UK building new aircraft carriers

[Nick in Atlanta]

Here is the article about the development of various naval ships for the British Navy. I know Britain has a few aircraft carriers, but they have ramps at the end and are used mainly for Harrier landings and takeoffs. Does anyone know if these new aircraft carriers will be similar to US carriers that launch and capture fighters/bombers with hydraulic powered systems?

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...4750493_newsml

[MVL318]

The Royal navy is very ambitious is looks..

I found this on "the royal-navy" site:

the new type 45 destroyer.


Future Aircraft Carrier



Offshore Patrol Vessel


Large Amphibious Landing Ships


Royal-navy

[Nick in Atlanta]

I can see that this carrier still has the ramp at the front of the flight deck. I wonder if they will use catapulted fighters/bombers or will stick with the Harrier Jump-jets?

Regarding the increased ambitiousness of the British Navy, I think it has to do with the ability of aircraft carriers and other vessels capable of firing cruise missiles and other "smart" weapons to project power all over the world. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the protection received from British based ICBMs and long-range bombers doesn't make much sense when it comes to deterrence of new threats. New threats from rogue stateless enemies (e.g., Al Qaida) often require a highly mobile, yet stationary, form of power projection.

Is it me or do I sound like someone speaking from the Pentagon or what? I'm actually a very pacifistic Christian, but I'm just trying to analyze this info properly.

[Iain1974]

The point of the ramp is that on light carriers like the old Invincible class vessels it allows heavier aircraft to take off from a relatively short runway. In face they make perfect sense so I wonder would a better question be why don't other countries use them?

The new carriers (Queen Elizabeth class) will use the JCA, F-35 fighters but will not require catapults. The plan is to use magnetic catapults eventually.

It's been a very long, slow process to even get a design. This is a good site about the Royal Navy and it's future.

Royal Navy

[Lee]

Isn't the U.S. also building new aircraft carriers? How many are both countries building for the future? I believe the U.S. has more than the rest of the world combined.

[kronik]

heres a good site to get started.....

World-wide Aircraft Carriers

It doesnt say anything about the Royal Navy's future AC though.

oh here it is....

CVF - ROYAL NAVY FUTURE AIRCRAFT CARRIER, UNITED KINGDOM

The last one is a good site for lots of info.

[Meepy]

Originally Posted by Lee

Isn't the U.S. also building new aircraft carriers? How many are both countries building for the future? I believe the U.S. has more than the rest of the world combined.

The U.S. has the largest carrier fleet in the world, but not more then the whole world combined. North Korea has the largest diesel Submarine fleet in the world, the U.S. has the most military planes in the world, and the U.S. has the most Nuckelear submarines in the world more then all of the worlds nuckelear submarines combined. U.S. also has the largest nuckelear detergence weapons which include, Ballistic Warheads, Atomic bombs, Hydrogen bombs, and Nukelear bombs.

[TOCC]

yet all this still cant deter a terrorist!

[TallBox]

^Well duh, they're not designed to fight terrorists.

[centralized pandemonium]

Unless they are gonna fight WW3, I think most of these costly toys r gonan be uselss. WHo are UK's enemies? I mean as in conventional war enemies, not the AQ type.

[Nick in Atlanta]

Originally Posted by TOCC

yet all this still cant deter a terrorist!

The world's navies are not just at sea because they are scanning the world for terrorists. They perform activities like keeping major sea lanes open for maritime traffic, protect maritime traffic against pirates, which still exist and pose a great danger to international trade. The Straits of Malacca between Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, and the South China Sea are two major sea lanes where 1 in 20 ships are attacked by pirates.

Nobody is under the illusion that they are going to find Osama Bin Laden floating in a rubber raft in the Indian Ocean!!

[TallBox]

Originally Posted by Nick in Atlanta

I can see that this carrier still has the ramp at the front of the flight deck. I wonder if they will use catapulted fighters/bombers or will stick with the Harrier Jump-jets?

Well basically, the design of the carriers will be a STOVL one - allowing the F35B to take off and land vertically. So it means that the organic airborne early warning is unlikely to be an E2D - more likely an EH101 or V22 Osprey.

