The QE's were designed with thew facility to add catapults, but they were omitted because the Navy wanted to buy the ludicrously expensive VTOL version of the F35 and there was no money for the catapults.

 

On course, with the cancellation of those aircraft, the money has to be found for the catapults or we end up with a very large helicopter carrier. False economy.

Mr Booker 's paper is half a joke , biaised but sometimes accurate .

 

First , if the UK wants a proper Navy , the British would better build their own carrier and their own fighter .

But can they ?

They can surely build fine ships , no doubt , but what about the aircraft itself ? A navalized Eurofighter would be a totaly new fighter with a brand new blueprint . It would take another 15-20 years to have it operational , if it ever works and fit the technicals .

So , the UK went for the F-35 . There , I share the views of Scholar and Heorot : bad move and the British are stuck with it .

Getting the US FA/18 ? This is a real dead end . Rafale is not a perfect aircraft , but as Scholar said , it exists .

In fact , since the late 80s , I always asked myself why in hell the UK did not do what the French did : build a naval fighter then build a carrier for it . For a great country like the UK , it 's not rocket science !

 

 

 

First , if the UK wants a proper Navy , the British would better build their own carrier and their own fighter .

But can they ?

They can surely build fine ships , no doubt , but what about the aircraft itself ? A navalized Eurofighter would be a totaly new fighter with a brand new blueprint . It would take another 15-20 years to have it operational , if it ever works and fit the technicals .

So , the UK went for the F-35 . There , I share the views of Scholar and Heorot : bad move and the British are stuck with it .

Getting the US FA/18 ? This is a real dead end . Rafale is not a perfect aircraft , but as Scholar said , it exists .

In fact , since the late 80s , I always asked myself why in hell the UK did not do what the French did : build a naval fighter then build a carrier for it . For a great country like the UK , it 's not rocket science !

 

 

How about you just come clean about who you are, for God's sake your agenda has become apparent within a few posts - weasling your way back into Rafale fandom as we would expect.

 

"bad move and the british are stuck with it" 

 

bullshit - the F-35 is a complete generational advance from Rafale/F-18, offers the sorts of survivability that will be important if we ever face a "real" conflict where A2A performance matters. The reason we didn't do what France did with the Rafale is that we didn't want a semi-obsolete mud-mover with a crap radar, underpowered engines, massively limited development potential and no chance of offsetting development costs through export sales. Again, you have come here pretending to be another "interested commentator" or something similarly unbiased but every comment you are making is essentially about the Rafale - just be honest about that and cut the crap.

 

The UK IS developing a UCAV tech demonstrator (taranis) which looks to be an excellent design, the F-35 program has helped BAE Systems to enter the US market - and we will have an airframe that whatever the end unit cost will bring a whole array of new capabilities with it (think sensory) and also has decades of supported service life ahead of it - when you compare this to the mediocre, semi obsolescent capabilities a Rafale purchase would bring there simply is no comparison.

 

But then I'm speaking to an "undercover" fan boy, you're doing a marginally better job than Bluewings is but I suspect it won't be long until you're back to your old tricks.

 

R

 

"bad move and the british are stuck with it" 

 

bullshit - the F-35 is a complete generational advance from Rafale/F-18, offers the sorts of survivability that will be important if we ever face a "real" conflict where A2A performance matters. The reason we didn't do what France did with the Rafale is that we didn't want a semi-obsolete mud-mover with a crap radar, underpowered engines, massively limited development potential and no chance of offsetting development costs through export sales. Again, you have come here pretending to be another "interested commentator" or something similarly unbiased but every comment you are making is essentially about the Rafale - just be honest about that and cut the crap.

 

The UK IS developing a UCAV tech demonstrator (taranis) which looks to be an excellent design, the F-35 program has helped BAE Systems to enter the US market - and we will have an airframe that whatever the end unit cost will bring a whole array of new capabilities with it (think sensory) and also has decades of supported service life ahead of it - when you compare this to the mediocre, semi obsolescent capabilities a Rafale purchase would bring there simply is no comparison.

 

But then I'm speaking to an "undercover" fan boy, you're doing a marginally better job than Bluewings is but I suspect it won't be long until you're back to your old tricks.

 

R

Lots of strong adjectives...

The F-35 should serve the RN well, if and when it arrives (and there's a carrier for it to fly from). For the moment though, the F-35 is all promises and shiny Powerpoints, while the Rafale is doing the job, as "mediocre" "underpowered" and "semi-obsolescent" as it's supposed to be.

Or, in short and strictly in the matter of demonstrated operational capabilties, the F-35 is now at the point where the Rafale was in the late 90s - early 2000s. 

 

It is not "promises and shiny powerpoints" by a long stretch and you well-know this - a big part of the "problem" is that it has been designed with major performance expectations with very good reason.

 

While Russia and China are going down LO/VLO route for multiple platforms, while at least 5 separate UCAVs in development have these characteristics, while deployed airborne radars on manned and especially unmanned platforms are going through a radical shift towards offensive capabilities and peak powers that negate a lot of the defensive capabilities employed on 4th generation assets it is hardly "adequate" to suggest we spend billions of pounds on a plane that, though useful at bombing Libyan targets (as indeed every other platform has been) does not look likely to be particularly survivable throughout the next decades, the most you can really say for it given its limited upgrade potential is that it could be a stopgap for 10-15 years, that hardly represents value for money in my book.

 

It's all relative to what you expect this platform to be able to do - what missions it can accomplish and what support it requires to operate in hostile territory, I disagree fundamentally with your assertion that its KPP's are "powerpoints" I would suggest that you are being disingenuous. 

 

I like the F-35 program because whatever the final unit cost it will be a remarkably capable airframe that has been designed with the same sort of through-life upgrade potential as the F-teens have demonstrated. 

 

R 

Mr Reactive , you wrote :

"How about you just come clean about who you are, for God's sake your agenda has become apparent within a few posts - weasling your way back into Rafale fandom as we would expect. "

 

I can assure you that I am not a french stratege (?) but an interested amateur . Also , I don 't have any agenda of any kind .

Then , even if I know a little bit about airplanes , I prefer to talk about geopolitics .

I don't care what you think and the primary reason for that is that you resemble many others whose primary role on these forums is singularly to promote Rafale.

Mr Reactive , I don 't share your optimism wrt the F-35 . I am in fact very skeptical and I foresee a bad futur for the aircraft .

Now , I hope to be wrong for the sake of the futur of the RN .

 

You wrote :