Goodbye to the Harrier

[Gav Peter]

Just watched the last flight of the Harriers on the news... Sad... You wonder what they're thinking about at times...

I'm sure they said that if the Navy Harriers are scrapped that they won't have planes to take off from the carriers for 10 years

 

[TonyP]

Sad indeed, incredible machines really

I'm sure they said that if the Navy Harriers are scrapped that they won't have planes to take off from the carriers for 10 years

Yup heard that too

 

[Paul]

The way things are going we wont have any carriers either

 

[Tommo&Claire]

No we will have no organic air defence capability till the JSF arrives, but you could argue that we haven't had that since the Sea Harrier was decommissioned the better part of ten years ago. The Harrier's that they have just decommissioned were part of Joint Force Harrier which was a combined RN/RAF unit, but they were all GR7's and GR9's which are the ground attack variant. They could carry air to air missiles but in a fight against a dedicated air superiority fighter, they wouldn't last long.

But we've just changed our order, we no longer want the VSTOL version of the JSF but the conventional catapult launched version, which in my view, is the correct decision but should have been taken much earlier. The problem is, that to launch these jets you need steam catapults. On a diesel engine powered Aircraft Carrier like the ones we are building, where does the steam come from? It was easy on the Carriers of old as they were steam ships and well, the Nuclear Carriers are still essentially steam ships!

So we have signed up to the latest Electromagnetic Catapult project which is state-of-the-art tech, but so far no one has got it to work! Soooo even if we do get our JSf's in ten years, will the Carriers be ready to receive them?

Watch this space.

 

[TonyP]

So we have signed up to the latest Electromagnetic Catapult project which is state-of-the-art tech, but so far no one has got it to work! Soooo even if we do get our JSf's in ten years, will the Carriers be ready to receive them?

Watch this space.

ooo now that does sound interesting indeed.... I have a thing for magnets....

 

[Gav Peter]

Yup, the message from my buddy who's (something loike) a Wing Commander in the RAF was that there's not much joined up thinking going on...

 

[Tommo&Claire]

Particularly when you consider we already have RN pilots flying US F18's off their Carriers. How many F18's could we buy for every JSF we build???

But that sort of thinking doesn't win elections i'm afraid!

 

[AndyCook]

sad to see them go
Used to watch them when i was a kid at RAF Wittering when my Dad was based there for a few years.

 

[Lorin]

A lack of joined up thinking in the MOD/Government................ Heresy I say

Is very sad to see them go.

 

[Dave Burgess]

Particularly when you consider we already have RN pilots flying US F18's off their Carriers. How many F18's could we buy for every JSF we build???

But that sort of thinking doesn't win elections i'm afraid!

The Germans have carrier nose wheels for their Useless fighters the Ty(Bu)foon, even though they don't deploy a carrier force! We could do that on the endless tranches of Useless fighters we've committed to .

Some of the GR9 Harriers were only re-engined last year! A Ground Attack variant is probably what is required in Afghanistan... so waiting for the JSF is a winner economically as we're going to be out of there by 2015 when we can cancel the JSF!

Must be true, I read it in the Telegraph!

 

[adrianr]

If they made the magnetic catapult like a rail gun that should do the trick nicely.

 

[Tommo&Claire]

The principle is the same but no one has got it to work yet, plus there's the issue of power generation and all of us living around magnetic fields like that......