Best of British

[J0hn]

With the Nimrod and Harrier gone from British Forces, do we actually have any British designed or made aircraft left?

( ref Harriers I know the Yanks were responsible for final versions, but they started British!).

Do we still use the Lynx? That's one....

Probably not for much longer, though.

Super Lynx is a waste of dosh - could have ditched that and kept the Harrier with the money - or at least, some of them. Why they didn't buy H-60 is beyond me - and I don't buy their petty excuses.

If you saw the MOD Millions thing on C4's Dispatches, you'll have felt as p****d off as I did.

JD

[Garry Russell]

Still have the VC 10

[DarrenL]

Slingsby Firefly (made in Yorkshire), Hawk trainers, BN Islanders, BAe 146 and the long serving HS Dominie.

They might not be combat aircraft but they'd hurt if they flew into you.

The sad thing is the Royal Navy, their fixed wing now consists of Hawker Sea Fury, Hawker Sea Hawk and 2 Fairey Swordfish. Which to think of it isn't that bad actually

[Chris Trott]

Sad thing is, I think the US is a bigger customer of British Defense Manufacturers that you are of yourselves just on our Goshawk purchase alone. Then you add in that FN builds the Minimi and the M-249 (which is a Minimi derivative) for our militaries and the M240 is also a derivative of the GPMG, we may not be supporting your industries directly with the builds, but there are still things you guys build that we have at minimum copied.

[SkippyBing]

Super Lynx is a waste of dosh

Not true, Future Lynx is probably the best Maritime Attack Helicopter you can get for the money, there is no equivalent SH-60 variant so by the time you'd integrated the avionics with the airframe you'd be no better off.
What Future Lynx isn't is a particularly useful battle field utility helicopter, it would make a good armed scout a la Kiowa but the Army don't want to put weapons on it. A combination of inter-service rivalry and civil service incompetence have prevented them from buying H-60, but that doesn't make Future Lynx a bad aircraft.
Didn't see the MoD millions thing, think I was away, but if it featured Lewis Page take everything he said with a metric ton of salt.

[jonesey2k]

the M240 is also a derivative of the GPMG,

Heh, should have adopted it in the first place instead of M60...

[Chris Trott]

If the M240 was man-portable, I might agree to some extent. However, it's heavier and less accurate than the M60 and especially the M60E3 (which is the version US Special Forces are still using). The M240 is only used as a crew-served weapon (3-man crew) or a Vehicle-mounted weapon, making it much less versatile than the M60 was. Then again, the M240 didn't replace the M60, the M249 did.

[NigelC]

Slingsby Firefly (made in Yorkshire), Hawk trainers, BN Islanders, BAe 146 and the long serving HS Dominie.

They might not be combat aircraft but they'd hurt if they flew into you.

The sad thing is the Royal Navy, their fixed wing now consists of Hawker Sea Fury, Hawker Sea Hawk and 2 Fairey Swordfish. Which to think of it isn't that bad actually

I know the Jetstream T3's have gone but aren't the T2's still in service??

[DarrenL]

The RAF lost them in 2003 but the Navy still use T2s for training helicopter observers and still have T3s operated by the Heron Flight out of Yeovilton for support and comms. Neither are armed so fall below the Swordfish in terms of MOD defence capable

[DaveB]

Aren't they due out of service this coming year or is it 2012?

ATB

DaveB