asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Yes Captain Nick just using shorthand
Aircraft Carriers III
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
This time of year it would be dress blues. The USN dress uniforms are seasonal.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Until they change it... Again.
I thought the sailors phased out the Summer Winter color change for the year round Khaki back in 2010.
EDIT: just double checked the Navy still has Summer Whites but phased out Winter blues in favor of Khaki.
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Cause he has to "work" for a living, no high life fancy pants for US Sailor's!
Yep, its winter on the North Atlantic, I love ya MAN! for my money Asif, you're one of the straightest, squarest Dude's there is on SDF! you can come to my house anytime, and if I ever get across the pond, you and Obi-Wan are the two dudes, well let me change that "Sampan Viking", Keith, would have to play us little concert, and Obi Wan would have to grill the steaks! I guess they still have steak in the UK??
Anyway, jolly good show, and as much as I love the A model, I do think the UK probably should stick with the B, this is an airplane that I was tremendously skeptical of, yet the USMC and Royal Navy/RAF have put out front and center, and stood up 1st! It's an amazingly flexible combat platform and just an awesome airplane everyday!
We still have steaks here. My Dad is a definitely a 'Steak' man, he likes them rare, so rare when you stick your fork in they go 'MOOOOOO!'
I'm on a liquid diet at the moment as my big op is next Thursday. The diet sucks btw...
Yes the latest scandal about elements of the RAF trying to get the rest of the F-35 order changed to 'A's is definitely the light blue showing their true colours once more. Some of them have learned from the past mistakes, and some have not. Back in the 60s and 70s they schemed to steal all of the Navy's jets transferred to their control, then when we actually needed them in 1982 they sat impotent on the sidelines as we no longer had suitable carriers. Now as they failed to stop the new carriers being built, they are scheming to render most of the aircraft unable to operate at sea. It's only a matter of time before a conflict comes along where Carrier strike is the only option, and the light blue will again find the shiny new A models sitting impotent on the sidelines…
Talk of the A being cheaper than the B are also fallacious. The A is currently priced around £70million each, whilst the B is about £90million. Seems straightforward, obviously when buying large numbers that either we could afford more As than Bs for a given price or buy the same number for less. That's not how it works though. The A uses the 'flying boom' refuelling system, whilst the B uses the 'probe/drogue' method. The UK possesses no flying boom equipped aircraft, so that capability would have to be added (at great cost). Buying such tankers in itself wipes out the cost differential and we haven't even got to the separate logistics supply chain for the A, or the different training programme that would need to be instituted. So increased cost for less capability and a crippling of the UK Carrier force.
I'm sorry, was there supposed to be an upside to the 'split buy?'
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
True and... not entirely accurate at the same time.
F35A has the space for insulation of the Probe and Drouge receiver just like the B and C.
Here's the Rub, you would either end up with both systems. Which advantage you can tank off of any tanker. But would have more weight and demand more maintenance to maintain both piping.
Or you could remove the Boom receiver which would change the center of gravity meaning changes to the balance.
Most of the rest of the issues come from changes between the two versions made to reduce weight and for the V/STOL.
A version has some nice features it has longer range and a higher payload. But only a small commonality between it and the B.
Jura The idiot
General
from what I read somewhere regarding the idea of the UK F-35B/A split Yesterday at 4:27 PM
technicalities aside, if the RN got only 48 F-35Bs, it'd hardly justify two supercarriers in use
and what made sense to me:
technicalities aside, if the RN got only 48 F-35Bs, it'd hardly justify two supercarriers in use
I'm well aware that Lockheed Martin has said if you want an A with a probe instead of the boom receptacle, all you have to do is ask. It won't be free of course, the customer will have to pay for the change. Which means these F-35A*s will no longer be off the shelf As, and the notion of a price differential between the A and the B again begins to evaporate, and that is being put forward as the main reason to buy the A.
The other two bug arguments are range (completely nullified by IFR, and the B will always be launching from nearer to the target anyway), and the larger weapons bay on the A, for which there are currently no weapons in the UK arsenal that need that extra space. All in all maintaining a homogenous fleet of Bs and avoiding the past instances of 'fleets within fleet' which has always incurred greater than necessary costs, is still the most sensible option. It'll be a dark day for UK Defenced if we ever do buy the A.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
I mostly agree on this.
As Jura points out.
Each Queen Elizabeth class carrier has something like 2 dozen F35B as part of her air wing under normal conditions. That's 48 Right there without spares or units for training. You generally would want to have enough to operate both carriers at once plus have at least one air wing in training at home and have a reserve number in case of need. The 138 unit order would meet that commitment and have a squadron or two left over.
48 units would be perfect for a navy with two smaller carriers, like the JSDF with only a dozen or so F35B in its embarked air wing, 48 would be better suited to that size.
But the size of the Queen Elizabeth demands more machines.
If the Air forces feel the need for A models the only way to do that would be for a separate unit buy. That however is highly unlikely.
Intrepid
Major
I would count one unit per year crashed, that are 28 units left after 20 years.