[Closed] The Fleet Air Arm showing the Americans how it’s done

That’s not fully laden, hard points not fitted and populated.

Impressive technique though

I still think they’re a 50 year white elephant.

Slow, crap range, poor manoeuvrability (compared to F-16), no IRST at present.  Also it’s much vaunted  networking abilities are pretty rubbish when you’ve no F-22/Hawkeye or Aegis system to talk too. Stealth is rapidly fading in importance against peer competition and finally single engine over water goes against decades of carrier doctrine.

Yeah bring back the multi-engined Harrier........

Tomcat, Hawkeye, Rafale, Hornet, Mig-29K, Phantom.  Twin engines over water gives you better get you home ability.

Considering we could’ve gone cats and traps (apart from people signing off on the missile magnets being sold a “stealthy” harrier so no need).   Super Hornet wouldve been been the better bet for due to better takeoff fuel and weapons load.

You’re right, it’s not fully laden, but whilst the technique is proven outside the simulator I wouldn’t expect it to be, no doubt the next step is load one up with a dummy load...and nope, it’s no Sea Harrier, but all we’ve got.

In other news; between 12 and 22 F22’s maybe write offs after they didn’t escape their airfield before Hurricane Michael hit.

Some were apparently waiting spares valued at a few thousand dollars......

Hopefully they’re training/old/lower mid state but still, they only have 187 of them.

Not really Fleet Air Arm, the pilot works for BAE!

Are there any diesel ships running cats? Shudder to think at the development costs of electromagnetic ones

Super Hornet is a very nice aircraft for now. I don’t believe anyone thinks it’ll still be competing in 20+ years time. At the end of the day it’s still an old jet. The F-35 is just at the beginning of that very long upgrade path

The original design brief for QEC was to include EM launch, except they couldn't afford it and by the time they'd considered adding cats and traps, the design was too mature / created stability problems to put all that weight topside.

Rolling landing not a bad idea as it doesn't stress the airframe as much / extends working life as its the thing that shortens their life the most.

Every time I see the F35 i'm reminded of what an absolute dogs dinner of a airplane it is.

Slow? It's fast enough

Crap manoeuvrability compared to F16? it wasn't designed to be as manoeuvrable as an F16. Why would you compare to an F16? F18's are not as fast or manoeuvrable as an F16 and the F35 is about as fast as an F18. And it can super cruise which an F16 or F18 can't. An F16 wouldn't be as fast or manoeuvrable as it is if it were navalised with arrestor hook and all the additional heavy structure to deal with the beating of carrier landings and take off's.

Crap range? it's on an aircraft carrier, so doesn't need the range, it's got all the range it needs.

the rest is stuff that will come...it's software and will be continually updated and improved through the life of the machine.

Stealth going out of fashion. maybe, and it's always going to be easier and quicker to advance radar technology than aircraft technology, but so what...when there is a radar guided missile on your tail you want your radar cross section to be as small as possible and you really want that additional time it takes for a radar to target you.

These things are designed to a spec. The navy says I want an aircraft that can do this....then that aircraft is built to deliver that. Anyway, we'll see how things develop over time. The F16 is a '70's aircraft and fully developed, this thing still hasn't opened up its full envelope so nobody knows what it's truly capable of. The F16/15 & 18 have all had their envelopes extended beyond their original design intent over the decades, this will also have its envelope extended over the coming decades so comparing its ability now (as if you have any idea what it's true abilities are...this will hardly be out there in the public domain).

Rolling take off and landing is a very good idea...hugely more fuel efficient so more of the payload is available for the tactical mission instead of fuel.

Shame its not the cat and trap but they are expensive, unreliable and less safe and in reality give you very little additional tactical ability. the days of getting your whole fleet into the air in a matter of minutes to the dogfight over the sea are long gone, these things are about electronic warfare, they'll get nowhere near their targets.

Twin engines will get you more 'get you home ability' wether you're over land or sea, but the redundancy is not needed. Why carry an additional engine and all the additional fuel around, making the aircraft larger and heavier than it needs to be when you don't need it? Utterly pointless.

Utterly pointless.

+1

Actually, no, the F35 does not have supercruise capability.

You’re probably confusing it with the Typhoon

Rachel

Was at the San Diego Air and Space museum at the weekend. Reading one of the Appollo astronaut’s entries, despite flying to the moon, his proudest flying moments were night time carrier landings.

So do all of the options allow us to bomb nations who's air defences we have obliterated with cruise missiles?

If you like night time landings you’ll enjoy this

So do all of the options allow us to bomb nations who’s air defences we have obliterated with cruise missiles?

Yup. And if the CMDS is as good as they say, it'll also do it with AD still operating.

So we still need people in planes to do this stuff? Drones do so much so why continue to insist in meatshots on every launch?

So we still need people in planes to do this stuff? Drones do so much so why continue to insist in meatshots on every launch?

Different roles, Drones work for ISTAR really well and the use in COIN ops to target HVT's and the like. Although slow moving (compared to jets) they have a good loiter time. But as of yet no DAS so in contested airspace would get turned to dust.

