UK to extend Typhoon OSD to 2040 and form additional two sqn

[Thunder]

Scotland are already getting the P8 so a great deal of investment already North of the country.

Why shouldn't Leeming get some investment as well ? Or come to that any base in England

In my opinion the investment should be spread throughout the country & on a side note the SNP keep muttering about re-visiting the whole independence question If I were in charge at Westminster I'd be a bit cautious about investing heavily in a nation that may well be looking at breaking away from the union in the not too distant future.


Thats a whole new can of worms though

So where exactly is Marham then? Then you have the millions already spent on Brize Norton, Waddington, Coningsby and Yeovilton. Remember we lost two out of three air stations in the last SDSR so I think it's only fair to restore some of what was lost.

I wish you people South of the border would give up on the Independence argument , it ain't going to happen so it looks like we're stuck with one another for the foreseeable future.

[the concerned]

Is there a reason why the typhoon ocu couldn't move to valley where it is close to wales for training freeing up space at coningsby

[Spannerhands15]

Is there a reason why the typhoon ocu couldn't move to valley where it is close to wales for training freeing up space at coningsby

It's not that simple. It's not just the aircraft along with aircrew / groundcrew. Can you begin to imagine the cost of the support infrastructure required? Engineering bays, Simulator facilities, Accommodation for the personnel - bearing in mind an OCU will have a higher compliment of personnel than your average Sqn.

Just not financially viable - and that's what the bean counters will look at.

My money - fwiw - is on any new Sqn's being split between Coningsby and Lossie.

[POL]

It's not that simple. It's not just the aircraft along with aircrew / groundcrew. Can you begin to imagine the cost of the support infrastructure required? Engineering bays, Simulator facilities, Accommodation for the personnel - bearing in mind an OCU will have a higher compliment of personnel than your average Sqn.

Not to mention further away from Donna Nook and Holbeach ranges and, perhaps most importantly, the D323 complex.

[the concerned]

Ok what about the RAF taking over mildenhall

[Thunder]

Mildenhall has been wired(Electrically)to provide power in accordance with USA standards 120v 60Hz, everything would have to be ripped out and re done. Far too much money. It's all about money, if you start opening new bases or major refurbishment work then they'll be no money for the a/c.

[rva65]

Something tells me Mildenhall will eventually go the same way as other disused airfields, housing!

[C24]

We can't have it both ways "rva65", either we get the hardware to bomb the Begesus out of the Middle East and have somewhere to house the families that we displace or the money gets spent on a new railway line and LHR's third runway and rehousing for the people we displace.

[Russ]

Hi, Sorry if it sounds silly or I have completely missed something but its been bugging me since this whole topic began.

In the first post the The RAF currently field 192 combat aircraft, made up of 87 Tornados; 53 Tranche 1 Typhoons; and 52 Tranche 2 and Tranche 3A Typhoons, deliveries of which are ongoing.

The Tranche 1/2/3 planes I assume are all single seat and the 2 seaters are not included in this ?

I cannot seem to make the numbers of planes mentioned on here or wiki add up. 105 Typhoons mentioned above. Also mentioned among these pages is that the average Squadron has 12 planes. My thinking based on this is when we get the 2 new sqns that will account for 84 planes leaving 21 still doing what ??? (or are these 21 the 2 seaters ?)

Secondly on Wiki it mentions 53 Tranche 1 / 67 Tranche 2 and 40 tranche 3 totaling 160. Now I know Wiki isn't always 100% accurate but its normally pretty close so suprised to see wiki claiming we have 55 more than the other source.

Any clarification for either questions would be greatful, Thanks

[Malcolm]

Hi, Sorry if it sounds silly or I have completely missed something but its been bugging me since this whole topic began.

In the first post the The RAF currently field 192 combat aircraft, made up of 87 Tornados; 53 Tranche 1 Typhoons; and 52 Tranche 2 and Tranche 3A Typhoons, deliveries of which are ongoing.

The Tranche 1/2/3 planes I assume are all single seat and the 2 seaters are not included in this ?

I cannot seem to make the numbers of planes mentioned on here or wiki add up. 105 Typhoons mentioned above. Also mentioned among these pages is that the average Squadron has 12 planes. My thinking based on this is when we get the 2 new sqns that will account for 84 planes leaving 21 still doing what ??? (or are these 21 the 2 seaters ?)

Secondly on Wiki it mentions 53 Tranche 1 / 67 Tranche 2 and 40 tranche 3 totaling 160. Now I know Wiki isn't always 100% accurate but its normally pretty close so suprised to see wiki claiming we have 55 more than the other source.

Any clarification for either questions would be greatful, Thanks

I make it...

Tranche 1 single seats = ZJ910-ZJ943 (34 aircraft)
Tranche 1 dual seats = ZJ800-ZJ815 (16 aircraft)
Total = 50 aircraft

Tranche 2 single seats = ZJ944-ZJ950, ZK300-ZK302, ZK304-ZK354 (61 aircraft)
Tranche 2 dual seats = ZK303, ZK379-ZK383 (6 aircraft)
Total = 67 aircraft

There are no Tranche 3's in service yet - they're all still stored at Warton AFAIK awaiting various people to make decisions .

Subtract the 2 dead ones, 3 permanently at Warton, and 4 Christmas trees and I think we're at 108 available for squadron use. 4 are down south talking penguin, so 104 in the UK. At any one time there are always 20-25% of the fleet undergoing upgrades, and/or major/minor servicing. So perhaps at best 80 available at any one time.

29 Sqn is larger than a normal squadron, so say 20 aircraft for it, and then 12 aircraft each for the 5 other front line sqns and you're at 80 aircraft (5x12 + 20). Oh forgot 41Sqn - they've got 4 too.

