You do wonder how it is that, with all the proceedings up front and visible, the government/military complex can make quite such a pig's ear of not providing us with a carrier capability.

Taken as a whole, this is a collective that you would not trust to find their own backsides with both hands and free mirrors, people who have managed to turn a £3.5bn starter cost into £6.2bn, which is likely to rise to up to £12bn – giving us a mere 200 days sea time a year.

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Richard

Having heard the story on the BBC this morning, which implied that the carriers are unlikely to enter service in my lifetime, I'm inclined to assume that the MOD is softening us up for the Plan B that you've already suggested, i.e. that the only way to get the ships into service will be to equip them with Rafaels rather than the JSF.

How on earth is it possible to employ so many totally incompetent people? Who chooses them? I know standards of education are low, even at Eton, but this defies any explanation other than jobs for the boys!

The posts were created when there were honourable, competent people. The posts remain but the standards plummet.

Borrow the Charles de Gaulle and launch them with the catapult!

From the article:
Does not compute. The non-jumpjet carrier JSF should be cheaper than the jumpjet version. Or would they be arguing maintenance is cheaper for jumpjets?

The NAO recently put the cost of the first carrier at £4.3b and the second at less than £1b. £6.7b for the planes?

With the benefit of hindsight I could see some vague sense in having got the carriers underway much quicker with ski ramps and operated Harriers from them until the JSF of some other aircraft became cost effective.(imo the JSF is too much of a leap for jump jet requirements)

Your right, it seems there isn't anyone out there is is able to make a clear decision. I think they're too scared, which is funny considering there is no accountability these days. What is certain is this dithering is costing us dearly.

Get on and Build the damn carriers, I say. Both of 'em, now, without delay. Put an order in for an aircraft that actually exists, F-18E/F's are more than capable enough, and start training up the air crews. now.

The RAF should be told to quit bitchin about F35 being a Tornado replacement and told make do with F18E/Fs in order to push down aircraft procurement costs further.

The more we piss about, the more this is going to cost us.

We are doing all this 'heavy lifting' for the French 'armada' are we not?

In reparation for, the battles of the Nile, Toulon, Trafalgar and Mers el Kebir.

We should have bought a couple of tankers and welded a flight deck on and used Harriers.

The reasons for the increased costs of the J-35B and carriers is here in the report.
As for the F-18, it would have made sense buying it for the FAA and RAF thirty-odd years ago while the cat equipped Ark Royal was still in service - no need for Sea Harriers. But those air forces who bought land-based F-18s back then are now buying F-35As because they are "better value" in the long term than F-18 E/Fs, ie they will remain winners longer against opponents.

As for the Sea Harrier/Harrier II, the writing was on the wall in 2005 when the Shar was retired and its radar wasn't transferred to Harrier GR7 airframes. Come forward a few years and the growth limitations of the RR Pegasus put the kybosh on continued Harrier operations as it would become increasingly obsolescent.

Putting 6-12 aircraft on a 60,000 ton carrier is a joke. The carriers were ordered by vain idiots with no responsibility - like a teenager who's maxed out the credit card and then gets a store card. Another Admiral Byng is needed.

The F-35 is a financial disaster.

It is a step back in combat performance,just as the F-18E was a significant step back from the F-18Cs.(One of the officers involved with the F-18E commented it is slower,accelerates less quickly,does not turn as well nor as quickly and had less range,but other than that it was superior to the current F-18Cs.)

Completely down the memory hole is that the USAF claimed that the F-35 was going to be CHEAPER than the F-16 it was to replace and that the assorted Services knew they couldn't gold-plate it. That claim looks ridiculous now.
In addition to the costs escalating almost daily,they've found,surprise!,surprise!,that the much hotter exhaust cause problems w/runways and esp carrier decks.
The US Navy has long been ambivalent about it and has regularly proposed putting its version off until some future date,ie never.

Its main virtue is supposed to be stealth,but aside from horrendous maintenance issues w/the stealthy F-22,the question remains,in any future campaign against a formidable air defense,is an American commander going to send in stealthy strike a/c first,or hundreds of cruise missiles to significantly degrade the defenses? If the latter,does it make sense to have one stealthy strike a/c or 2-3 less stealthy,but better performing a/c,esp since the weapons themselves have become smarter?

The odd thing about the carrier programme, which is attracting so much opprobrium from ignorant loudmouths, is that it is proceeding very well indeed. It is the biggest shipbuilding programme Britain has ever attempted, and our industry is coping admirably. There have been no industrial problems, no cost overruns, and no delays, except those which were mandated by thick as pigshit politicians eager to push spending over their event horizon, namely an election.

The decision to adapt the carriers for conventional take off and landing is correct, and it never made any sense to use 60,000 ton ships for STOVL operations in the first place. That was due to a political fudge between the Navy and RAF to keep a son of Joint Force Harrier going. When the RAF decided they wanted the conventional F35 to replace their Tornados, the Navy was happy to go along.

What will be a travesty will be if we build both ships, but only equip one with catapults and arrestor wires, and only equip it with a paltry handful of aircraft. Still, so long as we have to pay for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and India's space programme, I suppose something has to give.