One for Fade and Smerf

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Come guys like you would sell a working sub... hahahah, Britain sucks :lol:

At least we managed to rescue the sailors, though I'm surprised they managed to find the sub with a Nimrod ;-)

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Then there were the Phantom jets we bought from the Americans, insisting that they had to be fitted with Rolls Royce engines to guarantee British jobs. Turned out we had to redesign the whole rear end of the plane to make them fit (the Rolls Royce Spey was designed for airliners, not fighters) and the resulting drag made British Phantoms slower and thirstier than everyone elses.

You've can of worms there!! Remember that the Phantoms were to replace the Buccaneer because it was old and sucked... And the Buccanners were given to the RAF who were still wating for the F-111 (the promise of an early delivery, caused the cancellation of the superior TSR-2 project)... Since the F-111 never materialised on time or at the promised price, the Buccaneers got new engines (The Spey?) and then proved to be rather good (but not as good as a TSR-2), and stayed in service until 10 years ago...

You want F*** Ups The MOD have got a whole history of them...

At least the Nimrod is pretty... well before they shoe horned in a radar system that was twice the size of the airframe... :roll:

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They're "currently entering service" which means they'll be slowly coming in over the next ten years or so (from the projected 2000 in service date). We're also on board with JSF too, to equip our forthcoming aircraft carriers (which no doubt will be redesigned, and re-redesigned to cut costs), but the JSF has been on the pies since it's debut and is desperately shedding weight... An in service date eight years from now seems wildly optimistic, especially considering the F22 took twelve years from first flight to being in service.

Least ye not forget that the JSF is supposed to replace the Harrier, the only VSToL aircraft and for one reason...

Harrier = Simple
JSF = Very complex

You mark my words, the JSF will spend more time on the ground than it will in the air...

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odin wrote:
Well, there is the Russian Yak VTOL, but that's just a reverse-engineered Harrier I think.

Hmmm, Yeah the Yak-38 IIRC... banned from flying in the UK due to it burning holes in our Runways...

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Luftwaffe staff were surprised when after being impressed by one British delegation selling the Lightning, another turned up to beg the Luftwaffe NOT to buy it! Turned out the Americans didn't like us competing with the F104 Starfighter and put more financial pressure on us not to sell.

The Luftwaffe eventually settled for Starfighters, as did the Italians, Greeks, Turks, Spanish, Danish and Norwegians.

Hahahaha, that's right I had forgotten about that one... I was speaking with a Luftwaffe officer in... hmmm it was probably 1994-95, at Brize Norton, about the TRS2 project and he told me about the Starfighters which the Germans bought and then found were totally unsuitable for any role the Luftwaffe could find :lol:

Don't forget the Americans pulled the same trick on Canada, where Avro (of Canada) was developing a new fighter/bomber for a similar role to the TSR2, called the Arrow... but the Americans told them to stop and buy the F-111... that was the end of Avro :-(

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hich is why a Mach 2 high altitude interceptor carried anti-ship missiles while in Luftwaffe service.

:roflmao:

Australia - who were a dead cert for either the TSR2 or the Buccaneer.

I seem to recall the Australians had actually expressed an interest in purchasing the TSR2?

Actually at the same I was talking with the German officer, the USAF were there with some galaxies (this was yugoslavia conflict), and they let me look around... Damn that is a huge aeroplane!!!

Anyway the USAF guys were saying how they were amazed at the Buccanner... it was 40 years old, or something stupid, during the Gulf conflict and the Americans found the idea of using a very old carrier fighter as a laser guided bomber for low level work in a desert hillarious... until it out performed all their aircraft :lol:

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PMC wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Anyway the USAF guys were saying how they were amazed at the Buccanner... it was 40 years old, or something stupid, during the Gulf conflict and the Americans found the idea of using a very old carrier fighter as a laser guided bomber for low level work in a desert hillarious... until it out performed all their aircraft :lol:

Yeah, they were equally suprised by our Lightnings.  One managed to claim the 0 - 50,000 feet altitude record from a specially modified F15 "Streak Eagle" during the 70s.  The Lightning in question was a T5 training aircraft (albeit "slightly" modified...).

During NATO exercises in the 1960s a pilot of a U2 flying at 70,000 feet was told he'd been claimed as a "kill" by the opposing RAF contingent.  The pilot expressed disbelief until a Lightning cruised past at an altitude supposedly beyond reach of any known interceptor.  

Yeah, but then the Lighting was just a Couple of Jet engines... with a man on top :-D

I only ever got to see lightingings fly when I was a little boy during the 80's :-( I can remember them being LOUD...

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the_leander wrote:
Looks like a baby Vulcan. But yeah, a very nice looking aircraft.

Talking of which... HX558 got the lottery funding! :-D

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Glaucus wrote:

Don't forget the Americans pulled the same trick on Canada, where Avro (of Canada) was developing a new fighter/bomber for a similar role to the TSR2, called the Arrow... but the Americans told them to stop and buy the F-111... that was the end of Avro

Yeah, the Avro was an amazing plane for it's time. You can read up on it here: The Avro

  - Mike

Note how the Tornado looks like a cross between the Arrow and the TSR2...