Uk F4 Phantoms being tested on HMS Eagle 1969

[GeeRam]

It's like our Thypoon fleet, the idea in principle of a single multirole fighter shared across the squadrons is predictively turning into a fleets within fleets situation, with retrospective rework to the current build standard,
(batch 1 aside) either watered down, or probably, just outright abandoned.

And exactly the same philosophy is being used by LM with the F-35, as our cousins are now finding out to their cost........and which we'll have to go through the same pain barrier with again (and we won't have the luxury of numbers to deal with it with the F-35B with such a small fleet)

The pursuit of the latest whizzy technofest toy and the shear time it takes to go from design through to FOC is just ridiculous now......and a lower budget one step back in tech, but having more of them and getting them into service quicker, should be the way we in the UK should be going.....the UK is no longer the pre-WW2 British Empire....sadly.
Quantity has a quality all its own......

[Mk VII]

The Rolls-Royce Spey-engined Phantom turned out to be slower than the standard models, despite developing more thrust.

[Gil Boyd]

You certainly knew a quiet Rolls Royce engine compared to the old smokey yank McDonell Douglas equivalent.
Best move HM Forces did, the enemy never heard THEM coming!!

[Wineman]

I hope that in designing the QE they put more thought into the flight deck than we did with the America class ships. The F 35B and Osprey V-22 engines run very hot (unlike the cool Pegasus in the Harrier) and are damaging the deck surface. A little like some of the early jets and downward exhaust (also running on Petrol). Right now the number of flight ops are reduced but the USN says that the newer ships will be fine. I'm not sure but I think the Soviet Kirovs had a tile surface for the Forger VTOL and did not have the damage we are seeing here.

Good luck to you all.

Dave

[Gil Boyd]

Heaven for bid, we ever have a war then. Sounds like we won't need bombs dropping on the flight deck by the enemy, our own aircraft will burn a hole through it anyway. Crazy world. Why not just make the whole flight deck in Titanium or even asbestos

[GeeRam]

I hope that in designing the QE they put more thought into the flight deck than we did with the America class ships. The F 35B and Osprey V-22 engines run very hot (unlike the cool Pegasus in the Harrier) and are damaging the deck surface. A little like some of the early jets and downward exhaust (also running on Petrol). Right now the number of flight ops are reduced but the USN says that the newer ships will be fine. I'm not sure but I think the Soviet Kirovs had a tile surface for the Forger VTOL and did not have the damage we are seeing here.

Good luck to you all.

Dave

That's why the RN/RAF have the ski-ramp for take-off, and are training for using the SRVL (Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing) method rather than the vertical landing method used in the Harrier days.

[Flying10uk]

and are training for using the SRVL (Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing) method rather than the vertical landing method used in the Harrier days.

Also so that any unused ordinance can be brought back to the carrier rather than dumped at sea.

[GeeRam]

Also so that any unused ordinance can be brought back to the carrier rather than dumped at sea.

From that NAO report, it appears we haven't bought much in the way of any ordinance yet.....so, that might still be wishful thinking

[Surpmil]

I hope that in designing the QE they put more thought into the flight deck than we did with the America class ships. The F 35B and Osprey V-22 engines run very hot (unlike the cool Pegasus in the Harrier) and are damaging the deck surface. A little like some of the early jets and downward exhaust (also running on Petrol). Right now the number of flight ops are reduced but the USN says that the newer ships will be fine. I'm not sure but I think the Soviet Kirovs had a tile surface for the Forger VTOL and did not have the damage we are seeing here.

Good luck to you all.

Dave

Maybe some pop-up high pressure sprinklers are in order? Sounds pretty time consuming to replace. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=51351

[Gil Boyd]

Reading that blurb about refurbishng the decks everytime they reach so many landings and take offs and before each operational deployment, surely, with the amount of manmade impregnable surfaces we have on the planet some alternative on balance of cost, could be used as a "one off" surface.

Yes it would be highly expensive, but it sounds like a new surface is a regular thing, and surely a thing of the past.

Thats an ex Army man speaking..................so what do I know. I am sure there will be a knowledgeble Jack Tar out there on ether side of the pond who knows the reason!!