Releasing the 40 Tranche 3A aircraft to squadrons should be enough to form 2 more squadrons, allowing for one (or two) Christmas trees, a couple for 41Sqn and 20%-25% undergoing maintainace at any one time

[Russ]

oh wow what an answer,Thank you so much..

I am suprised by the amount out of service at one time though, Is this just the norm with all RAF Planes or is it a lack of parts / people etc ?

1 more question though if you wouldn't mind. What are the "Christmas Trees" ?

[Mike]

A great post Malcolm.

Russ, there are some Typhoons at Coningsby that were delivered from Warton that have never flown since, they have been taken to bits for spare parts - these are known as "Christmas trees" or "Hangar queens".

Sad, isn't it?

[Malcolm]

oh wow what an answer,Thank you so much..

I am suprised by the amount out of service at one time though, Is this just the norm with all RAF Planes or is it a lack of parts / people etc ?

Aircraft have to have major/minor checks after a certain number of flight hours. This is in addition to any faults/repair that are required when things 'just break'. Take a look at milky01's site and count the number of aircraft that are denoted as being 'in TMF' . These are the ones currently undergoing deep checks. The RAF/MOD have contracts with BAe to perform deep checks on "X" aircraft per year, and each deep takes "Y" weeks.

1 more question though if you wouldn't mind. What are the "Christmas Trees" ?

Aircraft that were delivered as fully functional production aircraft, put in the hangar, and stripped for spares to keep others flying. These may or may not fly again, but if they do, they'll require many months of work to return to flyable status due to the number of bits that have been robbed off them.

[Mike]

ZJ940 was delivered in 2007, ZJ948 was delivered in 2009 - both were taken to bits to keep other Typhoons flying and have never flown since.

Kevin's (Milky) site can be found here :- http://milky01.co.uk/?page_id=16608

[Russ]

Hi,
Really appreciate your replies Malcolm (and Mike) most informative.

Ahh Christmas tree ( only heard them refered to as donor before).

Yes Mike it is sad. Especially for a plane that is still in production, could understand Tornados being saved for parts due the bits being made 30 years ago but unreal that we have to strip parts of 3 unflown planes.

[mushbuster]

I wish you people South of the border would give up on the Independence argument.

Thunder, you are having a laugh on this one,,,,,I hope

Mildenhall has been wired(Electrically)to provide power in accordance with USA standards 120v 60Hz, everything would have to be ripped out and re done. Far too much money. It's all about money, if you start opening new bases or major refurbishment work then they'll be no money for the a/c.

Thunder, I have seen this claim a number of times in the past and wondered where it originated from. Having worked at many of the USAF (and many RAF) sites, including Mildenhall, over the years on electrical installation I can assure you that this is a complete myth. The US bases all work on UK standard 50Hz electrical systems with power supplied from the UK commercial power companies at 50Hz. The building supplies with 1 or 2 exceptions were all 3ph 415v just like all UK electrical systems and they use 240v outlets to UK standards same as everywhere else in the UK. There are some buildings that had odd systems that use various other frequencies for things like aircraft maintenance (just like on any RAF base) and there were some limited systems that used 60Hz derived from frequency converters, but in my experience these are rare and limited to say the least. Even the 110v building wiring we did, something rarely found outside of the US bases, was 50Hz to Uk spec. All the work and all the installations we worked on had to comply with the UK wiring regs in place at the time the work was done and all the testing was done to UK standards. In any case rewiring is not that expensive

[C24]

Well, if mushbuster is to be believed, and who I am to say, we can put RAF Mildenhall back in the game.

Mind you, if we cannot convert RAF Wittering back to a greenfield site, with a little money on an upgrade it would be a perfect solution.

[Thunder]

I wish you people South of the border would give up on the Independence argument.

Thunder, you are having a laugh on this one,,,,,I hope

I stand corrected on the power supplies at Mildenhall, but it ain't going to happen.

However I don't understand the point you're trying to make regards independence issue?

[mushbuster]

Thunder, whatever the opinion and whatever the media says north of the border we don't see that. All we hear south of the border are what seems to be almost daily rants and "threats" from the SNP leadership for yet another independence referendum. Worse, we hear what seem to be endless complaints about the undemocratic centralist government policies from London which are causing so much hardship to the Scottish people. Guess what, the same but more justified complaints are made across all the blighted regions of England, Wales and Northern Ireland with the exception of the South East. You are so lucky that only Scotland has the political muscle to gain any benefit which in itself creates a democratic imbalance and ensures Scotland does very well in comparison with and at the cost of the regions of the UK. The endless whining (by unfortunately the best or most effective politicians of this generation) does Scotland and the Scottish people no favours for the long term and reflects pretty badly on a great nation. I like to think we are so much better unified, after a while we will cease to care

[Thunder]

I don't know what makes you think there is an unbalance between Scotland, Wales and England, if you are going to break England down into the NE, NW, Midlands etc to compare us with then you better break down Scotland into the Highlands, Glasgow, Edinburgh etc as well, as Holyrood has created a divide up here as well.

The SNP are a clueless ragged group lead by bullies and dictators that tried and failed to bribe/blackmail the Scottish people into thinking we would all be better off under Independence, even their own policy chief that was responsible for the "white paper" has admitted it was all based on wishful thinking. The vote tonight in the 'Commons' regards the Syrian air strikes sums them up for me, not one SNP MP voted 'for', doesn't that tell you it's a case of toe the line or you're out(even Jeremy Corbyn gave his MP's a free vote), they aren't the voice of the electorate of Scotland they're just a dictatorship. The vast majority of people in Scotland don't want another referendum we had it and had our say. Time to move on as an United Kingdom.