Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Is it due? Has a RFI or Prior Notice issued from the DoD?

Hope y'all enjoyed the video

Looks like we are ordering boeings new F47. It's awright 😉

Ah, right. No.

Shur the F35B that diverted to India last month because of weather at the carrier and subsequent hydraulic fault, is still there.

Has yet to be repaired and it's either fix it or dismantle it to fly back to the UK in a C17 at this stage.

They've had techs there from PoW since a couple of days after it landed and a second tranche of techs from UK and LM arrived last week on the 6th and the only movement for the F35B was it being towed to an MRO hangar.

The US government accounting report into the F-35 earlier this year is utterly scathing, it's not just a UK problem. It's a cash-cow and Lockheed is still milking it.

I'm not surprised that Dassault won't stand over the production quality , of airframe that they don't build, they're happy to stand over the ones they build in France, India understandably want most of the planes built in India - by an Indian company, fair enough, but expecting Dassault to stand over those ??

How long Rafale purchase been going on for ?

The RFP for the original MMRCA competition was issued in August 2007. It was whittled to Eurofighter & Rafale in April 2011 and Rafale was announced as the winner in January 2012 then ensued much contractual fúck acting before the deal was left die in 2015. To be replaced by the G2G deal for 36 Raffles and India to lose ground on China & Pak in capability & numbers.

For all the slagging we give our lot, India are now 18yrs into a fighter procurement programme for 126 aircraft, that's been cancelled twice and had an interim but of 36 airframes made.

All whilst their own Tejas is a dog and their indigenous engine Kaveri is in development since 1989, with a 1st run in 1996 and it still can't meet it's power targets.

It is very much both, graft is a huge issue there even amongst their biggest industry players. Crazy really given much of the defence industry in country is state owned but the palms always need greasing.

There are well known and long term issues with the Lockheed Martin ALIS (Autonomous Logistics Information Software) platform which was identified as a pressure point in 2020, scheduled for replacement by a new software called ODIN which began being rolled out in 2023 but still AFAIK isnt fully operational, esp amongst foreign operators.

Both systems are meant to ensure that maintenance, spares ordering and any downtime are predictable and proactively managed via the system identifying needed parts and downtime in advance.
The US GAO & UK NAO reports both paint a very poor picture of readiness rates, with US at 55% and UK hovering at 33% or so.

Its pointless having an aircraft that cant fly. The US rate likely appears better than UKs due to operating the A & C variants as well as the B, whereas the UK are stuck with dealing with the more complex B.
Once again, I find myself absolutely baffled by the UKs choice to go with STOVL for their carriers rather than CATOBAR, even just in terms of readiness rates of embarked aircraft.
The opportunities available to crossdeck with USN & MN and to maintain a genuinely effective and independent European/NATO CSG force were thrown away for nothing more than the UKs obsession with niche and very Gucci capabilities.

Penny pinching certainly, and holding on to the notion of the F35B as a replacement for the joint Harrier force.

Given UK Franco plans for joint carrier deployments and even a shared carrier design in the early days of PA2 & QE2 design? The smarter heads in the UK knew 20yrs ago what they needed today.

Political will to install nuclear propulsion was absent in the UK while it was an absolute requirement for the French.

The path to 3 European nuclear powered CATOBAR carriers was there. Even shared deployments and escorts, post 1st Lancaster House deal and it was abandoned for the UKs obsession with using F35Bs to replace the Harrier and field a new joint force as some kind of cost saving panacea.

The Franco/UK axis is the only current access Europe has to any means of independent nuclear action and only the French offer a realistic sub-strategic option via ASMP and it's replacement.

The UK should also be looking to mating M51 SLBM with Dreadnought, if only as a contingency. At least the UK still builds it's own warheads and if push came to shove? I have no doubt they'd figure out the means of mounting them on French missiles.

On both our and their best day there was never really any prospect of buying American combat aircraft. Or even LIFTs. And in the current climate, its out of the question completely.

But we cannot rule out the Tranche 4 iteration of the Eurofighter Typhoon in any conversation about fighter / interceptor acquistion either. This far down its operational life, others have troubleshot the bugs the foibles of being an early adopter, and it is now a ubiquitous platform, and a good performer as a non-stealth aircraft, ideal for our needs.

In fact Typhoon and Rafale rate very closely to each other, with Typhoon shading the interceptor and air-superiority roles, and Rafale the multi-role Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground capabilities.

It is reckoned that a full suite deal of airframe, engines, spares, training, support, maintenance, armaments etc will be €120-140 million per unit for either plane. So perhaps it would come down to which corporation can deliver the best overall deal in the shortest time.

Going back to aircraft carrier topic. I see Jonny Spaniard are looking at acquiring no less than 3 aircraft carriers on top of the light carriers they already have…big move! Jolly expensive to boot!

You are forgetting an important point, BAE. They make more of the B than the A/C versions, so I'm guessing that might have put a finger on the scales. The majority of the other reasons are all pretty much BS (ease of training/operations being the big BS one), and the limitations are particularly clear with the debacle of the AWAC's capability, with the Crowsnest system barely in service before its retirement has been announced. But lets face it, there's always been issues with Carriers in the UK, from pre WW2, to the RAF moving Australia to kill the CVA (probably a good decision) to the Through Deck Cruisers and their limitations.

I think at the heart of it is the refusal for the UK/MOD/Services to "cut their cloth" to what the nation can afford. All the talk of expanding the surface escorts with 10K+ ships and 12 SSN's is fantasy fleet shite when you consider the budget over that period, and with the SSBN's happily sitting there devouring money.