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RAF to get F35A ?

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Agent K
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Agent K » Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:24 pm

warthog81 wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:43 pm
You could also use places like Boscombe Down and St Mawgan which have shelters. Having the jets scattered over multiple sites spread across the whole country must be safer in a wartime scenario than having them all stuck in two bases.
Which the RAF have exercised, with Typhoons at least. Several spent some time at Boscombe on that very activity in the last year or so.

PA200
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by PA200 » Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:42 pm

As someone who spent many years working in both 1st generation (RAFG) and 3rd Generation (Marham/Honington) HAS shelters they are best looked at, as a large concrete garage. With regard to F35 operations from them, I was told that the F35 can't, due to the amount of vibration it generates inside the shelter which isn't good for the aircraft or the poor humans stood next to it, hence the nice new sun shelters at Marham. Also the RAF has tended to move away from HAS Ops probably due in part to manning levels as line Ops require less people for see-offs etc and its easier to supervise.
It don't mean a thing if the wings don't swing!!


Miracles I can do...the impossible takes a little longer!

iainpeden
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by iainpeden » Tue Feb 04, 2025 4:06 pm

:P I always thought the move to sun shelters had something to do with global warming. :halo:

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Agent K
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Agent K » Tue Feb 04, 2025 5:12 pm

PA200 wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:42 pm
As someone who spent many years working in both 1st generation (RAFG) and 3rd Generation (Marham/Honington) HAS shelters they are best looked at, as a large concrete garage. With regard to F35 operations from them, I was told that the F35 can't, due to the amount of vibration it generates inside the shelter which isn't good for the aircraft or the poor humans stood next to it, hence the nice new sun shelters at Marham. Also the RAF has tended to move away from HAS Ops probably due in part to manning levels as line Ops require less people for see-offs etc and its easier to supervise.
I was of the belief that the aircraft had been tested and released to use a HAS? I'm happy to be corrected.

As you suggest yes for the shelters I think that is down to the ability to pool aircraft and resource for the daily schedule rather than having to spread more resource around the HAS areas. Similarly Coningsby now have similar shelters for their flight line.

Col Nago
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Col Nago » Tue Feb 04, 2025 7:07 pm

This company is currently building next generation, fully enclosed HAS for the IDF’s F-35s. https://www.contifederal.com/projects/f ... -site-414/

Col Nago
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Col Nago » Tue Feb 04, 2025 7:10 pm

And here’s an article on the F-35 getting cleared to be used inside HAS https://www.nlr.org/news/hardened-aircr ... -aircraft/

Uncle Sam
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Uncle Sam » Tue Feb 04, 2025 8:31 pm

Going off on a slight tangent here, but are there any current or former RAF bases that use mountains as a natural shelter for aircraft, like tunnelling into the rock and creating a hardened bunker where aircraft would be stored out of sight and in relative safety.

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Agent K
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Agent K » Wed Feb 05, 2025 8:59 am

Uncle Sam wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2025 8:31 pm
Going off on a slight tangent here, but are there any current or former RAF bases that use mountains as a natural shelter for aircraft, like tunnelling into the rock and creating a hardened bunker where aircraft would be stored out of sight and in relative safety.
Northolt?.......... ;)

The UK is not like Switzerland for example and doesn't really have nice flat airfield sized spaces right next to mountains, or indeed mountains in the right places for when the airfields were built (East Anglia/Yorkshire etc.), so no not used in the UK.

Enobob
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Enobob » Wed Feb 05, 2025 1:54 pm

Uncle Sam wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2025 8:31 pm
Going off on a slight tangent here, but are there any current or former RAF bases that use mountains as a natural shelter for aircraft, like tunnelling into the rock and creating a hardened bunker where aircraft would be stored out of sight and in relative safety.
No, not a single one.

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cat1
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by cat1 » Fri Feb 07, 2025 9:19 am

I seem to recall reading that there were one or two ex RAF WW2 bases in the med that were something like that.

Seafires(?) with the wings folded stored in unused railway tunnels?


Sorry not sure how we got here from the F35A :S :Wow:

Philly1971
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Philly1971 » Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:23 pm

I think I contributed to the drift away from F35s to HAS. Again talking of which, I spent some time in Bodo, Norway, in the summer. Sadly the airbase is now gone, but they still have plenty of HAS left, including a proper underground bunker capable of holding their original Starfighters safe from a nuclear attack. The museum there is pretty decent as well. The town is planning on moving the runway and airport further away, which means in the old airbase part, so are having to demolish all those HAS, which I guess is not an easy job. Anyway, I stick with my original thought, in that if we did have the money for more assets, then it should be more F35Bs. Easy to disperse, and no runway required.

Enobob
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Enobob » Sun Feb 09, 2025 2:41 pm

Philly1971 wrote:
Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:23 pm
I think I contributed to the drift away from F35s to HAS. Again talking of which, I spent some time in Bodo, Norway, in the summer. Sadly the airbase is now gone, but they still have plenty of HAS left, including a proper underground bunker capable of holding their original Starfighters safe from a nuclear attack. The museum there is pretty decent as well. The town is planning on moving the runway and airport further away, which means in the old airbase part, so are having to demolish all those HAS, which I guess is not an easy job. Anyway, I stick with my original thought, in that if we did have the money for more assets, then it should be more F35Bs. Easy to disperse, and no runway required.
If you are going to operate F-35B's as operational aircraft with a warload then a runway certainly IS required!

Vulture 01
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Re: RAF to get F35A ?

Post by Vulture 01 » Sun Feb 09, 2025 4:30 pm

Seconded, Enobob.
Surely the F35B is classed as a STOVL (Short Take Off /Vertical landing)Aircraft? As far as I recall, even the Harrier needed a take off run to get airborne with any significant payload.
Vertical take offs were simply for air show, and other, demonstrations.

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