unless you guys go to war with over the Falklands again or even over the strait I don't see why the UK even needs standing army you guys are so close under the armpit of yugoslavia and iranium that theres no point of even fighting it anymore, just see tomorrow when your entire country is made of muslims who can't fly planes slicked in pigs greese.[img]http://freethinker.co.uk/images/uploads/2013/04/500x375xmargaretthatcher.jpg.pagespeed.ic.n4azu_IXPT.jpg[/img]
rip
[QUOTE=Shibbey;43873342]I understand the need to replace the somewhat aging Harrier but c'mon MoD, atleast buy a plane that's completed and working.[/QUOTE]
[I]somewhat[/I] aging? Harriers aren't even super sonic aircraft, it might as well be a bi-plane in this day and age.
The military industrial complex fucking sucks.
From what i heard these airplanes are shite, or was that another plane
[QUOTE=goon165;43873370]Imaginary planes for an imaginary aircraft carrier.[/QUOTE]
Always hiding behind lies and proxy soldiers.
[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;43881118]From what i heard these airplanes are shite, or was that another plane[/QUOTE]
Yeah, this is the one. The one currently scoffing more money than sense and shitting out scraps of a vaguely-superior aircraft.
[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;43881118]From what i heard these airplanes are shite, or was that another plane[/QUOTE]
We don't know if it sucks yet. It's years behind schedule and billions over budget.
F-35s were meant to be cheap "bang for your buck" multirole fighters - a modern F-16 - with a neat trick, hovering. Currently the STOVL variant won't be available until 2019 and none of the proposed models have VTOL capability anymore. The F-22 is cheaper to produce, buy and operate than the F-35, while remaining the absolute best fighter jet in the world. Why are we still dicking around with the 35?
i say bring back the empire
[QUOTE=XanaToast.;43873429]we did, it was called the Harrier[/QUOTE]
We (the uk) were actually involved in the euro fighter project. This replaced the harrier.
The eurofighter seems ill suited for bombing and a worse fighter than the f35 is meant to be. So prehaps its best to ditch the eurofighter and cut our losses with it.
The Harrier was more efficient in Afghanistan, it's servicing was simpler, it was carrier capable.
The Tornado has problems with the heat in Afghan, it's servicing is longer and more complicated, it needs a runway.
Scrapping the Tornado fleet would have save £7.4 billion. Scrapping the Harrier fleet saved £1.7 billion.
Now they want to purchase a slightly.. EVER so slightly.. improved "F35B" fleet.. very few differences between it and the Harrier jets which they threw away..
We're not ditching the Eurofighter, at least not all of them. The F-35, however many we end up with, will be replacing the Harrier and the Tornado in RAF service and will serve alongside the 107 Eurofighters.
As for why we're not designing our own aircraft and why we're buying the F-35, cost. Back in the 90s the UK considered a lot of options for its Future Carrier Borne Aircraft and decided that collaboration with the US, who just so happened to need a few thousand of a new aircraft to replace literally every plane it owned (because why not), would be more financially viable than shouldering the cost of development and production alone to build only a handful of jets anyway. Shared development costs, economies of scale and the fact that the furthest our imagination was able to stretch out to was the Harrier III meant it was a bit of a no-brainer.
As for why we don't jump ship with the F-35 now, cost and lack of alternatives. We've pumped a lot of money into the F-35 and that would have to be written off simply as sunk cost, not a good start, before then pumping yet more money, we're talking billions here, into development of our own fighter which will have to be shouldered alone in a time of fiscal crisis and money saving. It really is the F-35 or nothing at this point, and the envisaged QE/F-35, Type 45, Type 23/26 and Astute carrier group is a highly impressive and capable expeditionary task force; the whole point of this after all.
I hope the MoD kept the receipt.
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43882333]F-35s were meant to be cheap "bang for your buck" multirole fighters - a modern F-16 - with a neat trick, hovering. Currently the STOVL variant won't be available until 2019 and none of the proposed models have VTOL capability anymore. The F-22 is cheaper to produce, buy and operate than the F-35, while remaining the absolute best fighter jet in the world. Why are we still dicking around with the 35?[/QUOTE]
Because the only reason the F-35 is so expensive is because politicians keep forcing the military to cut back on F-35 purchases so they can look like they're tough on spending. With fewer aircraft, the unit price goes way up.
The F-16 is cheap because development was essentially completed in the early 70s, and even then it cost billions upon billions of dollars. It's taken over forty years to go from an extremely expensive state-of-the-art prototype to a mass-produced workhorse and when it was first released it was a freakishly expensive, problem-ridden (it got the nickname 'lawn dart' for a reason) mess of an airplane that took time to figure out.
If the government could actually see the project through, then it would actually be able to rival the F-16 in cost. But as long as we have armchair analysts calling for cancelling every new project that costs money, it won't happen.
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43882333]F-35s were meant to be cheap "bang for your buck" multirole fighters - a modern F-16 - with a neat trick, hovering. Currently the STOVL variant won't be available until 2019 and none of the proposed models have VTOL capability anymore. The F-22 is cheaper to produce, buy and operate than the F-35, while remaining the absolute best fighter jet in the world. Why are we still dicking around with the 35?[/QUOTE]
Originally, the F-22 was to be exported. But Congress banned its export. So they had to design another aircraft to export.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22#Ban_on_exports[/url]
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