F-35B Lightning (RAF & RN)

[shark bait]

Indeed, "the sky's not falling down", and eventually the UK will end up with a capable naval aircraft.

There are huge failures in the project, and thanks to mountains of cash, the end product may still be successful.

[S M H]

Indeed, "the sky's not falling down", and eventually the UK will end up with a capable naval aircraft.

The problems with the F35 are no different from the teen aircraft. The concurrent development and build has played its part. But the advent of the internet and the fact that problems and governmental reports and by specialist reporting are now in easily in the publics reading rather than in low circulation publications. With the B we will have a massive improvement on our previous Harrier aircraft. Then the development of the Harrier had its problems in development

[shark bait]

The problems with the F35 are no different from the teen aircraft

Compared to our native troubled teen aircraft the F35 looks much worse;

In 1997, a year before the production contract was signed the UK aqyisition cost for the Typhoon was to be £17 billion, in 2011 the estimate was £23 billion; the cost growth has been 35% over 14 years.

In 2001, the total acquisition cost of the F-35 was to be $233 billion. Compare that to the 2012 estimate of $396 billion; the cost growth has been 70% over 11 years.

In 1998 when the production contract was signed for eurofighter deliveries was to begin in 2002, it entered service in 2003, properly began service in 2005.

In 2003 initial operational capability of the F35 was to be 2011, and depending on who you believe, the F35 has still not made it to IOC.

since 2012 costs have continued to overrun for the F35, whilst the now mature Typhoon has remained stable in comparison. Even when benchmarking against other poor performance programmes the F35 still looks bad.

[Jdam]

The Salty Dogs of VX-23 made aviation history May 8 when they completed airborne gunfire testing for the F-35B STOVL variant

Slowly getting there.

[Bring Deeps]

More progress as ejector seat now fixed. See MB website.

[Bring Deeps]

http://www.martin-baker.com/news-and-events

[Gabriele]

Video of the airborne gunpod firings:

[R686]

An article which should be published in the mainstream newspaper and reported generally for joe public to show what stealth actually means,

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/f-35 ... ?r=US&IR=T

[ArmChairCivvy]

show what stealth actually means

A good article. What was underappreciated in it :
1. the integrated nature of airdefences do not mean just employing radars with different frequencies, but also lots of them "looking at" the same object from different angles
2. Russians being strong on IRST (50 km effective range from their fighters) should be a strong point to add into the network, but is countered by the fact that they have not deployed anything like Link16 (not to mention 22 or MADL)
- so no integration there, except between a pair (or a brace) of airborne fighters, and the comms between them likely to be accessible to the OpFor

BTW: Typhoon has just joined the MADL Club by using a MADL gateway (NG's Airborne Gateway) in a two-week experiment in Feb (BABEL FISH III, for the code name)

[R686]

Found these interesting snippets of infomation on how the USMC may choose incorporate the QECV,what's also interesting is the number of jets (34)

Additionally, we have the opportunity to employ to and from allied STOVL carriers such as the 34 jet capable Queen Elizabeth or Prince of Wales, the Garibaldi, and an assortment of amphibious carriers.
Scheduled aircraft maintenance will be conducted on sea base (LHA, LHD or a coalition carrier, such as the UK's Queen Elizabeth II) or at main base away from threat. DAO provides high sortie generation through fuel and ordnance reload inside of the threat WEZ.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... n-Plan.pdf

[ArmChairCivvy]

from allied STOVL carriers such as the 34 jet capable Queen Elizabeth or Prince of Wales

As the USMC do not have EAW assets of their own, my guess is that the 34 has been calculated with such Merlins onboard, but without the ASW helos
- USMC operating policy is that they keep two helos ready for pilot CSAR, so that would complete the number of rotary assets (as a constraint, producing the 34 number)

[dmereifield]

from allied STOVL carriers such as the 34 jet capable Queen Elizabeth or Prince of Wales

As the USMC do not have EAW assets of their own, my guess is that the 34 has been calculated with such Merlins onboard, but without the ASW helos
- USMC operating policy is that they keep two helos ready for pilot CSAR, so that would complete the number of rotary assets (as a constraint, producing the 34 number)

So in this case, they would anticipate a max of 34 F35Bs and how many helicopters for AEW and CSAR?

[R686]

from allied STOVL carriers such as the 34 jet capable Queen Elizabeth or Prince of Wales

As the USMC do not have EAW assets of their own, my guess is that the 34 has been calculated with such Merlins onboard, but without the ASW helos
- USMC operating policy is that they keep two helos ready for pilot CSAR, so that would complete the number of rotary assets (as a constraint, producing the 34 number)

So in this case, they would anticipate a max of 34 F35Bs and how many helicopters for AEW and CSAR?

Did the Invincables have a plane guard up whilst conducting fast jet operations?

[Old RN]

I presume the 34 comes from the MoD statement that the design basis of the CVF was 36 JSF (+ helos).

I believe that the Invincibles had a planeguard helo airbourne during launch and recovery.

It is of interest that the design basis of the CVS/SHAR was for them to carry 5 (4 + 1 spare?) whereas in their life they regularly carried more than 3 times that. If you look at the flight deck and hanger of the CVF then over 70 airframes seems possible but with major operating challenges!

[Thorvicson]

Should be interesting to see the USMC test out its full load using the QEC's I think we will have both carriers available in the next 5-6 years to allow them to try this as it also allows us to test the carriers out with a full quota under an operational exercise.

I wonder when the USMC squadrons will go through their Ski Jump training and if they will also adopt the Bedford array for SRVL to maximise the STOL capabilities of QEC's and F-35B. For that matter will USMC F-35B crews be trained with the ASRAAM and UK Paveway or will the QECs have to carry a dual load of weapons when we do joint deployments ?

