lockheed Martin have not designed a carrier aircraft since the Viking in 1972

[mph1977]

Max_Torque said:

So, hypothetically speaking, how good would a re-imagined Harrier for te 21st century actually be?

Assume a revised airframe, with better materials (composites) better aero performance (less drag, more lift) more powerful engine, heavier weapons load etc. Am i right in saying that actually all that stuff matters less than having a busting good avionics package? And how much would it cost to make some more?

Plenum chamber burning would give the reimagined Harrier supersonic dash capability while retaining the ability to VIFF and do vertical take off in certain circumstance .

without sounding like Sharkey the people who bemoaned the loss of the SHar before the GR9 were raising concerns based on the better avionics for the SHAR

[aeropilot]

MartG said:

Z06George said:

Whilst I'm no designer/engineer I would have thought with the amount of navy jets America has produced that getting such a vital thing as the arrestor hook right to be pretty simple.

It could be down to inexperience - IIRC Lockheed Martin have not designed a carrier aircraft since the Viking in 1972

Exactly.


I think, that unfortunately, purely for political reasons the F-35 won't be axed ....

However, I can foresee a situation where the troublesome B and C versions get binned and all efforts concentrate on the A version, which is the one that the USAF need, and everyone else is buying (apart from us and possibly the Italians and of course the USMC which don't actually 'need' it)

[Godalmighty83]

So in this thread we have lots of suggestion for aircraft that will be unable to anything then generate a loud splash slightly in front of the bow.

If the F35-B gets cancelled then it will simply be a helicopter platform and that will be the end of it.

[aeropilot]

The Canadians and more recently the Danes are announced that they they will be re-evaluating their choice of F-35 against existing options.

If the Danes decide against it and buy EF, Rafale or more likely the Gripen (Denmark used to operate the Saab Draken) I could see the Dutch and maybe Belgians opt out and do the same.

[MartG]

Godalmighty83 said:

So in this thread we have lots of suggestion for aircraft that will be unable to anything then generate a loud splash slightly in front of the bow.

Can you explain this please ?

[SlipStream77]

MartG said:

Can you explain this please ?

I think he's suggesting that without a cat most of the suggested aircraft would not be able to take off.

The SU33 has been mentioned - that doesn't require one, just a ramp. Can't see the Fleet Air Arm operating those though.

I say fit the carriers with cats and go with Rafale.

[anonymous-user]

mph1977 said:

Max_Torque said:

So, hypothetically speaking, how good would a re-imagined Harrier for te 21st century actually be?

Assume a revised airframe, with better materials (composites) better aero performance (less drag, more lift) more powerful engine, heavier weapons load etc. Am i right in saying that actually all that stuff matters less than having a busting good avionics package? And how much would it cost to make some more?

Plenum chamber burning would give the reimagined Harrier supersonic dash capability while retaining the ability to VIFF and do vertical take off in certain circumstance .

without sounding like Sharkey the people who bemoaned the loss of the SHar before the GR9 were raising concerns based on the better avionics for the SHAR

Sounds like the answer to me! Lets face it, absolute speed capability is relatively pointless imo, as no matter how fast you are you can't outrun an AAM(SR-71 excepted, although that was mainly cruising altitude as much as speed), more important surely is range, and weapons load? I can't imagine too many people we'd go to war with that would need a supersonic airframe (and we could always ask our chums across the water for a bit of a hand ;-) but i can think of lots and lots of scenarios for a VTO / carrier based multitasking airframe, with a large weapons load capability (and absolutely bang-on-trend avionics for "over-the-horizon look-down shoot" down capability and multi target ground engagement capability etc

I really can't see how any air-to-air engagement will not be won by the airframe with the best radar, tasking system, and the most missiles hung !

[plasticpig]

SlipStream77 said:

I think he's suggesting that without a cat most of the suggested aircraft would not be able to take off.

The SU33 has been mentioned - that doesn't require one, just a ramp. Can't see the Fleet Air Arm operating those though.

I say fit the carriers with cats and go with Rafale.

A ramp is all the navalised Typhoon requires.

[Godalmighty83]

MartG said:

Can you explain this please ?

Without a deck extension* the CVF is too short to launch stobar aircraft, so whatever would try to take off would land a few feet in front of the bow with a loud splash, without CATS** all those lovely SH's and rafales which people have been pining for will roll off the deck a few feet in front of the bow with a loud splash.

There is precisely absolutely 0 chance of any form of harrier ever making a return in any other form then a rerun of true lies so the only other options are helicopters or restart the sea fury production line***.

• which we cant afford

• which we cant afford
• *which we cant afford

[Big News]

The cost to convert the carriers to CATOBAR was estimated at £2bn
The per-unit cost of Dave-B is £100m
The per-unit cost of Super Hornet is £28m

So for the cost of the (current) 48 F-35s we could have 170 Super Hornets. Taking into account the 2bn to convert the carriers, that number falls to 100 Super Hornets, with two carriers to fly them off.

Another option would be 60 Super Hornets (two frontline squadrons and OCU...let's call them 800, 801 and 899...) and six E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (flyaway unit cost currently at £177m).

[Godalmighty83]

Big News said:

The per-unit cost of Dave-B is £100m
The per-unit cost of Super Hornet is £28m

.

The bulk of our Dave B purchases will be from LRIP 6 and on with a estimated unit cost starting at $110m (£73M*) and the best price I could find for the SH was closer to £44m fly away.

Still quite a gap but not as far as originally suggested.

• A percentage of which we pay to ourselves due to the fact that around %20 of them are built here, we would be a complete customer to the SH with a nice fat cheque going to the states and most of what is left of our aviation industry claiming benefits.

Edited by Godalmighty83 on Sunday 17th March 15:52