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

[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

[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.

[Vulcanone]

I Agree with Thunder.

Can we get back to the aircraft discussed in this thread and NOT Annoying MPs.

Tim

[Phoon]

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

Two dead ones? ZJ943 the wheels up one and which other?

[Mike]

I think the other one is ZJ922/QO-C which had a heavy landing at Coningsby and is Cat 4 (repairable...........just !).

[Malcolm]

I think the other one is ZJ922/QO-C which had a heavy landing at Coningsby and is Cat 4 (repairable...........just !).

Correct. I think that officially ZJ922 is now considered to be part of the "sustainment fleet", in which case the official figures are 1 dead and 5 Christmas trees. However, from what I was told last week, ZJ922 has been declared properly dead and is being stripped for spares before joining ZJ943 at Shawbury.

What I'm not sure about is if ZJ699/700 are considered to be real Tranche 1 aircraft, or just IPA's. Doesn't affect the number of aircraft available to the RAF though since these two have lived all their lives at Warton.

[Phoon]

I think the other one is ZJ922/QO-C which had a heavy landing at Coningsby and is Cat 4 (repairable...........just !).

Correct. I think that officially ZJ922 is now considered to be part of the "sustainment fleet", in which case the official figures are 1 dead and 5 Christmas trees. However, from what I was told last week, ZJ922 has been declared properly dead and is being stripped for spares before joining ZJ943 at Shawbury.

What I'm not sure about is if ZJ699/700 are considered to be real Tranche 1 aircraft, or just IPA's. Doesn't affect the number of aircraft available to the RAF though since these two have lived all their lives at Warton.

I'm fairly sure both those two are development aircraft and owned by BAE and are therefore considered not within the RAF figures.

[lhrlima]

So, in order to inject a bit of life back into this thread, if we do gain two extra Typhoon Squadrons will we see:

1) 1 current Tornado Sqn re-equipping with Typhoon and 1 new 'Air Defence' Sqn.
2) 2 current Tornado Squadrons re-equipping.
3) 2 'new' Squadrons, either for dual role or air defence.
4) 100 Sqn converting, plus one other.

Whatever happens, I guess we can expect to see a mass swap round of Airframes! Anyhow, the above are just my thoughts and I'm probably completely wrong, but it'd be nice to get some opinions.

Regards,
Steve.

[Vulcanone]

I think its only a case of when. But currently the only ones that know (hopefully) the answers are the RAF. I personally can see 9 Sqn being the last Tornado Sqn and it becoming an F-35 unit. I hope 12 and 31 survive possibly also as F-35 units.

As for the Sqns to bring back as Typhoon units Well..... Well will just have to wait I guess.

Tim

[Razor01]

So, in order to inject a bit of life back into this thread, if we do gain two extra Typhoon Squadrons will we see:

1) 1 current Tornado Sqn re-equipping with Typhoon and 1 new 'Air Defence' Sqn.
2) 2 current Tornado Squadrons re-equipping.
3) 2 'new' Squadrons, either for dual role or air defence.
4) 100 Sqn converting, plus one other.

Whatever happens, I guess we can expect to see a mass swap round of Airframes! Anyhow, the above are just my thoughts and I'm probably completely wrong, but it'd be nice to get some opinions.

Regards,
Steve.

I cant see 100 sqn converting to a fast jet in the foreseeable future - the operation of teh hawk is so much more cost effective for the RAF thna using fst jet like the typhoon.

[markranger]

So, in order to inject a bit of life back into this thread, if we do gain two extra Typhoon Squadrons will we see:

1) 1 current Tornado Sqn re-equipping with Typhoon and 1 new 'Air Defence' Sqn.
2) 2 current Tornado Squadrons re-equipping.
3) 2 'new' Squadrons, either for dual role or air defence.
4) 100 Sqn converting, plus one other.

Whatever happens, I guess we can expect to see a mass swap round of Airframes! Anyhow, the above are just my thoughts and I'm probably completely wrong, but it'd be nice to get some opinions.

Regards,
Steve.

I cant see 100 sqn converting to a fast jet in the foreseeable future - the operation of teh hawk is so much more cost
effective for the RAF thna using fst jet like the typhoon.

Would love to see 100sqn become a mixed Sqn of Hawks and Typhoons.
Can understand when they are doing FAC training etc that they can simulate being a Tornado for training purpose but when it comes to them being Red Air and going up against say another Typhoon after a couple of moves the Hawk must be struggling for Energy.
Mark.

[Gary]

I think its only a case of when. But currently the only ones that know (hopefully) the answers are the RAF. I personally can see 9 Sqn being the last Tornado Sqn and it becoming an F-35 unit. I hope 12 and 31 survive possibly also as F-35 units.

As for the Sqns to bring back as Typhoon units Well..... Well will just have to wait I guess.

Tim

Speaking with pilots at Marham last year, the original plan was to have IX(B) as the last Tornado operator. With everything going off in the Middle East it might / will have all changed and the RAF probably doesn't know what's happening themselves

The pilots also said, any new squadron would likely come from current or recently disbanded squadrons as it's easier to bring a recently disbanded squadron back. Than bring back a squadron who's colours have been laid up. Not sure what that process actually involves? Guess that could be bad news for squadrons like 25(F), 43(F) and 111(F) that's if the new squadron are going to be air defence squadrons

[toom317]

Would love to see 100sqn become a mixed Sqn of Hawks and Typhoons.
Can understand when they are doing FAC training etc that they can simulate being a Tornado for training purpose but when it comes to them being Red Air and going up against say another Typhoon after a couple of moves the Hawk must be struggling for Energy.
Mark.

Once watched two Hawks try to mess with a Typhoon over the factory I was working at, in around 2013. They were struggling like hell to try and nail it, and it looked like the Typhoon was just toying with them.

[Malcolm]

The pilots also said, any new squadron would likely come from current or recently disbanded squadrons as it's easier to bring a recently disbanded squadron back. Than bring back a squadron who's colours have been laid up. Not sure what that process actually involves? Guess that could be bad news for squadrons like 25(F), 43(F) and 111(F) that's if the new squadron are going to be air defence squadrons

It's supposed to be done on seniority - which means the number of years that a squadron has been actively established. Every year that a squadron has been operational adds a year to it's seniority. However, apparently years spent as reserve squadrons don't count - which is probably bad news for 4(R), 15(R) and 56(R). So whatever squadrons are chosen, it's likely to be one of the more recently disbanded front liners.

Then there political interference and who is in charge at the MOD/RAF, meaning which squadrons did the Air Chief Marshall serve on . 617 Sqn were well down the pecking order but have been chosen for RAF JSF #1.

[Gary]

Yep, I know about age / seniority. I meant what process is involved in getting a squadron standard from Cranwell etc. Can't remember reading what is involved in resurrecting a dormant squadron