RAF Scampton to Close.

[SkippyBing]

I don't know, it's a bit over the top to have an airbase for 9 trainers,

Not only are the Red Arrows there but also presently RAF Scampton plays an important role in the protection of UK airspace as the home of No 1 Air Control Centre.

It is also home to the Mobile Meteorological Unit.

Guess No 1 Air Control Centre could be moved to RAF Waddington and work in conjunction with the AWACS?

As for the Mobile Met Unit that could go anywhere!

Regards
Nigel.

1ACC is also a deployable unit so it's not as big a move as you might expect. That's also still a lot less than at's pretty much any other air base.

[SkippyBing]

A friend of mine is serving at Shawbury and they have around two dozen T1's in storage.

http://www.fast-air.co.uk/raf-shawbury- ... hy-100129/

To be honest that doesn't have much bearing on the out of service date which is early 2020s at the moment. I can't see them justifying keeping a type in service just to equip a display team once 100 Sqn, 736 NAS and the few other operators stop using it.

[TobyV]

A friend of mine is serving at Shawbury and they have around two dozen T1's in storage.

http://www.fast-air.co.uk/raf-shawbury- ... hy-100129/

To be honest that doesn't have much bearing on the out of service date which is early 2020s at the moment. I can't see them justifying keeping a type in service just to equip a display team once 100 Sqn, 736 NAS and the few other operators stop using it.

I was under the impression that the Red Arrows' machines rotated in and out of the remaining Hawk T1 fleet? I believe that due to the nature of the display manoeuvres, they accumulate fatigue a bit faster than normal flying.

Is there any plan to purchase more Hawk T2s to replace Mk1s and 1As and preserve overall numbers as they are retired?

[SkippyBing]

I was under the impression that the Red Arrows' machines rotated in and out of the remaining Hawk T1 fleet? I believe that due to the nature of the display manoeuvres, they accumulate fatigue a bit faster than normal flying.

Is there any plan to purchase more Hawk T2s to replace Mk1s and 1As and preserve overall numbers as they are retired?

There is a certain amount of rotation, although they did recently retire one that had spent it's entire career with the Reds so it's not at the level I thought was.

As far as I know there aren't any plans to purchase anymore T2s. Strictly that isn't an MoD decision as that stage of training is contracted to Ascent who are required to provide a set number of students at a given level of training to join a front line OCU. Currently they think they can achieve this with the 28 odd they've got, if they can't they'll have to buy more but that's not MoD's problem unless it's because they changed the required number of students.

[Hot_Charlie]

You would think that this country would have learnt its lesson from the Second World War and the Falklands conflict. It takes a lot longer to rearm nowadays.

The problem being Scampton would need complete rebuilding anyway. Essentially it's a (very tired) runway, a couple of hangars and a few other buildings, along with the remains of the married patch. All the rest has been allowed to "dilapidate" since the early 90s.

[511Flyer]

[paulsl]

I see Linton-on-Ouse is to go too, probably taking Topcliffe and Dishforth with it. A shame, but stupidly buying stupidly expensive F-35s means you can't afford enough aircraft to need more than a couple of airbases. Red Arrows maybe not, but how many Super Hornets could you get for 1 F35? Australia bought into the F-35 foolishness too

[SkippyBing]

I see Linton-on-Ouse is to go too, probably taking Topcliffe and Dishforth with it. A shame, but stupidly buying stupidly expensive F-35s means you can't afford enough aircraft to need more than a couple of airbases. Red Arrows maybe not, but how many Super Hornets could you get for 1 F35? Australia bought into the F-35 foolishness too

Worst case about 1.7 at the current rate, although once the F-35 reaches series production it's going to get closer to parity. F/A-18E ~$70.5 Million, F-35B ~$122 Million but reducing, the F-35A is already ~$95 Million and heading towards $85 Million. The F-35 cost has reduced by around 60% since the programme started and it isn't in series production yet.