New F35 exceeds specs by reducing them and we want to dump our Eurofighters for it!

[gettothechopper]

I don't know why we dumped Harriers but kept the Tornado. Which is the more versatile aircraft ?

Tornado is cheaper to maintain, we have more of them and they can fly faster and further and carry not only more weapons but a greater variety

Harrier was excellent for two reasons:
1) Ship based - no carriers until the new ones are built so no need for ship based aircraft until then
2) Close ground support - we have apace for that now, which has better loitering time and can get closer to the action

 

[gettothechopper]

A little o/t but would the Americans sell an export version F22 ?

nope export ban on f22, plus they stopped making them I think?
not ship based either which is what we need these for

plus you could buy three f18s for the same price as 1 f22 lol

edit : crikey - F35B is $237 million each

 

[Dem2k]

Also I think the Canadians have concerns of the fact its only a single jet engine aircraft, if your patrolling your borders in the skies where its -20c or more you don't want that single engine to fail. Which is why the Canadians tend to go for twin engine craft.

 

[Von Smallhausen]

The Tornado is getting on now though surely ? I remember them often training with US F15s over my grandfathers house in Cumbria. It must have been the early to mid 80s.

 

[gettothechopper]

The Tornado is getting on now though surely ? I remember them often training with US F15s over my grandfathers house in Cumbria. It must have been the early to mid 80s.

yeah about 15 years now for the newest ones, it will get replaced by eurofighters eventually and f35s (not sure how though as we bought less eurofighters and the f35 numbers are heading down all the time as well)

 

[Horse Pop]

The F35 is an utter disaster.

We should have bought the F18. It's a solid product, it's cheapish and easy to run and it keeps getting upgraded.

edit
Maybe built under license or modified in Britain?

That or looked at a carrier version of the Eurofighter.

 

[Von Smallhausen]

Agree with that tbh. F18 would have been far cheaper.

 

[Spuj]

Again however...it costs a tonne, which is also worsened by the "desire" to keep our nuclear deterrent wonderfully static.

Can I ask what you mean by this? Interested to hear your viewpoint!

 

[DiscoKandy]

....
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.
.....

Where did you get the info on T1 aircraft are to be withdrawn between 2015 - 2018, I couldn't see it in mentioned in the links.

 

[JonJ678]

That or looked at a carrier version of the Eurofighter.

This is roughly what I hope to happen. Modify the typhoon to survive landing on a carrier and, if need be, run the engine slightly hotter during takeoff.

The big horizontal fan in the JSF is made in Bristol. It doesn't cost as much as the aircraft though, so exporting the fans and then importing aircraft is still a lot of money going to America.

edit: At least, designed, tested and bolted together in Bristol. The actual pieces will be made all over the place.

 

[dalin80]

nope export ban on f22, plus they stopped making them I think?
not ship based either which is what we need these for

plus you could buy three f18s for the same price as 1 f22 lol

edit : crikey - F35B is $237 million each

F22's aren't made any more and the machinery has gone now as well.

That price tag for the F35 is actually the LRIP-1 (first prototypes essentially), we are now looking at LRIP 4/5 closer to $140 mil each, bulk production should be closer to the $95 mil mark once the factory fires up.

The UK is only developing one jet drone, the BAE Taranis, its in a perpetual state of being delayed and wont be carrier capable.

F-18's cant take off or land on our carriers and are no better then a Typhoon at most tasks so I see no point in considering the very aged aircraft now.

 

[gettothechopper]

F22's aren't made any more and the machinery has gone now as well.

That price tag for the F35 is actually the LRIP-1 (first prototypes essentially), we are now looking at LRIP 4/5 closer to $140 mil each, bulk production should be closer to the $95 mil mark once the factory fires up.

The UK is only developing one jet drone, the BAE Taranis, its in a perpetual state of being delayed and wont be carrier capable.

F-18's cant take off or land on our carriers and are no better then a Typhoon at most tasks so I see no point in considering the very aged aircraft now.

already a navy version of the f18 which is available right now
the massive saving from getting f18 instead of f35 would more than cover the cost of cats / traps for our carriers
Typhoon would require a lot of work to navilise (cant just stick a hook on it)
latest superhornet f18 is very new, on par with Typhoon and much cheaper
even the $95 million price is a third more than the cost of f18 ($66 million each)
the selling point for the f35b is the hover and do we really need that? we need sea based jets for sure, but hover ones ? not so much - its only the bill for converting the carriers to cat / traps that stopped us ditching the F35B and getting the much better F35C, the F18's lower cost would cover this cost

but hey its too late for changing anything now really, in hindsight it would have made more sence I think, im sure the f35 will be an amazing plane, eventually (and we wont have very many)

 

[Third Opinion]

Agree with that tbh. F18 would have been far cheaper.

Certainly cheaper but the F35 will be better once it hits the skies.

The real con is BAE systems and that ridiculous quote to convert the carriers to catapult and hook.

Something I am glad that is getting looked into.

At the end of the day that is the reason we have had to settle for second best.

 

[dalin80]

already a navy version of the f18 which is available right now
the massive saving from getting f18 instead of f35 would more than cover the cost of cats / traps for our carriers

Sure if you don't mind waiting another 10 years for the carriers to be redesigned and rebuilt for an aircraft which at that point will be one of the oldest designs still flying.

