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Subject: [Telegraph] RN may fly Rafale from HMS QE
YelliChink    5/14/2011 1:12:30 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8485555/Politicians-hide-their-plans-to-put-French-jets-on-Royal-Navy-carriers.html This is going to be hilarious.
 
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gf0012-aust       5/14/2011 3:45:04 AM
booker is richard norths best blogging mate.

it kind of kills his credibility as a a  balanced observer
 
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JTR~~       5/14/2011 7:05:55 AM

If they do then it will be the death of the Royal Navy and a national embarrassment for the UK. These carriers are already turning out to be an absolute joke. The program needs to be seriously revised and I?m talking about full commitment. Both carriers in service fully crewed and manned with British aircraft (JSF) and British crews. On top of that the whole of the British armed forces could do with a going over, top to bottom reform. Bits have been cut here and there and it has left them raggedy and dishevelled. They need a new structure with the right amounts of the highest quality kit to furnish them with, and sadly i don?t think any of this will happen. i think the military will face a slow and irrecoverable decline from here on in, and the thing that saddens me the most is the loss of the quality of their heritage. With this we are seeing the death of (or at least what has been for many decades, centuries even) one of the finest fighting forces that the world has seen.

 
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scholar       6/13/2011 3:51:56 PM
Isn't this a good idea, I mean, given the uncertainty around JSF and the fact that the UK and France are calling for interoperability? Surely it's better to have Rafales than antiquated Harriers?  Either way, it's clear that the Queen Elizabeth is being fitted out to be able to handle Rafales as well as the not VTOL JSFs. Hence the catapults.
 
If I were MoD, I'd be sorely tempted to abandon JSF in favor of Rafales. I'm not arguing that the Rafale's better, but that it exists, and who knows when JSFs will become a reality? 
 
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Heorot       6/13/2011 7:37:11 PM
Personally, I have never favoured the F35 for the UK. Too expensive for too little capability. I believe that  VLO is an unnecessary feature for an aircraft that is unlikely to ever go alone against a first class enemy, and, if VLO is not important, then the F35 becomes a very expensive bomb truck carrying  external ordnance.
 
Whether Rafale is the right choice is another matter. A marinised tranche 3 Typhoon would be better, but that ain't gonna happen.
 
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Heorot    Addendum   6/13/2011 7:40:51 PM
The F35 program reminds me too much of the Skybolt and F111 debacles; loads of promises that never came to fruition. Cancellation of the TSR2 in favour of the F111 was one of the worst decisions made in UK aviation history.
 
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scholar       6/13/2011 11:43:45 PM
That's precisely why the F-35 never made sense to me. I get that one might need an F-22 for air superiority, but so long as that's achieved at least against other airplanes, doesn't it make more sense to use tried and true platforms like F-18s/16/etc. for the SEAD and other missions? Why does one need a fancy airframe to drop precision guided munitions?
 
By the way, why was the QE class originally designed without catapults? It seems dumb to build such a large hull and not want to make the most of all that real estate.
 
 
Personally, I have never favoured the F35 for the UK. Too expensive for too little capability. I believe that  VLO is an unnecessary feature for an aircraft that is unlikely to ever go alone against a first class enemy, and, if VLO is not important, then the F35 becomes a very expensive bomb truck carrying  external ordnance.
 
Whether Rafale is the right choice is another matter. A marinised tranche 3 Typhoon would be better, but that ain't gonna happen.

 
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Reactive       6/14/2011 9:52:18 AM
Yes it's unlikely that we're facing an imminent call to action against a high-tier threat but it's not impossible and in 20 years who knows what will have emerged.
 
We'll presumably want a highly survivable platform with electronic attack capability (F-35). Anyway, I don't see VLO as an expensive luxury, but rather a means of extending the useful lifespan of articles that will otherwise soon be on the wrong side of the detection envelope.
 
I think there is a real danger of assuming that Libya/Iraq/Afghanistan are going to be the norm from here on out, I can see a lot more serious potential hotspots and I'd prefer to invest in a platform that will be upgradable for 50 years than a dead-end that may eventually get a underpowered aesa array and modest upgrade to its underpowered engines.
 
We'd have to be utterly mad to go with the Rafale, thankfully pulling out of F-35 now would have too many adverse consequences for British industry and BAe to be likely.
 
R
 
 
It'
 
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YelliChink       6/14/2011 11:39:19 AM
Better superbug than Rafale.
 
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Heorot    Reactive   6/14/2011 1:32:05 PM
My view on this is based on what operational capabilites are likely to be needed for the UK. VLO may be fine for the US, but if the UK is going alone against a tier 1 opponent, then we're in trouble big time.
 
I can't see the UK going alone against any serious opposition for the forseeable future. The last labour government borrowed and spent like a drunken crack addict and left the UK finances in desperate straits, (though not as bad as Greece).
 
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Heorot    Scholar.   6/14/2011 1:37:54 PM
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.
 
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