Projected lifespan of carriers = 50 years. Projected lifespan of aircraft = 35 years. What to do for the latter 15 years of the carrier's life? The idea is that the next naval fighter after the F35 will require catapult launch, so the design is such that the ski-jump can be removed and emcats installed later.

Regarding the increased ambitiousness of the British Navy, I think it has to do with the ability of aircraft carriers and other vessels capable of firing cruise missiles and other "smart" weapons to project power all over the world. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the protection received from British based ICBMs and long-range bombers doesn't make much sense when it comes to deterrence of new threats. New threats from rogue stateless enemies (e.g., Al Qaida) often require a highly mobile, yet stationary, form of power projection.

It's not really 'ambitiousness' - it's basically our Cold War dividends catching up... we no longer require a large surface of subsurface fleet. Other countries started reconfiguring their armed forces in the early 90s, ours is only just happening now.

And yes, the general focus is towards smart weapons and "plug and play" with US forces... the Navy is increasingly expeditionary (with 3 new marge amphibious ships, 2 strike carriers, and upto 8 cruisers). The cruisers are proposed Type 45 variants with either Sylver A70 for Naval SCALP or Mk41 VLS for Tomahawk. Even the aircraft on board the carriers are increasingly smart... a test was done a few weeks ago, where a Paveway II bomb dropped from an RAF GR4 was sent target-coordinates and corrections while in-flight.

[centralized pandemonium]

Wait, will the JSF be used or the N-Typhoon??

[TallBox]

Most likely JSF....

The US Govt is refusing to give the UK certain access codes to the JSF, despite being a tier 1 partner, which would allow us to upgrade the aircraft systems independently. Without the codes, the aircraft would have to be sent to the US for updating every piece of avionics - making it very expensive.

Anyway, the Govt are taking it as an insult that these codes aren't provided to us, and are threatening to pull out of JSF... which would mean an alternative aircraft would be needed for the carriers.... a contender is the N-Typhoon. Problems: expensive, too few numbers, expensive.

We'll probably get the codes to JSF in the end anyway.,

[Nick in Atlanta]

If your talking about the Joint Strike Fighter, that hasn't even gotten the green light from the Department of Defense and Congress to begin production, due to its high price tag. If you mean the F-22, I believe the DOD has purchased only 180 of these planes.

I may be wrong on this info, but I believe this is what I've read. By the way, one of Lockheed's main plants is just five miles away from me at Dobbin Reserve Base in suburban Atlanta.

[centralized pandemonium]

Wait, wasn't one of the JSF varients sorta ditched? DOn't remember which one tho.

[Nick in Atlanta]

Boeing and Lockheed were competing for the JSF contract, but Boeing couldn't build a plane that met all the specifications that the DOD asked for. Lockheed's design won, but that didn't guarantee a contract to build a lot of them. As a plane that's supposed to be tough enough to handle the landings and take-offs from an aircraft carrier, take-off vertically for the Marines, and fly for the Air Force, it had a high price tag. It also had to be stealthy and be the first plane to fly faster than Mach One without using its afterburners.

Lockheed built it at their "skunk works" at Edwards Air Force Base in the Southern California desert (there was a TV show on the Lockheed/Boeing contest), but it has a high price per plane because of these extreme qualifications.

[rantanamo]

The first production JSF is nearing completion in Fort Worth. The stealthy F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5thgeneration fighter designed to replace aging AV-8B Harriers, A-10s, F-16s, F/A-18 Hornets and United Kingdom Harrier GR.7s and Sea Harriers. First flight is planned for fall 2006. Didn't realize it would be replacing the A-10s. That is actually pretty sweet.

[rantanamo]

http://www.jsf.mil/gallery/gal_video.htm#x35

and this page is just plain cool

[Nick in Atlanta]

The A-10 is a hard plane to replace. It's not a fast plane or a stealthy plane, and it has been flying since the Vietnam War. But it has a large number of guns that can fire very large ammunition. It can take out tanks and lesser vehicles. It just proves that you don't need speed or stealth for a lot of missions. Just an unbelievable amount of continuous and heavy firepower.