F35 - Money well spent.

Apparently, huge wadges of moolah are buying something that would give an L85A1 a run for its money in the not-quite-as-planned stakes. Luckily, we are not buying any for 617 Sqn and others then eh? Oh, wait...

Washington Times report.

 

The sooner we admit we're never going to go up against the Russians, Chinese or Yanks alone and cut our cloth accordingly (Typhoon for RAF AD/CAS and something like F/A-18 or similar for RN AD/CAS) instead of continuously watching prices rise and the number of aircraft we can afford falling the better.

 

the whole project is going into the cost numbers spiral which will be its death.

 

"The report shows that the F-35A “is flawed beyond redemption,” commented POGO staffer and veteran defense spending analyst Winslow Wheeler".

Good summary of the whole F-35 program.....

 

the yanks are normally good at the visibility thing harrier 2 has a nice bubbled canopy compared to the original hawker one.

 

What are the chances of nailing longer decks onto HMS White Elephant and HMS Beercan?

 

they would find a way of adding 4 billion and come up with a sliding deck system based on a dining table.

boeing built the two x32 prototypes for 500 million dollars which is probably cheaper than two typhoons so they could build some of their redesigned kites for us with the mods they couldn't finish in time for the competition finals.

they are smaller too so might make our ships look bigger in the same way a para makes his bergen look awesomely huge.

 

Personally, I'd pull the plug thing and buy the Rafale and leverage the FAA off the Aeronavales training and support base.

There! i said it! Buy French.

 

Its Just Better...Fact

 

Are you all right ?



Jokes aside, it would by far make the most sense in all respects.

Hence, this solution stands absolutely no chance of being chosen.

 

As unsurprising as it is to see you making things up off the top of your head, I believe two Typhoons would set you back ~£140m

 

It would indeed be the perfect solution, hence, we will claim to be operating with the French navy while resolutely shooting ourselves in both feet.

 

yeah right - double that and you get nearer the real figures. especially when you take into account the plans to scrap the first 130 or so to make way for the last few which I read a few years back with the three tranche thing to stop the whole program from collapsing when the french pulled out

original estimate 7 billion actual cost closer to 19 billion - so that's 82 million or so per airframe purchase price without the fitted fors being added.

typhoons extra budget was paid for by cuts. IIRC if we'd cut our order to what we actually needed they would have ended up at around 125 million each and still not be fitted for anything at least this way we will have plenty of expensive spare parts. they've fed us crap about it from day one, like that stunt with them escorting russians away from our shores but the plane that took the released photos and carried the weapons to shoot down the intruders was a tornado. same with ellamy - typhoons had to go as they needed to sell it but they couldn't have done it without the tornado.

still 16,000 brits are employed making them so that makes it okay

we should have built three carriers and swapped one for rafales and service contracts under entente cordial but we would probably have demanded so many mods to it, it would be unable to fly.

 

we should maybe have fitted at least one carrier with catobar - so the french can use it when theirs is tied up being fixed again.

well as long as our carriers can get up to speed for deck operations. which some reports are doubtfull about, another reason we need a jump jet again.