Harrier Jump Jet things

[dubaipusser]

wait til the new carriers come with the new fighters to provide fleet cover --- yeah right, the RAF will be in charge of naval aviation before long. I underestimated the SHAR down the falklands, what will happen now if the argies try again which they are threatening Illustrious, Ark iNn refit & invinc more or less scrapped & no fighters!!
just a gloriefied crab cab & a bunch of little blues who don't want to go to sea.

Ah but the big problem then was that we had let the Argies in and then had to go and get the Falklands back.

Clearly the thinking in the Monastery of Indifference now is that we have fortress Falklands ... (sorry I just had a bit of a giggling fit) and will be able to stop the Argies from gaining a foothold and therefore no longer need to worry about such mundane questions as "could we do it again?"

That's what this country needs more of - clear thinking from our politicos - you know it makes sense!

 

[noggie]

If it works change it !!

 

[mikh]

In the normal course of events the Government reduces spending on the military in time of peace (% GNP) until all of a sudden we need to send ships, crap and pongoes half way round the world to normally sort out someone else's problems, then its a sydden round of increased spending. This lot in power now not only send every available body off in every directing it also cut spending on the military at the same time, and when they do spend some dosh its only because the papers have highlighted shorfall in the inventroy of the lads (and lasses) at the sharp end which is putting live in danger.

I know I've gone off the thread but this is something I feel stronly about, picture this scenario, a employer send a worker to work in a dangerous place, e.g. at hight without the correct equipment or training, employee falls and dies - employer taken to court by the H&S gestapo. comared to the UK gov send a pongo/marine/sailer/crab to war ill equiped and under trained - said military type person is promtly shot due to poor training and lack of equipment - said government say its sad but it what they joined up for, It is about time our elected officals were made to pay for their errors

 

[chockhead819]

It will go on until the MOD realises that it has a "Duty of Care" which will never happen!

 

[RoofRat]

Sorry out of date, and sequence.Deleted.
RoofRat

 

[Not_a_boffin]

On the subject of what happened to the SHARs, this site is astonishing. You have to scroll down past the crab GRs to get to them, but check out the piccies.

http://www.demobbed.org.uk/

RR - suspend your disbelief till summer - I'm trying hard. Word is that the ministerial announcement will be pre-xmas. with production contract signed June 07. Don't expect them to be on time though.....

 

[chieftiff]

Talk about spotters paradise, that is an amazing website. The saddest thing is more than half of those airframes sat in scrapyards are newer than the GR's we work on now!!!! :twisted:

 

[Wheel-spanner]

Is it a true dit that the F-35 might not happen because the Yanks won't release the software codes to allow us complete autonomy t work on the beast throughout its life?

Ah well..can always buy Rafale!

 

[chieftiff]

I honestly, honestly couldn't possibly comment on how accurate the press may or may not have got on this story!

 

[meeware]

I think I'm right in saying the FA2 was hard pushed to do a vertical landing let a lone a take off in many conditions. In the Gulf and the Adriatic the air temp afected the available thrust to the point where four AMRAAM was a bit much to be lunking around if you wanted to settle down comfortably.

Of course if the FA2 had been given the engine that is now in the GR7A and 9A, that would have been less of an issue. However, the GR airframes are rather different to the naval ones; The RAF got the Harrier upgrade that McDonnel Douglas did for the USMC back in the eighties- bigger by a couple of inches all around and a girt big wing on it too. In many ways they got a better plane than the US did, with the extra sidewinder rails and night attack capabilities from the start. However, once they had this plane, the comonality with the RN aircraft was pretty much out the window.

The Harrier 2 as it was sometimes known is a decent ground attack aircraft, but for various reasons, mostly aerodynamic, it really isn't as spritely a dogfighter as the FRS1 was. So, when the RN came to eventually upgrading it's harriers for two main reasons (cost and flight envelope) they stuck with the skinnier, older design. In point of fact virtually all the FA2s were rebuilt FRS1s, and apparently there are only two or three airframes that didn't get converted. There were a handful of new builds too, but even so, the new plane was a flawed gem.

The original idea had been to carry four amraam, and no guns, with two amraam under the fuselage. It turned out that these two rockets got a tad warm when landing, and were getting cooked. It's probably only down to the miracle of modern inert munitions that a FRS1 didn't shoot down an aircraft carrier during the Kosovo crisis.

When JFH came along the costs of trying to support two radically different types on the budget allocated for a single type force proced crippling. A decision had to be made- which one to keep. Right now, the one that delivers the most good is the GR version, so for better or worse the decision was made to drop the fighters.

Short sighted? Probably. But sensible, yeah, just.

 

[chieftiff]

You've pretty much summed up the whole chain of events there, the only flaw in the logic being the fact that the FA2 was a multirole aircraft-albeit with engine issues capable of Fleet defence, the GR is a bomber with recce facility, no air attack capability whatsoever.

