I love the way there's a real focus on showing the public what they're getting for their money these days

A superb aircraft, and sorely needed since the retirement of the FA2 Sea Harrier.

Which was retired too early IMO...

I quite liked the piece, it wasn't overdone in either direction it could have been ('look at the shiny thing!' or 'Dear god look at this expensive thing we've said we've pay for and now we barely have enough money to buy shoes for little Timmy'') and actually quite informative. I alway worried when I looked at the JSF that the pilot visibility was a bit poor, particularly out the back..



vs say



being able to see all around you is vital in a combat plane, even assuming you have good radar and etc. I didn't know they had cameras in the airframe that projected into the pilots hemet and effectively 'edited out' the plane from his view. That's a small piece of genius that is.

Was that invented by International Rescue as well?

I don't think visibility will be too much of a problem when you'll always have a wingman anyway. And was there any mention of having rear facing cameras?

still no match for that ultimate multi role combat willis thingy I saw on tv recently.

I would have assumed that there would be two mobile cameras one on the top one below within fairings that will sweep around where ever the pilot is looting. Unless he can look right behind him like an owl I doubt that it will see there.

Okay, so it's late and over-budget, which is quite normal for military projects.

No denying it's awesome technology, but no-one has been able to explain to me exactly why we still need it. Who is the enemy? Isn't this another case - like the Typhoon - of Cold War tech being delivered late and at a cost we can't afford any more, and filling a niche that's not really there any more.

What use is an F-35 or Typhoon against a Taliban operative with an RPG and a cell phone?

Jus' sayin'.

Well once that Taliban uses his cellphone the jet can be there as fast as possible and then when they fire their rocket propelled grenade they will not hit the jet but the jet will be able to fire on the Taliban. Simples.

The point being an 'air platform' can sit up at 40,000 feet above whatever conflict zone your troops are in and when your other planes detect somebody in the right area using a mobile phone, you can then drop a smart weapon on their heads much more quickly than ground troops can get to the position. Less risk to you and less civilian casualties, assuming you didn't just bomb a primary school teacher calling her boyfriend because your intelligence was rubbish.

In the long term, manned military aircraft are probably on the way out. 'Drones' are near reaching the point where they can carry a useful amount of weaponry, are generally less vulnerable and can 'loiter' in an area for longer than a pilot could manage to stay in the air. This may possibly be the last 'full size' jet the UK military actually buys.
However, the stuff we have needs replacing and the non-manned stuff isn't quite ready yet.. And we can't just not have air power for a decade or so while the remote stuff gets up to snuff. I think we may possibly end up buying less F-35s than we initially said we would (this is already true of the Typhoon) and keeping them for longer but assuming we need air power of some sort at all, we might as well buy the best we can afford.

Jon

I think I largely agree with HK. It is awesome, but it's also trying to please a lot of customers, and it does feel to me that the Americans are getting the majority of the say (Now obv. they'll be primary customer, but why do we want to spend so much on something that'll be such a compromise?). We're now only getting one carrier's worth, and that'll be the B variant, not the C that the US will be using on their mahussive carriers, which isn't without it's problems, although it has demonstrated STOVL capabilities in flight trials, without melting the tarmac too too much.

At present we're going to have one CVF with JSFs on board, and one with something else (Harriers???), as I understand it, although there's talk of the defence review pushing the EoL of Harrier back to 2023, meaning we could end up with 1 Typhoon and 1 Harrier ship until then maybe? I almost wonder whether we'd've been better getting the A variant a few years down the line to replace some of the GR4s, and eventually the F.3s.

The RAF is already receiving Typhoon, which is another aircraft arguably we don't need. It's not suitable for carrier work, true, but then when was the last time we needed a proper interceptor fighter?

So the Harrier isn't adequate for the time being? Okay, not being supersonic and all, but it's served this long with distinction. Another decade can't be a problem, surely?

Agreed our biggest threats can still be dealt with adequately by Harriers.

With all due respect, a fighter or strike jet takes a decade to design and test and another five years to bring into service. I for one am not arrogant enough to believe I know what our biggest threat will be in 15 years time.