UK Defence Forum

A chap down the pub said that POW would not now go to the US in May 2021, but would do its F35B trials of the UK coast. In a effort to save pennies he said. I generally trust this persons knowledge and he said this news was in a Newspaper but was not sure which.

bobp wrote:A chap down the pub said that POW would not now go to the US in May 2021, but would do its F35B trials of the UK coast. In a effort to save pennies he said. I generally trust this persons knowledge and he said this news was in a Newspaper but was not sure which.

It's in the Telegraph today, alongside a load of other in year savings being floated.

Poiuytrewq wrote:Nuclear powered for a cool $6bn.

https://www.marinelink.com/news/frances ... ier-483735

Personally I think two QE's was a much better option.

So it looks like they will only build one which will mean they will still suffer from the same problems of deployment

bobp wrote:A chap down the pub said that POW would not now go to the US in May 2021, but would do its F35B trials of the UK coast. In a effort to save pennies he said. I generally trust this persons knowledge and he said this news was in a Newspaper but was not sure which.

For me I don't see this as so much of a problem we just need to rethink what we can get out of any training time i.e if POW was to sail undertake helicopter work up and say embark 6 F-35 in a LHA config for a two or three week stint before joint warrior she could be joined by Albion two Bays and a Point class for a full Amphib group

It’s not a problem providing we don’t need any of the flight test a/c of course

Lack of available aircraft due to CSG21?

CSG-21 departs in May 2021 with no more than 8 UK F-35 maybe less. Joint warrior runs from late March or early April and so will be used to work up the carrier group before it departs. however this dose not mean POW can't conduct fix wing trails in UK waters nor work up a Helicopter air group of say 5 Merlin HC-4 , 5 Chinook plus 6 Army wildcats and 6 Apache and attend joint warrior in LHA/ LPH role as part of the Amphib group

Tempest414 wrote: 5 Chinook plus 6 Army wildcats and 6 Apache and attend joint warrior in LHA/ LPH role

Quite important as these assets are unlikely to join the 'world tour'

All well and good, but it will not be an adequate replacement for WESTLANT21.

Poiuytrewq wrote:Nuclear powered for a cool $6bn.

https://www.marinelink.com/news/frances ... ier-483735

Personally I think two QE's was a much better option.

PARIS (AP) - "They didn’t provide a price tag but French media estimate it will cost around 7 billion euros ($8.5 billion)."

Would think at moment all figures highly speculative, but as nuclear will be expensive.

https://apnews.com/article/energy-indus ... c8a8c94856

Scimitar54 wrote:All well and good, but it will not be an adequate replacement for WESTLANT21.

Why? what will POW get from a trip to the US

Tempest414 wrote:Why? what will POW get from a trip to the US

A tan and some black eyes.

My nipper in happier times a year ago. He is in the third picture underneath the 'E' of Wales at the back. It was an amazing day.

SW1 wrote:It’s not a problem providing we don’t need any of the flight test a/c of course

They can't fly to the UK?

Tempest414 wrote:CSG-21 departs in May 2021 with no more than 8 UK F-35 maybe less. Joint warrior runs from late March or early April and so will be used to work up the carrier group before it departs. however this dose not mean POW can't conduct fix wing trails in UK waters nor work up a Helicopter air group of say 5 Merlin HC-4 , 5 Chinook plus 6 Army wildcats and 6 Apache and attend joint warrior in LHA/ LPH role as part of the Amphib group

The RN seem to have dropped the idea of using the QEs as LPH. Thank goodness.

in the true sense of a LPH I would agree but in the sense of a big deck for aviation that could lily pad from the LPD and LSD's with some fixed wing to boot its OK

Tempest414 wrote:Why? what will POW get from a trip to the US

The further trials using the ITF aircraft to prove the SRVL concept for 1. They've been fairly limited to date. PoW off the East Coast of the US with the ITF aircraft was going to do a lot more, including work with the Bedford Array. We can probably put the arrival of SRVL in operational service back at least a year now, probably more. Although it has to be said that SRVL is not really a time critical piece of work anymore, as with any UK planned munitions to be integrated this side of 2030 there is no chance of a UK F-35B approaching a weight where SRVL would be required for bring back.

Could not have put it better myself!

Timmymagic wrote:

Tempest414 wrote:Why? what will POW get from a trip to the US

The further trials using the ITF aircraft to prove the SRVL concept for 1. They've been fairly limited to date. PoW off the East Coast of the US with the ITF aircraft was going to do a lot more, including work with the Bedford Array. We can probably put the arrival of SRVL in operational service back at least a year now.