Interesting to note that just prior to 800 Sqdn's loss of the FA2 a bombing competition was held amongst all the Harrier Sqdns, 800 Sqdn won it by a mile against an aircraft designed as a pure bomber! Luck? Skill? capability? who knows, bloody embarrassing though for the GR7.

 

[chockhead819]

I remember on Hermes, a SHAR shot its self against the splash target. well i believe part of fired round ended up going through the tail.

 

[chieftiff]

Unfortunately the clips which held the 30mm rounds together and are expelled out the side of the gunpods had a nasty habit of striking the underneath of the tailplane, imaginitively termed a clip strike!

 

[Furniss]

Yup STOVL (means short take off vertical landing) can both take off and land vertically as proved at Devonport Navydays '06

 

[boredwafu]

You've pretty much summed up the whole chain of events there, the only flaw in the logic being the fact that the FA2 was a multirole aircraft-albeit with engine issues capable of Fleet defence, the GR is a bomber with recce facility, no air attack capability whatsoever.

Interesting to note that just prior to 800 Sqdn's loss of the FA2 a bombing competition was held amongst all the Harrier Sqdns, 800 Sqdn won it by a mile against an aircraft designed as a pure bomber! Luck? Skill? capability? who knows, bloody embarrassing though for the GR7.

True, Crab accuracy has a lot to answer for - they even bombed our carrier once having missed the splash target, and didn't even have the common courtesy to apologies to those injured! (about 10years ago I think)

 

[DingDong]

Just to clear something up, the reason why the FA2 was a multi-role aircraft was that the Blue Vixen had a ground mapping capability meaning that instead of relying on a laser dot, it actually saw the target.

What we should have done is rip the blue viven out of the FA2 and stuck in the nose of the GR9 and made it like the Harrier II+ which the Americans, Spanish, Italians and I think Thai's are using.

******* Crabs, and ******* Stoopid politicians. They should leave things that work well alone

 

[DingDong]

Just to clear something up, the reason why the FA2 was a multi-role aircraft was that the Blue Vixen had a ground mapping capability meaning that instead of relying on a laser dot, it actually saw the target.

What we should have done is rip the blue viven out of the FA2 and stuck in the nose of the GR9 and made it like the Harrier II+ which the Americans, Spanish, Italians and I think Thai's are using.

******* Crabs, and ******* Stoopid politicians. They should leave things that work well alone

 

[chieftiff]

You've pretty much summed up the whole chain of events there, the only flaw in the logic being the fact that the FA2 was a multirole aircraft-albeit with engine issues capable of Fleet defence, the GR is a bomber with recce facility, no air attack capability whatsoever.

Interesting to note that just prior to 800 Sqdn's loss of the FA2 a bombing competition was held amongst all the Harrier Sqdns, 800 Sqdn won it by a mile against an aircraft designed as a pure bomber! Luck? Skill? capability? who knows, bloody embarrassing though for the GR7.

True, Crab accuracy has a lot to answer for - they even bombed our carrier once having missed the splash target, and didn't even have the common courtesy to apologies to those injured! (about 10years ago I think)

I know, I was there! And to be honest Flt Lt H****** was a bloody nice bloke who didn't deserve the rap for that, there was a known fault with the targeting system on the FRS 1 creating a short time delay in offsetting to the splash target when lobbing bombs, no one however deemed it necessary to tell him! He was, believe me, absolutely gutted! That being said I don't think you could knock him for his accuracy, he hit the ship bang on Juliet section, exactly where he aimed.

Edited to add: It was about fifteen years ago I think you will find!

 

[chieftiff]

Just to clear something up, the reason why the FA2 was a multi-role aircraft was that the Blue Vixen had a ground mapping capability meaning that instead of relying on a laser dot, it actually saw the target.

What we should have done is rip the blue viven out of the FA2 and stuck in the nose of the GR9 and made it like the Harrier II+ which the Americans, Spanish, Italians and I think Thai's are using.

******* Crabs, and ******* Stoopid politicians. They should leave things that work well alone

I don't think you can fairly blame the crabs because for the cost of putting the Blue Vixen(and its weapon system AMRAAM) in a GR7 you might as well build a new aircraft! in fact by the time you had beefed up the airframe it would have been a new aircraft! That doesn't mean that both they and the idiots in power don't deserve some shit, just not for that!

 

[Canaldrifter]

Ah but the big problem then was that we had let the Argies in and then had to go and get the Falklands back.

When I wuz a young tiff, we used to ask why we bovvered with a South Atlatic Fleet. Wot wuz it for?

We were told that without it the Argies would try to get their Malvenas back.

What did Maggie do? Withdraw the South Atlantic fleet?