British F-35Bs To Bring Vertical Landing Abilities To Highways

[AndrewBarclay]

Surely if the situation in Europe and the wider theatre of operations deteriorated our forces could use The facilities of the aircraft manufacturers who have the hardened runways etc

[Petepilot]

Surely if the situation in Europe and the wider theatre of operations deteriorated our forces could use The facilities of the aircraft manufacturers who have the hardened runways etc

Presumably those facilities might also be targeted?
I suppose it is a plan of sorts, but practically speaking....

[Finty]

Surely if the situation in Europe and the wider theatre of operations deteriorated our forces could use The facilities of the aircraft manufacturers who have the hardened runways etc

When the missiles start flying, presumably Warton et al would get tw*tted, a la Motor Sich in Ukraine. So you’d need a backup.

[Philly1971]

Surely if the situation in Europe and the wider theatre of operations deteriorated our forces could use The facilities of the aircraft manufacturers who have the hardened runways etc

When the missiles start flying, presumably Warton et al would get tw*tted, a la Motor Sich in Ukraine. So you’d need a backup.

Looking just across the South East you have the likes of North Weald and Sculthorpe both with runways capable of landing jets. You would think if you have an enemy able to send missiles costing millions to take out those sort of runways I would suggest you have already lost. I guess if the MOD are concerned they could stop closing bases, or get a decent missile defence system like a patriot or a land based version of the Sampson\PAAMS system to help protect its key military assets?

[benno]

They'll be having to land at every other motorway sevice station anyway, the range is terrible.

[Bilvo]

British F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, as well as Typhoon FGR4 multi-role fighters, are set to operate from highways in the near future as part of an evolving distributed operations strategy, something that is a fast-growing trend in light of potential Russian aggression in Europe.

While the U.K. Royal Air Force has already begun to expand the options from where it can operate its Typhoons, the announcement that its F-35Bs are also planned to be used from highways is a new development, but one that makes a considerable amount of sense considering the stealth jet’s short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) capabilities.

The latest plans were revealed today by Air Marshal Harvey Smyth, the RAF’s air and space commander, during the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference in London and were first reported by Steve Trimble, Aviation Week’s defense editor and good friend of The War Zone.

Smyth confirmed that the plans call for RAF Typhoons to visit Finland “within a couple of months,” from where they will conduct demonstrations from highway strips. The F-35Bs will do the same, likely from locations in the United Kingdom, sometime in the next 12 month

More here:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/b ... o-highways

Biggest pile of BS I've ever read There isn't a stretch of motorway straight and long-enough to land a Typhoon on or that wouldn't melt under a vertical landing F-35 How ignorant are some of these journalists??

[Vulcanone]

And having interviewed an Air Marshall of the RAF you can do better?

[Vulcanone]

Ever been down the A180 in Lincolnshire Bilvo, consider that while insulting those that have interviewed an Air Marshall....

[Andy_99]

A1(M) around Peterborough looks a possibility as a runway.

[Bilvo]

And having interviewed an Air Marshall of the RAF you can do better?

Can you?? Unless something has drastically changed I wasn't aware that reading an article prevents you from crisitising it?!? And as you hve absolutely no idea of my background, knowledge or proffesion it's all really a lot of hot air (or pixels).

Well done

[Bilvo]

A1(M) around Peterborough looks a possibility as a runway.

Too many potholes

[Vulcanone]

And having interviewed an Air Marshall of the RAF you can do better?

Can you?? Unless something has drastically changed I wasn't aware that reading an article prevents you from crisitising it?!? And as you hve absolutely no idea of my background, knowledge or proffesion it's all really a lot of hot air (or pixels).

Well done

Yes actually, having grown up with the RAF, having had a grandfather in it during WW2, and worked at the Aviation Publishing company, and worked with Many military staff right upto General Chuck Horner 2nd IC planning for Desert Storm and mentored the aforementioned author while he was still at school while doing work experience. I really don't care what your background is (learn to spell for a start would be a good plan) I have books and magazine articles to my name.