I don't like the F35 but the super-hornet is a sidestep into a world of other problems as well.

 

[EdGey]

lol... we're not replacing the Typhoon, don't worry.

Industry is a big part of a nations might... without the industry to back up a war effort, you won't last long. Thus... we must support BAE; and the F35 and Typhoons are a good way of doing that. The F18 is outdated and an all together terrible alternative. It's effectively a side step, and leaves our industry with nothing.

I think the main reason we went with the F35 was to strengthen ties with America, whilst being fairly certain that a good fighter will come out of the other end. It's a fail-safe method because of the almost unlimited amount of resources the US is willing to throw at projects like this. The end result is that we've got a very expensive aircraft, which doesn't perform quite as hoped but still beats any other carrier based aircraft in the world, and our military and industrial ties with the US are much stronger.

Yes, a carrier variant of the Typhoon looks awfully attractive, but had we gone for the Typhoon we'd have been on our own, and with constant cuts it might have ended in disaster with no end product at all. Not to mention if it had worked, the RAF and RN would be almost entirely reliant on the capabilities of a single aircraft.

 

[gettothechopper]

Sure if you don't mind waiting another 10 years for the carriers to be redesigned and rebuilt for an aircraft which at that point will be one of the oldest designs still flying.

I don't like the F35 but the super-hornet is a sidestep into a world of other problems as well.

well that depends - IF the F35 doesnt have any more problems, we get 48 of them by 2020, but this is a program that is plagued with delay and cost increase. you then have a long program of weapons tests etc that take another 10 odd years to get through

we could have around 100 superhornets being built within a couple of years, for the same price, which could fly faster and further and already have all the bugs ironed out

superhornet is not an old design (no older than the typhoon) its so good that canada and the netherlands are thinking about ditching f35 to buy them instead, and austraillia just bought a bunch of them too

edit : this is all hindsight, obviously its too late to change the carriers, im just saying its a shame as if we had gone f18 route from the start we would end up with more, more capable planes for the same price (although yes maybe not as high-tech)

 

[grumpysculler]

This is roughly what I hope to happen. Modify the typhoon to survive landing on a carrier and, if need be, run the engine slightly hotter during takeoff.

A study was conducted when the US decided they didn't want to give us the ITAR waiver. When it came back as a reasonable prospect, the US suddenly decided to grant the ITAR waiver. A lot in the industry think this was the more sensible option...

F-35 and Typhoon have different, but overlapping roles. F-35 is a slightly-stealthy elephant suited to strike missions. Typhoon is a supercruising, agile multi-role aircraft. Not as good at strike missions at the F-35, but not far behind. Far better than F-35 as anything resembling an interceptor role.

A lot of money is going into Typhoon development, particularly the radar. F-35 won't be able to match that (although it will still be marginally better in the strike role).

IMHO we'll have Typhoon for a while and it is the F-35 that is at risk of being replaced by UCAV.

Selling off Tranche 1 just makes sense (air to air only, cold war fighter), but T2 and T3 are for keeps.

 

[doodah]

Any news of the Aurora ?

 

[Armageus]

Just to clarify, we are getting the F35B SVTOL version?

Having read wikipedia and related news articles, seems that we were getting "B", then the carriers could use the normal carrier "C" variant (same as the Americans), but due to cost we won't be equipping the new carriers with the required kit, so need to buy the "B" variant.

This despite the fact the "B" variant is only going to be used by us, costs more, and has reduced capability (compared to "A" or "C" variants - due to smaller fuel tank and lower design stress 7g vs 9g of "A" model)?

The earlier mentions of going for the FA/18 are also fairly moot - The F35C is the replacement for America's FA/18s - why would we do any different.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Surely buying Aircraft and equipment from the states is a better option than pouring billions down the drown in R&D on shared projects with our European allies who dont get out of bed when there is a war on?
Makes things easier in the field with increased spares and repair expertise availability, shared ammunition, shared personnel if required, reduced training costs.
We should be doing it with everything to be fair, Tanks, rifles, Helicopters, the lot.

FFS,we have ALREADY SPENT THE MONEY!! The Typhoon development is mostly paid for,as are the fighters.

The article says the want to get the F35A which is land based.

We will be spending billions more on aircraft,which might not even better for the defence of the UK,which is what they are being used for.

The F35B is meant for our carriers and forward deployment during combat.
Its a VTOL/STOL design like the Harrier.

It is designed for strike purposes into enemy territory,but at the cost of lower acceleration than a F16 Block 50,lower top speed and probably less maneuverability.
The USAF is not replacing its F15s and F22s with the F35.

The Typhoon can trouble the F15 and F22,so where do you think the F35 stands??

The Typhoon is a better interception fighter,can deploy long range standoff weapons and is also in T2 and T3 configuration has decent strike ability too. Look at the Libyan campaign??

Morover,the Typhoon programme has created much more jobs than the F35,as Italy despite putting less money into the programme than us,gets more jobs out of it. Yes,we have spend already $2 billion on the programme,and there is more to be spent to get it operational.

The F35A will be hardly any better than a Typhoon in this case,if dozens of F35B fighters cannot do the job.

Moreover,the rise of UCAVs means even the F35 could be supplanted in the strike role and we are looking at those too.