Government in £100m U-turn over F35-B fighter planes The government has changed its mind over the type of fighter planes it is ordering for the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the F35-C had hit development problems and it would be cheaper in the long term to order F35-B jump jets, as originally planned by Labour. The cost of the U-turn is likely to be about £100m, he told BBC News. Labour said it was an "omnishambles" which risked "international ridicule". Mr Hammond said delays to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter programme meant they would have not been operational until 2023 - three years later than planned. "When the facts change, the responsible thing to do is to examine the decision made and be willing to change, however inconvenient that may be," said Mr Hammond and its just been on the news that our leaders spent 40 mil on a study to find this out, I despair
It's a disgrace the way our forces and public services are being hammered, and undermined, by a succession of governments. At what point do our forces say 'let's do what we're here for, and protect our own borders'. How much money would THAT save the taxpayer? And how many lives of our brave lads abroad would be spared?
My point exactly mate built by another country with in built faults and weak points that they will now know about while our shipyards (do we have any left in NE) struggle.
the carriers are being assemled in scotland. although by the time they're finished that may well be a foreign country
Another one of my pet subjects at the moment. Delays and indecision by both government (Labour and Tories) and the MOD have turned this programme into another massively late, overbudget white elephant. Remember WE invented the aircraft carrier and virtually every innovation on modern carriers ! It's not rocket science to build one of these for a modern first world country ! We should have gone for a conventional carrier from the offset with "Cats and Traps" - ie catapults and arrester wires which would have given us a wide range options on aircraft - including new F/A-18, second hand refurbished F-18 or new Rafael from France - all in-service and proven. And more than adequate for current and future threats / operations in the short-medium term. Instead they went for the gold plated option after much fannying around - F-35B STOVL variant with shorter range and reduced capability over the conventional F-35C. The F-35B is also beset with technical problems and development issues due to being far more technically complicated. THEN we decide to go for the conventional variant and find the cost of re-designing the hull and accepting cats and traps is HUGE and would delay things even more ! And I also believe there would be an issue with the landing characteristics of the aircraft and the vessels speed. If we'd designed a conventional carrier from the outset we would have had more flexibility and could have had the first in service by now ! It's also cheaper to add a "ski-lift" to a carrier at a later date than cats and traps ! F**k me it's not rocket science !!
The government throw a massive amount of money at the military.. Just in completely the wrong places. I work in IT and used to work for her majesty's courts service. A contract to cover supply of it equipment and full support nationwide was .< £5m. I moved to a contract with the ministry of defence and the dame support (albeit worldwide) was > £2 bn now had that x million been sent on ensuring that the people fighting were properly looked after then great.. But for it support and implementation (particularly as the company I worked for never left the UK and the military had to deliver and train on their own kit in the war zones) is crazy
See this article on some possible reasons for the change http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/10/f35_u_turn_idiocy/ sounds like we're being screwed over again.
Good article - and I agree with most of it. We are being screwed - by poor decisions made years ago and exacerbated by dithering politicians, and yes - inter service rivalries tbh. We could have built medium sized carriers capable of taking aircraft currently in production at little risk and at a fraction of the cost. And with all the publicity over the choice of the STOVL F-35B version (which is still vulnerable to a change of US government and policy) - no-one is focussing on the lack of an AEW aircraft for the carriers (we could have bought E-2 Hawkeyes from the US - again proven in-service equipment). Now we'll be forced to replace the Sea King AEW variant (a stop-gap for the Falklands in 1981 !) with another helicopter based (and probably inferior) system ! Add to that the cost of providing escorts for the carriers with the navy already lacking adequate hull numbers...... Oh and with the withdrawl of Nimrod the British (that's us - an island nation) now are without maritime patrol aircraft of any great capability. So next time a British registered or crewed vessel is in trouble way out in the Atlantic don't expect the RAF to turn up, drop rafts or stay on station to assist - 'cos they can't do it ! Still those Harriers we flogged the Yanks will be able to fly off our carriers once they've been refurbished by uncle Sam - and there'll be plenty of room because we won't have anything to fly off them ourselves for years (if at all).
At some point, surely the people of this great nation are going to wake up and realise what a bunch of amateurish, public schoolboy educated, multi-millionaire tory toffs we have for a Govt, aided and abetted by an absolute multi-faced utter **** of a deputy PM and his band of turn coats. They are just playing at being big men but are constantly being made to look like pricks, much to the cost of us as tax payers. They dont give a ****e if the whole country goes tits up and we all lose our jobs and homes and our families starve to death and break up becasue they have massive personal fortunes that means they will never be effected by their own brain dead sackless decisions. It scares me to death that we still have another potential 3 years of this shambolic Govt to suffer with before we get a chance to save the country from them. May God help us.