And certainly spelt them well when writing.

So keep your Pithy critic

[TomG]

And having interviewed an Air Marshall of the RAF you can do better?

Can you?? Unless something has drastically changed I wasn't aware that reading an article prevents you from crisitising it?!? And as you hve absolutely no idea of my background, knowledge or proffesion it's all really a lot of hot air (or pixels).

Well done

Yes actually, having grown up with the RAF, having had a grandfather in it during WW2, and worked at the Aviation Publishing company, and worked with Many military staff right upto General Chuck Horner 2nd IC planning for Desert Storm and mentored the aforementioned author while he was still at school while doing work experience. I really don't care what your background is (learn to spell for a start would be a good plan) I have books and magazine articles to my name.

And certainly spelt them well when writing.

So keep your Pithy critic

Hope you spelt Air Marshal correctly ......

[Vulcanone]

Well even the professionals do slip up once in a while.... Must not raise my blood pressure ;-)

After all several workmates in this industry never made it past 52... And I am 53 next month

[EGDR]

There isn't a stretch of motorway straight and long-enough to land a Typhoon on

There's quite a few. Typhoons don't need a lot of runway.

or that wouldn't melt under a vertical landing F-35

This is literally explained in the article.

[Vulture 01]

The idea is, I think, to disperse precious assets away from know fixed sites such as airfields, thus making them less vulnerable to be twatted by a missile. Not a new idea: the Harrier force being one of our earlier efforts. The Swedes and, I think Swiss, were in the game well before then. Back in WW 2 the Germans also did this in 1944/45, so hardly a new concept.

When Tornado was being introduced in the 1980's, Flight International ran an interesting item about of-base operations. The idea being to use a ROOST site (Remote, Off-base, Operating Site for Tornado.) Whilst not demonstrated in the UK, it would certainly have been an option in West Germany.

With the lack of military airfields today, it comes as no surprise that at least someone high up in the RAF is thinking tactics, rather than all the Pc etc stuff that seems to be in vogue right now.

Just my thoughts: please feel free to agree or otherwise.

[Thunder]

It’s an obsolete non starter. Do you honestly think the DoT or the general public are going to accept the closure of any of the country’s motorways to allow this. Not to mention what happens if an aircraft was to land, how does it manoeuvre on the ground with no manoeuvring areas to hand. Finland, Sweden and Switzerland have purpose built facilities, we’d struggle to find a purpose built road nowadays

[Plane enthuiast]

I guess there's motorway services for that

[Richard B]

A1(M) around Peterborough looks a possibility as a runway.

Too many potholes

Is that part still concrete. Used to be many areas 20 or 30 years ago
With concrete dual carriage ways and motoways.
Since the end of the cold War most have been tarmacadam over them.
As been said thou, still lots of dissused airfields about.the last
Dispercial exercise I can recall was about 20 years ago.
Harriers from wittering and Cottesmore useing North Luffenham.

[Andy_99]

A1(M) around Peterborough looks a possibility as a runway.

Too many potholes

Is that part still concrete. Used to be many areas 20 or 30 years ago
With concrete dual carriage ways and motoways.
Since the end of the cold War most have been tarmacadam over them.
As been said thou, still lots of dissused airfields about.the last
Dispercial exercise I can recall was about 20 years ago.
Harriers from wittering and Cottesmore useing North Luffenham.

Erm didn't check if it was a concrete surface still when I went up & down it on Sunday but it's always seemed to me that it's massively over engineered compared to a lot of our recent roads (A1 up past Thirsk & Leeming for example). 4 lanes on each carriageway + a proper hard shoulder, very flat, very straight & not many bridges. OK there's a lot of overhead gantries & lighting in the centre but that could quickly be removed if the need arose. Lots of the regional airports I suspect could host Aircraft as well, Newcastle for example is quite sleepy traffic wise for much of the day (Also being local I'd love some nearby fast jets)