But as said the ITF aircraft and all the little clever boxes can fly to the UK for the trials. However as we know this is all down to money and the MOD clearly fill they can live with the delay maybe at this time it is more important to do as much sea trials work as poss on crowsnet ahead of the 2021 deployment and after which can be done in UK waters so still a lot of good work can be done by POW in home waters

Also maybe HMG might be thinking they need her in UK waters to stop the EU fishing fleet

Tempest414 wrote:But as said the ITF aircraft and all the little clever boxes can fly to the UK for the trials. However as we know this is all down to money and the MOD clearly fill they can live with the delay maybe at this time it is more important to do as much sea trials work as poss on crowsnet ahead of the 2021 deployment and after which can be done in UK waters so still a lot of good work can be done by POW in home waters

The ITF aircraft are essentially a shared resource. Which is a very sensible idea. It could be US purchased aircraft performing trials for UK purposes on 1 day, with UK aircraft performing trials for the US the next. This is far more efficient. This sort of work is programmed in years ahead of time. Sending the test aircraft and equipment over to the UK will not have been programmed in to the timeline, it would add significant cost and, crucially, time into those arrangements. It just might not be possible to shift everything else off to the right in order to accommodate that. As far as I am aware there has never been any intention to bring the ITF aircraft to the UK, with the probable exception of when they have finished their working lives and they get put into Duxford, Cosford and Hendon.

Timmymagic wrote:

Tempest414 wrote:But as said the ITF aircraft and all the little clever boxes can fly to the UK for the trials. However as we know this is all down to money and the MOD clearly fill they can live with the delay maybe at this time it is more important to do as much sea trials work as poss on crowsnet ahead of the 2021 deployment and after which can be done in UK waters so still a lot of good work can be done by POW in home waters

The ITF aircraft are essentially a shared resource. Which is a very sensible idea. It could be US purchased aircraft performing trials for UK purposes on 1 day, with UK aircraft performing trials for the US the next. This is far more efficient. This sort of work is programmed in years ahead of time. Sending the test aircraft and equipment over to the UK will not have been programmed in to the timeline, it would add significant cost and, crucially, time into those arrangements. It just might not be possible to shift everything else off to the right in order to accommodate that. As far as I am aware there has never been any intention to bring the ITF aircraft to the UK, with the probable exception of when they have finished their working lives and they get put into Duxford, Cosford and Hendon.

The trials would have been book in last year as you point out and a number of days given to it the aircraft would be flown to the carrier for this the carrier would have sailed into port to pick up the black boxes that had been moved in from the test centre so load them on a truck or a C-17 the time to move the kit and aircraft to the carrier is only a few hours different. of course aircraft hours cost and we are back to money but what is the cost of sending POW to the US

It won't be that simple. Tests and trials are usually carried out in certain place for good reason. Some of the infrastructure will only exist in one place. Its not just a couple of boxes, then there's the people. If the particular trial can't meet the time line then there will plenty of other work on.

Timmymagic wrote:

Tempest414 wrote:Why? what will POW get from a trip to the US

The further trials using the ITF aircraft to prove the SRVL concept for 1. They've been fairly limited to date. PoW off the East Coast of the US with the ITF aircraft was going to do a lot more, including work with the Bedford Array. We can probably put the arrival of SRVL in operational service back at least a year now, probably more. Although it has to be said that SRVL is not really a time critical piece of work anymore, as with any UK planned munitions to be integrated this side of 2030 there is no chance of a UK F-35B approaching a weight where SRVL would be required for bring back.

Huh? The aircraft can be loaded up today with enough qualified bombs, fuel and missiles to hit max TO weight. There was a photo of one from QEs deployment to the US though that was done to exercise the loading and not flying, arrangements.

That

Ron5 wrote: There was a photo of one from QEs deployment to the US though that was done to exercise the loading

would be much more interesting than these photos https://www.wearethemighty.com/app/uplo ... origin.jpg from the Mktng Dept

topman wrote:It won't be that simple. Tests and trials are usually carried out in certain place for good reason. Some of the infrastructure will only exist in one place. Its not just a couple of boxes, then there's the people. If the particular trial can't meet the time line then there will plenty of other work on.

I would agree however for the test aircraft and kit to get to the carrier on the East coast they have to come from the West coast and I have been doing some digging and it turns out the kit and team is flown from West to East coast