Nimrod was adapted from a civilian airliner as well. An even older one than the 737. A much less successful one as well. Even though BAe replaced the engines and wings and re-lifed the fuselage they had forgotten to talk to the aircraft maintainers or the people who built it. They would have told them that Nimrod was…

With the recent improvement in the quality of your beer the day draws ever nearer.....

Look at the instanstaneous turn tate, and sustained turn rate of a Harrier with the standard LERX on. Look at the weight of the aircraft and the power of it’s Pegasus engine with it’s massive fan. It’s optimised to chuck out large amounts of power in the lower level regime. Same with a Buccaneers Speys or a Tornado’s…

Really...?

Not at all suprising when you figureout just how devious we are....

‘Down low’ = Low level. Where it was primarily designed to operate in the cold war. It was faster than any fighter opposition it would encounter.

The UK government has already confirmed that the PoW is being retained and manned.

This has happened before when a US Marine Harrier squadron deployed on Illustrious for some exercises off the US a few years ago. Unfortunately for the Marine pilots they then had to return to their Gators afterwards, apparently they were quite taken with staying aboard. Ski Jump, aviation focus, better food and bars…

The 24 in 2023 is a bit of journalistic confusion. The 24 F-35 is actually 2 squadrons. There will be others in the OEU, OCU and attrition reserve at the same time. The 24 will be deployable and operational. In total in 2023 we will have purchased 43 F-35B

I know you’re a troll but I’ll feed you neverthelesss...

MR2 and R1 had reached the end of their lives for sure. But MRA4 could never have been given a military airworthiness certificate. Which means it could never enter operational service (for some pretty good reasons as well, particularly as the new regime was brought in as a result of the Kandahar crash). What should…

The CG personnel the RN were after (and whom the CG seemed very keen to facilitate) were specifically for the T45’s which due to the utterly dumb SDSR in 2010 had lost some key engineering personnel who had taken the large redundancy packages offered and gone to work in the civilian world for double the money. Oddly,…

Duncan Sandys in 1957 was worse. And John Notts review in 1981 was almost as bad, but the Falklands saved the Navy.

Not really. For decades it was the US and USSR as superpowers. The UK was a second rate power through the cold war. But we’ve got more military capacity than most other nations, in particular it’s highly trained, well equipped and can be deployed plus the 5th largest economy in the world with a population of a paltry…

Down low there isn’t much that can outrun a Harrier. Tornado will, but a Harrier will outrun an F-16 or F-18 down low. Most combat aircraft rarely if ever go supersonic. External stores usually preclude that, plus having to use afterburner. The Harriers seemingly low top speed is very rarely an operational problem.

The RN uses a different method of operating carriers to the USN and have never been keen on large deck parks. The QE class flight deck is only slightly smaller than a Nimitz class in area. Hanger size is roughly the same. They could carry more than 40 even though the F-35 is a big jet. As numbers go over 55 aircraft…

The first Akula’s came into service over 10 years after the first Los-Angeles class. There were 34 Los Angeles class in service when the FIRST Akula came into service. The first improved Los Angeles class were finishing construction at the time and 5 Trafalgar class (that are quieter than the 668I boats were in…

Apart from the ones with satellites, embassies and the like...

Borei class is almost as dismal as the Yasen. 1980’s design, laid down in 1996, commissioned in 2013. 17 years later....with a rather unreliable missile...

France and Britain on that list?