Caporegime
- Joined
- 9 Nov 2009
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http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/ne...n=Feed:+blogspot/advancednano+(nextbigfuture)
This is the plane which will replace the Tornado and the Harriers which made up the majority of our strike force. The F35 is essentially a stealth strike fighter.
We have about 120 Tornadoes in service and it was intended that 128 F35 fighters would replace them and the bunch of Harriers we withdrew,with a total reduction in airframes.
The F35 programme has become so delayed and hit so many issues,that the cost per aircraft has skyrocketed and countries like Canada are considering cancellling their order. Even our F35 buy has been reduced due to the increasing cost down to 48 fighters initially:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lockheed-britain-f-idUSTRE8160ZB20120207
Even that number is for our carriers,and probably it will mean only one of our two carriers will have a full air wing.
However,I did not know that supposedly,the MoD said it is going to replace the Eurofighter fighters(which are more optimised for air superiority) with the F35 in the near future:
http://www.janes.com/products/janes...065969970&channel=defence&subChannel=business
LOLWTF??
To put in context this how many Eurofighters we will get:
1.)Tranche One - 55
2.)Tranche Two - 89
3.)Tranche Three - 40
That is a total of 184 aircraft bought.
Now the first Tranche was deliver starting 2007:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...first-multi-role-eurofighter-typhoons-215964/
However,these will be withdrawn between 2015 to 2018 as upgrading them will be too expensive(after only 8 years for the oldest),and Saudi Arabia bought the 24 of the Tranche two aircraft. So that will leave us with around 105 aircraft.
The thing is not all the tranch two and tranch three aircraft have not been delivered yet,so it shows how young most of the aircraft will be.
Yet now the MoD is wanting to replace the Eurofighter so soon. The timeframe is supposedly between 2015 to 2030 IIRC.
That means the Eurofighter will have a very short lifespan as frontline RAF aircraft. Considering how much we contributed to the development,and the cost of each aircraft,so how can 10 to 20 years be an acceptable lifespan?? Moreover,the Eurofighter for non-strike duties is meant to be better suited than the F35. For instance it won't replace the F15 in USAF,and plenty of them are over 20 years old. Even the USAF F22s were delivered between 2003 and 2012,and I doubt they will be withdrawn very soon either.
So we will spend billions on new fighters to replace old fighters we just spend billions of quid on. On top of that we are upgrading the T2 and T3 aircraft for better ground attack ability,the reason we are ditching the T1 aircraft is because they are more suited for interception duties! So what is the point of upgrading them,then if it is a stop gap??
The worst thing is we gave up a lot of manufacturing share on the F35, to get more control over the software and Italy gets more financial benefit from the programme than us!
Why don't we just keep a certain number of F35 for our carriers,keep our 105 already paid for Typhoons,and use UCAVs for the rest?? I can just see what will happen. We lose a lot of money ditching the Typhoons,buy more F35s which are not cheap either, and then find cheaper UCAVs can do the job of a lot of them,5 years later, and we end up wasting even more money since we will mothball a decent number of the F35s.
This is the plane which will replace the Tornado and the Harriers which made up the majority of our strike force. The F35 is essentially a stealth strike fighter.
We have about 120 Tornadoes in service and it was intended that 128 F35 fighters would replace them and the bunch of Harriers we withdrew,with a total reduction in airframes.
The F35 programme has become so delayed and hit so many issues,that the cost per aircraft has skyrocketed and countries like Canada are considering cancellling their order. Even our F35 buy has been reduced due to the increasing cost down to 48 fighters initially:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lockheed-britain-f-idUSTRE8160ZB20120207
Even that number is for our carriers,and probably it will mean only one of our two carriers will have a full air wing.
However,I did not know that supposedly,the MoD said it is going to replace the Eurofighter fighters(which are more optimised for air superiority) with the F35 in the near future:
http://www.janes.com/products/janes...065969970&channel=defence&subChannel=business
LOLWTF??
To put in context this how many Eurofighters we will get:
1.)Tranche One - 55
2.)Tranche Two - 89
3.)Tranche Three - 40
That is a total of 184 aircraft bought.
Now the first Tranche was deliver starting 2007:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...first-multi-role-eurofighter-typhoons-215964/
However,these will be withdrawn between 2015 to 2018 as upgrading them will be too expensive(after only 8 years for the oldest),and Saudi Arabia bought the 24 of the Tranche two aircraft. So that will leave us with around 105 aircraft.
The thing is not all the tranch two and tranch three aircraft have not been delivered yet,so it shows how young most of the aircraft will be.
Yet now the MoD is wanting to replace the Eurofighter so soon. The timeframe is supposedly between 2015 to 2030 IIRC.
That means the Eurofighter will have a very short lifespan as frontline RAF aircraft. Considering how much we contributed to the development,and the cost of each aircraft,so how can 10 to 20 years be an acceptable lifespan?? Moreover,the Eurofighter for non-strike duties is meant to be better suited than the F35. For instance it won't replace the F15 in USAF,and plenty of them are over 20 years old. Even the USAF F22s were delivered between 2003 and 2012,and I doubt they will be withdrawn very soon either.
So we will spend billions on new fighters to replace old fighters we just spend billions of quid on. On top of that we are upgrading the T2 and T3 aircraft for better ground attack ability,the reason we are ditching the T1 aircraft is because they are more suited for interception duties! So what is the point of upgrading them,then if it is a stop gap??
The worst thing is we gave up a lot of manufacturing share on the F35, to get more control over the software and Italy gets more financial benefit from the programme than us!
Why don't we just keep a certain number of F35 for our carriers,keep our 105 already paid for Typhoons,and use UCAVs for the rest?? I can just see what will happen. We lose a lot of money ditching the Typhoons,buy more F35s which are not cheap either, and then find cheaper UCAVs can do the job of a lot of them,5 years later, and we end up wasting even more money since we will mothball a decent number of the F35s.
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