SkippyBing

The reduced max speed wasn't due to the output of the engine more the fact that it required a greater mass flow of air which required bigger intakes, and it had a greater cross section, all of which messed up the aerodynamics enough to reduce the max speed. I'm fairly sure the Spey gave better fuel consumption being a turbofan.

I've got some DVDs with UK Phantom carrier ops on, I'll have a look when I get back. From memory I'd say they weren't as smokey as the J-79, I know they were turbofans but I'm not sure why this would make a difference as such.

For the love of God no!! The most evil of lagers and possibly Belgium's revenge for err something... Actually had my Aviation Medicine update brief recently (I was only 2 years out of date) and there was a section on alcohol consumption. The Doc had a nice graph of units per week versus the increase/decrease in the chance of something bad happening to you e.g. heart disease, cancer, accident etc. There was kind of a trough around 8 units a week i.e. your chance was reduced to a minimum at that point, below not drinking at all, which was the point he was trying to make. I think I ruined it when I pointed out you were technically no worse off drinking 24 units a week than none. Regrettably it does turn out you're supposed to spread them over the week rather than two days which is somewhat disappointing.

Agreed, but the UK 'Tooms had more low speed thrust than the US ones hence the higher AoA on launch for the RN ones. As I understand it a Spey Phantom would beat a standard one up to about Mach 1 at which point the advantage reversed

On the plus side, no one is likely to try hi-jacking and airliner if they introduce those things. On the downside that leaves several brazilion* ways to blow s**t up that no one is covering because you can disable all the airline passengers. Seriously there's a limit to how much you can limit the activities of a certain group to prevent terrorism before the terrorists try something else, I'd say we've reached that point with air travel. The fishing boat with a dirty bomb on-board is now probably a much more serious threat to the worlds capitals, well those on a major waterway at least. *It's a punch line to a joke not a spelling mistake

I'm not 100% sure but I'd guess the Skyhawk's nose leg put it at the optimum angle of attack to launch, any more and you'd probably be dangerously near the stall as you climbed away at the end of the cat. I think the RN Phantoms were to some extent taking the p**s, although they also had a low speed thrust advantage to push it out of danger.

To quote Eric Cartman 'it's all just a bunch of tree hugging hippy s***'. Part of the problem is that as things become safer generally, to generate news the papers focus on events that previously would have been less significant. I think the British printed media is to some extent more a driver of public opinion than the US, plus the exchange guys I bit are still blown over by Page 3. Interestingly the latest wheeze from our Government (of Cretins) is to alter the law so that you will not be prosecuted for killing someone who breaks into your home/threatens you etc. (you generally wouldn't be anyway but it's now formalised) the problem is having banned handguns and knives sharper than a crayon it's a bit hard to figure out how to kill the b******s although I have a baseball bat lying around....

I think the bit where they refer to the Imperial Japanese Air Force indicates it's fiction.

Just realised if you point your browser at your My Pictures directory (or any folder with images) it works on that too. Much cooler than the standard M$ filmstrip view.

Jimmybib is correct in that the Naval Strike Wing operates GR.9s alongside the RAF. At the moment the UK's Harrier force is basically watch on stop on in Afghanistan, with the Strike Wing occasionally operating from one of the CVS around that (see the Warship TV series from Channel 5, it might be on you tube, it is highly embarrassing though, we're not all that amateurish). I suspect once the Tornadoes swap with the Harriers we'll see more embarkations. Would AV8B+ be a good thing, yes, can we afford it, no, and at the moment the money would be more usefully spent on support helicopters which is what's really crippling the front line. The use of US and Spanish squadrons is a way of keeping the ship current in fixed wing flying ops while the Strike Wing is otherwise engaged and has other benefits in aiding mutual understanding of operations etc. Having a Spanish Aegis in the Illustrious task group isn't particularly a sign of overstretch, at the same time HMS MANCHESTER was escorting one of the US carriers in the Gulf and another one escorted the Charles de Gaulle for a bit, again it helps develop an understanding of how we can operate together most effectively. As an aside on the forthcoming Tornado deployment I was speaking to a Typhoon mate at RIAT over the weekend and they're itching to go over and show what they can do but no one is willing to let them yet. And by all accounts their weapon carrying ability hot and high is far superior to the GR.4

This reminds me of the time I was holding on Invincible sailing towards the US East Coast for an exercise. We received a visit programme for the pre-exercise meetings and all the aircrew were listed with names like Lt 'Killer' Smith, Lt (jg) 'Widowmaker' Voschosnik etc. sat on the Royal Navy's flagship we managed Lt 'Rosie' Rose, Lt Cdr 'Snags' Johnson, Lt 'Bing' Chandler etc. we came to the conclusion the USN just didn't do nicknames the same as we did. Trust me 'Cupcake' would fit in perfectly round here!

