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British aircraft in UK armed forces.


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2 hours ago, Scimitar said:

Basic design was American tough.

With regard to the various weapons from 'foreign' sources not having caused problems in the past. In principle I agree with this but I think that we are now in a very different world situation where we can't really be sure of where certain of our allies are heading.

As you have answered my question..thank you..I think we should let this one rest?

Pickey 🤣

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  • 1 month later...

Wings probably but still doesn't meet the criteria.

I accept that in today's world we have much joint efforts. My thoughts were that we are perhaps being overly reliant on certain countries in uncertain times but decided a thread on that would rapidly become political so got to thinking about 'All British' aircraft.

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Aviation (like a lot of engineering) is truly a multi-national business these days so trying to find an aircraft that is 100% British and still in active military service is going to be difficult.

 

Whether we like it or not, we live in a globalised world  when it comes to business.

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Funny how things have changed.

 

I collect pre-war cigarette cards and the Players series of Aircraft of the RAF 1938 has fifty different completely British designed and built aircraft that were in use at the time.

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On 28/08/2018 at 21:49, LooseSeal said:

I'm slightly shocked the Harrier hasn't been mentioned (unless it has and I'm an idiot, of course). Probably the best and most famous piece of British aviation engineering. So good the Americans are still using it even though we (rightly or wrongly) gave it up!

Wrongly in my book.  Should have kept them and developed them.

 

Now we look at the American-built F35's.  Grounded by the MoD today.

Why?  Safety reasons they say.

More likely they don't want £100,000,000 pile of wreckage to sweep up because of a faulty fuel line.

That's silly money for any single aeroplane. 

Imagine how many Harriers we could be flying for that!

Okay, I'm straying into the political.  Apologies.

 

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2 hours ago, FatFlyHalf said:

Wrongly in my book.  Should have kept them and developed them. We did not have the money to keep the Tornado & Harrier...blame the Political elite (of all colours) for that. The development had been done, unfortunately by the cousins. The later RAF Harrier (GR5 +) came from the US Designed Harrier II I believe, so as British as the BMW Mini. 

 

Now we look at the American-built F35's.  Grounded by the MoD today. Cough....15% British built........

 

Why?  Safety reasons they say. I am sorry, but are you suggesting that is a poor decision, the Pilots would be very happy with your lack of concern for their safety.

 

More likely they don't want £100,000,000 pile of wreckage to sweep up because of a faulty fuel line. Very similar actions the UK MoD have taken with Buccs, Chinooks, Harriers, most fleets at one time or another........I seem to remember that in the early nineties we lost so many aircraft over a six week period we basically grounded the RAF for safety issues....We phased the Jag out early after the non too successful engine upgrade..heaps of molten metal and accompanying fatalities generally are not a good thing.

 

That's silly money for any single aeroplane.  It is all relative, these are gonna last 40+ years in service, silly money now will seem like pence by the time they go out of service.  Same as anything, you get what you pay for, you can get this for £271000 https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/23684499/north-american-f86f but I am not sure you will fancy you chances over the IGB when it all goes wrong in this.

 

Imagine how many Harriers we could be flying for that! None, the money in the frontline pot went somewhere else and the money in the development pot was also going elsewhere, Defence is broke....but if the money was there we could have loads of F-86's !!

 

Okay, I'm straying into the political.  Apologies.  No Politics in your comments mate....but it WOULD be a very easy stream to fall when it comes to Political incompetence and Defence 😉  Be fair, just blame 'em all !!

 

 

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Taking it right back to Scimitar's original observation it come's down to the fact there are few British designed and built airframes used by our

service today thinking ahead in twenty plus year's there may be none,personally although sad I's not the end of the world if the best for our

servicemen mean's foriegn built or designed so be it we've shown we're still capable of building world class naval vessel's in the new carrier's and

no doubt destroyer's to come. Our army move's on German truck's (the best around) because we have no truck industry.Another thing to take pride

in is the huge input British engineer's designer's and companies  have in these future European and U.S. aircraft program's so all's not lost yet!

Edited by stevej60
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3 hours ago, stevej60 said:

Taking it right back to Scimitar's original observation it come's down to the fact there are few British designed and built airframes used by our

service today thinking ahead in twenty plus year's there may be none,personally although sad I's not the end of the world if the best for our

servicemen mean's foriegn built or designed so be it we've shown we're still capable of building world class naval vessel's in the new carrier's and

no doubt destroyer's to come. Our army move's on German truck's (the best around) because we have no truck industry.Another thing to take pride

in is the huge input British engineer's designer's and companies  have in these future European and U.S. aircraft program's so all's not lost yet!

Re the trucks, that's a shame to a nostalgia buff like me, my old army Dinkies are Foden's, Bedfords and the Mighty Antar!

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There are probably very few Airforces worldwide that operate indigenously designed and built (front line) aircraft nowadays. Cost of development is very prohibitive if you want to go from a paper exercise to a fully functional product that most can't afford it never mind have the capability to carry that project through. What we can say is that the UK still has the capacity to design and manufacture sub systems for multinational projects.

 

Duncan B

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For years we have bemoaned the UK not buying kit 'off the shelf' because UK stuff was always late, expensive and did not work properly, unfortunately the price for that is that those shelves just happened to be in the Countries of our (economic) opponents, 'Buying British' has not proven to be best value for the MoD....cue Nimrod Fiasco 1 & 2, SA80,  and FRES comments amongst others.

 

What this does mean though is that we will no longer produce our own Tanks as Vickers cannot build them, Submarines have to be built by American companies and I am sure there are many others due to skills fade. 

 

If the Goverment want UK Defence to be UK centric, supporting UK Industry and jobs, they would need to put more money in the pot.  See the shambles of building different bits of carriers in different dockyards to spread the money around for lunacy or even the Air Tanker PFI fiasco. 

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