I'm sure someone somewhere is playing about with an unmanned fighter capability, the tech required to immerse an operator to be able to have the full sensory simulation to enable reaction time, etc. That's quite expensive.

I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time though.

So we still need people in planes to do this stuff? Drones do so much so why continue to insist in meatshots on every launch?

Because current UAV technology isn’t advanced enough for anything more than ground attack and surveillance rôles. Combat UAV’s that can dogfight are still a ways off, but are getting there.

Compare the BAE/Qinetiq Taranis combat UAV with a current Reaper:

What's the payload and sensor capability on that thing?

EDIT: The Taranis, I'm more than familiar with the Pred/Reaper.

As others have said, it’s getting there

The reason I compared it to an F-16 is that the F-35 recently “lost” an air to air engagement against in a visual combat situation.

In a Beyond Visual Range it may win being better able to “shoot and scoot” but our Rules of Engagement usually prevent this.

Range is important, the ability to loiter a long way from your missile magnet facing down incoming fighters and bombers is important (and for this our ROE really should be BVR) you ideally have to kill the anti ship missiles whilst they are still in the bombers.   The F-35 cannot do this without extensive air to air refuelling which we cannot do and also it’s takeoff load restrictions willl limit the weapons load as well.

We cannot fight against peer competitors so why waste money on something that is stand alone hopeless.  F18 or Rafale, maybe even a seaphoon would stand us better.  Proven, cheaper to buy and maintain.

EMALS are hideously unreliable at present.  The new carrier the Americans have, has got has a hideous design flaw in that to work on one EMAL you have to power down the other three!  This takes many minutes to do safely.

Theyve also discovered they are hideously noisy (no shi*) and ruin the running quiet ability of the carrier.  They think that from the shape of the EM noise the enemy will be able to deduce what they are launching.

They might be making one engine more reliable but when it’s taken one up the tail pipe or that side of the fuselage has taken an AA hit it won’t get you home, two engines might and have.

Ahh the F-35 the plane that was supposed to cost about 30-49 million dollars but do everything for the US airforce, Navy and Army. Copy the airframe design of the F-22 remove one engine and use the mass production techniques BAE developed for the Typoon...

it was always going to be a bit shit at everything as it was not a focused design. Internal bomb and missile bays to retain stealth were always going to be massively limiting.

still the uk has not been sole developer of an aircraft since probably the early 60s as it costs too much and we are now a customer. No choice but to take what it on offer

It is a bit of a waste of money no doubt but in reality comparing the F35 against current same-gen/previous-gen fighters is a bit moot - they'll likely never end up in a conflict where they're trying to gain air superiority against that class of fighter and in carrier defense BVR is much more important and unless dealing with a surprise first strike RoE would readily permit BVR for carrier defense (most of the reason the Tomcat was so good in that role is it's ability to use the Phoenix).

If we end up in a conflict vs fighters that will give the F35 a headache it will be vs Russia or China (sure other unfriendly nations have modern fighters but they don't have the command and control and other systems to properly support them), it's not like they'd deploy F35's for the initial sorties to try and gain air superiority/supremacy anyway. And if we end up in a conflict with Russia or China then it's going to be either a very limited engagement followed by a ceasefire and political resolution or it's going to go nuclear and then who gives a shit about the turn rate of an F35?

The F35 is just plugging a gap before UAVs are ready (technically and politically) to take over, it might be stated as having a 50-year service life but it won't come close to that

The reason I compared it to an F-16 is that the F-35 recently “lost” an air to air engagement against in a visual combat situation.

When you say recently, wasn't that actually years ago? You can also find comments about it (the F-35) beating an F-15C if you want

So you're earlier comment saying we should've gone cats and traps was pointless as you're now saying there are massive problems with cats and traps?

You seem to be constantly comparing to Cold War era jets and fighting our peers. The MoD clearly has no interest in procuring another previous gen aircraft. As was pointed out above, these aircraft are far more mature than the F-35 and they've been taken about as far as they can go. We're just beginning to see what will happen with the F-35.

An impressive bit of kit, but a compromised design that fits purpose.

I would have expected a big advantage of cat's and traps on any carrier is that you get aircraft that can fully utilise the decks of the USN, and others.  And Vice versa.

Yes, there's a cost, power, weight and stability issue, but thrown in at the design stage its affordable.  Sadly, the politicians and the MOD(N) were scared of the numbers right from the start.

Considering the fact that the F-35B which we have chosen has already had to go on an extensive weight reduction programme & still comes in over it’s designed weight it doesn’t really have much wiggle room for further updates over its service life other than software.

Blimey, that pitching deck.

WAFU’s pah 😜

It's no more shit or flawed than the SeaHarrier, or normal Harrier was.

A lot of the vertical flight control systems were developed off the back of the x-gen harrier stuff the RAF or whoever it was were developing at the end of the harrier's lifetime.

There's an interview with an X35/F35 test pilot on YT that's really informative.

I’m not going against cats and traps just EMALs perhaps I should’ve clarified that earlier.

I doubt software patches/updates will fix all its flaws.

It is the wrong aircraft for our limited budget.

