Rumour has it that the proposed carriers that the RN have on order may have to be paid for by scrapping Typhoon Squadrons.

The F35 that is supposed to fly off the things is overdue, over budget and overweight.

A steam catapult may be required to get them off the deck with anything near a full ordnance load. But no steam catapult is fitted to these new vessels.

Am I alone here in thinking that it is permanent amateur hour over at the MOD these days?

Hi there Trench---Check the RN section for more stuff about those over-priced barges.

Did you get an e-mail from me yesterday?

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Did you get an e-mail from me yesterday?

No, sorry

I thought they'd solved the weight problem?

I gather that the catapults ar still an option though, they are being designed for the French ship which will fly Rafale so I assume that a retrofit or even a change during building is possible. Besides, whatever a/c they use is not due to be ready until after the first ship is finished so the ski-jump may be kept to allow the RAF to fly Harriers off it, at least in the short term.

On a related note, how do they power steam catapults on modern oil-burning ships? When the RN first invented catapults they were still using steam turbines and the Nimitz class has it's reactors but diesel engines and gas-turbines don't have a surfeit of superheated steam. Do they have to have a special boiler somewhere just for the catapults?

As to scrapping Typhoon squadrons in favour of the carriers, you may be right but I can't help thinking we'd get better use out of a couple of carriers with F35 in the long run.

Perhaps it's a sign that "Crab-air" will be reabsorbed back into the senior services in 2019?

Ho! Ho! Ho! How very amusing Blade.


Cry Haddock! Let slip the Cod of War! Captain Birdseye.

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As to scrapping Typhoon squadrons in favour of the carriers, you may be right but I can't help thinking we'd get better use out of a couple of carriers with F35 in the long run.

Could the aforesaid newly redundant Typhoons fulfil the role if F35 does not appear....

.... or is that too sensible and logical for the MOD to consider??????

Don't think so, Typhoon would need a heavily strengthened airframe to take carrier launches and landings and this is unlikely to be achievable without completely new frames, so retrofits would be out of the question.

It is an option I gather but the conventional carrier F35 (if they stop playing silly buggers over tech transfer), Rafale or even an F-18 derivative are probably preferable, a redesigned Typhoon would be really, really late in any case.

The US Navy along with the French are testing new catapults that do not use steam. The US Navy will be installing them on the new Gerald Ford class of carriers. The French on PA 2.

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Originally posted by trench4450:

quote:

As to scrapping Typhoon squadrons in favour of the carriers, you may be right but I can't help thinking we'd get better use out of a couple of carriers with F35 in the long run.

Could the aforesaid newly redundant Typhoons fulfil the role if F35 does not appear....

.... or is that too sensible and logical for the MOD to consider??????

The F-35Bs will be delivered a few years after the first carrier is delivered. The RN will continue to use their Harriers and Sea King AEW aircraft until they switch over to the Lightning IIs.

As for being late and over budget, the Typhoons take first prize. They have been developing them since the early 1980s. The Lightning IIs have been developed since the late 1990s, fifteen years difference.