[LordJim]

IF people remember the TV series a few years back about the Ark Royal, where the USMC deployed AV-8Bs whilst the ship was on their side of the Atlantic. They deployed half as many airframes as we did, for training, than we did operationally. 12 is going to be the number we see on the CVFs except is very rare circumstances or the USMC comes aboard.

[ArmChairCivvy]

we will have both carriers available in the next 5-6 years to allow them to try this as it also allows us to test the carriers out with a full quota under an operational exercise.

- beg, steal or borrow... all, or at least one, will work for us

[Timmymagic]

I wonder when the USMC squadrons will go through their Ski Jump training and if they will also adopt the Bedford array for SRVL to maximise the STOL capabilities of QEC's and F-35B. For that matter will USMC F-35B crews be trained with the ASRAAM and UK Paveway or will the QECs have to carry a dual load of weapons when we do joint deployments ?

Can't imagine them using Asraam and PWIV. No reason we couldn't keep some Amraam aboard though (but we won't). I remember the previous USMC exercise on Illustrious with AV-8B+'s. The ski jump 'training' consisted of an RN pilot giving them a 30 min briefing ending with 'trust me it's really easy'. And they all said afterwards that it was. It shouldn't represent any greater difficulty with the F-35, if anything it may be easier. SRVL would be a different matter, but don't forget that the F35 simulator's are onboard and can share software world wide. There's no reason a USMC unit couldn't do Bedford Array training onshore in the US in the simulator, land on vertically the first time then practice on the sims aboard the QE class under supervision and be ready in short order.

So in this case, they would anticipate a max of 34 F35Bs and how many helicopters for AEW and CSAR?

[Timmymagic]

So in this case, they would anticipate a max of 34 F35Bs and how many helicopters for AEW and CSAR?

Looks like QE will be deploying with 2 x Merlin HC.4 for SAR/CSAR. They'll also use them for vertrep and HDS. Which does irk me somewhat. The HC.4 is a expensive and comparatively rare asset. I can understand on a worldwide deployment why it's a good idea to carry a detachment of 4 plus Marines on board for any eventuality. But for plane guard? I know it's a pipedream to have additional helos but wouldn't a smaller, much less expensive to run and purchase helicopter be a better idea? A Wildcat or 2 would be great to have aboard, but anything would be cheaper to run than a Merlin. Plane guard is a task that eats up hours. The French still, incredibly, run the Alouette III aboard for this purpose. You'd think that with all of the Lynx that have just retired we could keep 4-5 just for this purpose. Use up the remaining hours, use up the parts, cannibalise the retired cabs, strip out any extraneous kit and add a rescue hoist. Jobs a good 'un. Even if you only get 5 years out of them you've just saved innumerable air frame hours and running costs on the HC.4 fleet. They've got a decent IR setup already, with radar, trained crews, a lifetime of experience with them.

[whitelancer]

I could be wrong but I'm not sure the Royal Navy employed a plane guard as such. They may have had a Seaking ready to launch in an emergency.

[Thorvicson]

So in this case, they would anticipate a max of 34 F35Bs and how many helicopters for AEW and CSAR?

Looks like QE will be deploying with 2 x Merlin HC.4 for SAR/CSAR. They'll also use them for vertrep and HDS. Which does irk me somewhat. The HC.4 is a expensive and comparatively rare asset. I can understand on a worldwide deployment why it's a good idea to carry a detachment of 4 plus Marines on board for any eventuality. But for plane guard? I know it's a pipedream to have additional helos but wouldn't a smaller, much less expensive to run and purchase helicopter be a better idea? A Wildcat or 2 would be great to have aboard, but anything would be cheaper to run than a Merlin. Plane guard is a task that eats up hours. The French still, incredibly, run the Alouette III aboard for this purpose. You'd think that with all of the Lynx that have just retired we could keep 4-5 just for this purpose. Use up the remaining hours, use up the parts, cannibalise the retired cabs, strip out any extraneous kit and add a rescue hoist. Jobs a good 'un. Even if you only get 5 years out of them you've just saved innumerable air frame hours and running costs on the HC.4 fleet. They've got a decent IR setup already, with radar, trained crews, a lifetime of experience with them.

Yeap my gripe too they should really have ordered new HC4 for the QEC's, means they would be ready for service and not eat into our shrinking Commando force Helicopter capability, they could have also configured these for Crowsnest too as with the increase in modern silent diesel subs as well as renewal of the SSN & SSNB fleets by potential foes we kinda need our pinger Merlin's for the job they were designed for.

[Smokey]

When HMS Ocean is paid off, there won't be too many deck spots available for the Junglies to use within the ARG.

A couple for the QNLZ won't make a dent.

[Dahedd]

Still a waste of a Merlin just for that. An old Lynx wOuld be far better.
Wasn't a converted old version Lynx one option looked at as an unmanned rotary vehicle. So just keep 1 squadron flying for plane guard/sar/utility/crew transfer.

[Timmymagic]

Yeap my gripe too they should really have ordered new HC4 for the QEC's, means they would be ready for service and not eat into our shrinking Commando force Helicopter capability, they could have also configured these for Crowsnest too as with the increase in modern silent diesel subs as well as renewal of the SSN & SSNB fleets by potential foes we kinda need our pinger Merlin's for the job they were designed for.

I've said it before but we missed a once in a lifetime opportunity when the US sold on the VH-71's. 9 completed and a tonne of parts for £100m. Would have been perfect for Crowsnest.

Back to the F35 though...with the (possible) use of SRVL does anyone know if there is any contingency for an emergency on landing such as a barrier system? It's a long deck and the planes brakes will be good, but would it make sense for there to be a barrier for emergencys?

[Smokey]

My best guess, probably just land vertically or "bolter" and go round again.