I'm fairly sure ASRAAM uses a data link for a mid course update before switching to IR homing, at least if launched from a radar equipped aircraft. The Sea Harrier was in the middle of an upgrade programme to implement this when someone decided they had to save some money somewhere.

My current fear is we really don't know how to use aircraft carriers, it's bad enough at the moment where the CVS go through FOST (Operational Sea Training, like a TACEVAL for ships) and are treated like FF/DD and asked to do ASW exercises etc. When any sane carrier Captain would be over the horizon with his fleet of Merlins looking for the sub. If they treat CVF like that then frankly we don't deserve it, bring back FOAC! (Flag Officer Aircraft Carriers)

The tail codes are a squadron ident, like the numbers on US Navy aircraft. It generally isn't consistent between squadrons as it's just a way of identifying individual airframes, some squadrons arrange it so that lined up correctly they'll spell something e.g. 74 Sqn used to have T I G E R and S as tail codes. I think the GR 7/9 have some arrangement where the A variants with the upgraded engine have an A as the final digit on their tailcode. Somewhere like the Key publishing forums may have more detail on what's currently being used. I'm not sure about the RN part of the Harrier force, but traditionally we've used a letter on the tail to denote which ship/airbase an aircraft belongs to and a two or three digit number to denote which squadron it belongs to, squadrons being assigned a group of numbers

If you could send some of your shipbuilders over here to explain how they managed to be under budget to BAe Systems and Vosper Thornycroft it'd be most appreciated. Heck Swan Hunter managed to be 100% out on their estimate for two LPDs, despite building them from someone else's plans!

Hell Everett Aero have spare blades for the Lynx, it'll probably be easier than trying to get them from stores...

Well he's bound to right eventually!

Seeing as it's Skynet 5 replacing Skynet 4 I'd imagine we've been using it since before the Terminator films came out. I wonder if MoD has thought about a breach of trademark..... Just checked, Skynet 1 launched at the end of 1969.

The Blue Vixen radar was used to develop the Typhoon's Captor. I'm pretty sure it was the first radar designed to be used with AMRAAM from the outset.

Sea Harrier FA.2, the successor to the FRS.1 used in the Falklands. Full pulse doppler radar and AMRAAM integration plus various other upgrades. Significantly more useful than the Harrier GR.9 for fleet defence on account of having a radar, less good for dropping bombs because it only had 4 under wing hardpoints. Still won the last Joint Force Harrier bombing contest before it was retired...

No, but there were a few Exocet fitted Leanders, plus two T22 and possibly the T21s. T42 can use Sea Dart in the anti surface role. Exocet has been phased out of RN service in favour of Harpoon.

The Chopper was lost on purpose, the old boss of my air station was the pilot. It's a fairly straightforward radius of action calculation, it never had enough fuel to get there and back in the first place. As to hitting the continent, the Black Buck raids were to demonstrate the Vulcan could bomb it. That's not the same as the cancelled SF mission to invade the SuE's base, kill everyone there and fly back for tea and medals.

The Shar had cross decked to the carriers by the time Atlantic Conveyor was hit by the Exocet. On the subject the UK had Exocet at the time so we were pretty clued up on how it worked. As for the Sea Harriers retirement, the farce goes along these line. 1. Form Joint Force Harrier as some politician thinks it'd save on costs despite the two versions in UK service sharing nothing more than the name and the ejector seat. 2. Put all the maritime assets (i.e. Nimrod, SHAR, SAR, Harrier) in 3 Group RAF, thus putting RN units in the RAF chain of command. Put a Commodore in charge initially so the Navy doesn't think it's getting seen off. 3. RAF review decided to put all fast jet assets into 1 Group, taking the SHAR further away from RN control. 4. Defence Logistics Organisation (newish tri-service blanket stacker organisation) decides the UK can only have 4 types of Fast Jet, thus letting the bean counters dictate aircraft numbers on no rational basis what so ever. 5. Someone in Strike Command decides they'll keep the Typhoon, Tornado, Harrier and Jaguar. Approximately no one in the Fleet Air Arm is surprised. 6. RN Harrier force fights a continues uphill battle as it attempts to man squadrons to RAF levels rather than RN levels. As the RN generally have a lower manpower level if only to fit on a ship it all gets very trying. As an aside, anyone watching the Warship programme on the UK's Channel 5 I'd like to say the rest of the Navy isn't that amateurish, and 814 are a bunch of pansies!

Certainly a good idea, but as we had trouble finding enough pilots for the Sea Harriers I'm guessing there was no way we could have got enough crews up to speed in the available time frame without stripping RAFG of crews most of whom would have no carrier experience.

NZ offered to send a frigate, which must have been about 30% of their navy but were told thanks but no thanks. The US didn't send the -9L to the Falklands rather they were sent to the UK to fill in some gaps that had suddenly appeared in our stocks, I'm fairly sure some Stinger missiles found their way down there as well. I have heard it said there was an offer of a US Carrier as well, but what we'd have done with it I've got no idea!