So you're now telling BAE to build a boiler and put it on board as we're not running steam ships, then buying old aircraft that have already peaked and will be outdated in no time? Can't see why that idea didn't sell

WAFU’s pah

More importantly, what is the mail carrying capability of this fancy new thing? ;P

And where would the steam come from for your (non electric) cats?

QE is not nuclear (for a variety of good reasons) and can't run them.

Edit: Legend beat me to it 🙂

I guess it bodes well for the future of the U.K carriers that there are so many interested carrier and air warfare experts out there on the interwebs 🙂

Steam from the tea kettle?

No expert but cats and traps aren't just useful for fighters, maritime reconnaissance needs to get up as well. Pretty sure we wrote off a lot of roff the shelf options when we went with what we did. Back to Sea Kings with pods again I guess.

On boilers, I'm pretty sure something could have been put in, oil fired boilers are nothing new.

pfft, Merlins these days. The only off the shelf option that was ruled out was the Hawkeye.....because it is the only off the shelf option

A boiler that can generate enough steam to launch many tons of aircraft to 150mph in a very short distance would be no mean feat - then ask it to do it all over again 60 seconds later. I don't believe there's ever been a carrier thats done it. It would be a significant bit of kit that needs to find space inside and already crammed structure

I'm sure I've read somewhere that the F35 didn't have enough range to strike against land based targets seeing as the carrier would be forced to stay so far off shore so as to reduce its likelihood of being hit by China's DF-21D hypersonic anti-ship missiles and both Russia and China's A2AD capabilities.

Range is important, the ability to loiter a long way from your missile magnet facing down incoming fighters and bombers is important (and for this our ROE really should be BVR) you ideally have to kill the anti ship missiles whilst they are still in the bombers. The F-35 cannot do this without extensive air to air refuelling which we cannot do and also it’s takeoff load restrictions willl limit the weapons load as well.
We cannot fight against peer competitors so why waste money on something that is stand alone hopeless. F18 or Rafale, maybe even a seaphoon would stand us better. Proven, cheaper to buy and maintain

You do realise that according to wiki - the combat radius on internal fuel is little different between the F-35B and the F-18 Super Hornet, don't you? Seaphoon was a shit idea for a litany of reasons.

I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the F35 didn’t have enough range to strike against land based targets seeing as the carrier would be forced to stay so far off shore so as to reduce its likelihood of being hit by China’s DF-21D hypersonic anti-ship missiles and both Russia and China’s A2AD capabilities.

The strategy for carrier aviation in the pacific has never been to park them off the coast of China on day 1 of the war.

That is simply - stupid.

It would go something like this, the carriers would be further back - defending the island chains - submarine TLAMS would be used against known targets on mainland China. Aegis ships would start destroying Chinese satellites and attempt to intercept any ballistic missiles. Once the satellites were gone, destroyers would move forward and start hitting land based targets such as fixed radar sites and airfields with cruise missiles. Wild weasel operations would be launched from Okinawa against radar sites.

Then the carriers would be brought forward once Chinese situational awareness had been degraded.

Basically, ya'll don't know more than the best of the US Navy.

 The reason I compared it to an F-16 is that the F-35 recently “lost” an air to air engagement against in a visual combat situation.

How recent? Prior to 2015, the flight control software for the F35 "assisted" the pilots which they didn't like as it interfered with them pushing the envelope of the aircraft, this has now been remedied.

The only other engagement with an f-16 that's documented was an F35 designated as AF-2, which was an early test aircraft with the software restrictions on the flight envelope. The aim of the test was to demonstrate the ability of the F-35 to fly to the edge of its restricted test limits without exceeding them. The test scenario was apparently successful as it allowed the aircraft be cleared for greater agility in future tests. The F-16 involved was just used as a visual reference to maneuver against.

The one thing I don't like about the F35B is all the extra weight due to the lift fan and associated gumpf, I would have preferred the F35C with cats and traps, but low and behold the aircraft carrier that could be converted to cats and traps easily according to the ACA, turned out to be an expensive undertaking after all.

I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the F35 didn’t have enough range to strike against land based targets seeing as the carrier would be forced to stay so far off shore so as to reduce its likelihood of being hit by China’s DF-21D hypersonic anti-ship missiles and both Russia and China’s A2AD capabilities.

I’ve also heard that we can’t leave port as Swedish subs could sink it at the drop of a hat. You adapt for the theatre being presented, the chances of the ship being faced with Russian and/or Chinese hypersonic missiles is going to be very slim (see above comments about fighting the Ruskies being highly limited or we’re all toast anyway)

 I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the F35 didn’t have enough range to strike against land based targets seeing as the carrier would be forced to stay so far off shore so as to reduce its likelihood of being hit by China’s DF-21D hypersonic anti-ship missiles and both Russia and China’s A2AD capabilities.

The problem there is that those missiles will still need something to locate a moving target so the missile could be guided to their targets.

10% of it is made in the UK - one massive reason why the UK is buying it.

What else would we be buying? The J-31?

10% of it is made in the UK – one massive reason why the UK is buying it.

Not really. If we’d bought something else a material offset or sovereign tech would’ve gone into the deal, it’s pretty standard (new Anglicised Wedgetail for example)