During a recent House of Lords debate, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering pressed Defence Minister Lord Coaker on the future of the UK’s fast jet fleet and pilot training programme.
Highlighting the historical importance of RAF bases in her former constituency of the Vale of York, she sought clarity on the Government’s plans for maintaining operational capability.
“Can I press the noble Lord on the number of fast jets that are currently in service and are expected to be in service, say, over the next five years, and also on the number of fast jets pilots that we are training?” she asked. “I hope he will give me some encouragement that we are going to be on track for a number of fast jets going forward.”
Lord Coaker responded by confirming ongoing plans to expand the fleet, specifically mentioning the F-35B Lightning jets.
“We certainly will be purchasing a number of fast jets—the exact number will obviously be subject to debate, but we expect a number of F-35Bs to be purchased.”
On pilot training and retention, he acknowledged the challenges and outlined the Ministry of Defence’s focus on addressing these issues. “The training and retention of pilots is something for which we have an ongoing review within the Ministry of Defence; we are looking at that very carefully, but she is right to raise that as an issue.”
Image Chris Lofting. GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons.
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“A number” of F35s, these guys couldn’t answer a question to save themselves
It’s such a non-answer, we’ve already received a number of F-35Bs. Just make their minds up!
Well clever HMG thought it best to replace 340 odd Tucano and Hawk T1 with 9 Texan ( now increased to a whopping 13? ) and 28 Hawk T2, privatizing the system into MFTS, while cutting the long established 1 and 7 FTS and closing RAF Linton in Ouse and it’s satellite airfield, and moving BFT to Valley alongside AFT, when previously both were separate , including I understand using separate chunks of airspace based on the performance of the varied types.
The system worked, but as always fiddle to save a bit of money, privatise all that moves, and see the results as the system falls apart.
Above that, the long term cutting of overall Fast Jet numbers and pilot’s, including QFI, has I read
created a bottleneck at OCU level for those who have passed through BFT then AFT, and the Hawk T2s
engines went wrong.
Another area of defence HMG managed to mess up.
Excellent work chaps!
The Hawk T2 was yet another political industrial fudge, an outdated design that had no future with considerably more advanced Italian competition.
It was yet another politically forced solution the RAF…
A mix of PC21 and one of the advanced Italian trainers (a few to pick from) would have been a good buy.
Pushing forward, I would bring Aeralis into the GCAP fold ,as a trainer etc, for the RAF post 2040.
I conceed the Italians would likely have a melt down!!!
good buy.
I believe Aeralis already get some funds from GCAP as there’s synergies in digital design etc.
Add to the mix EDI initiatives and a dose of woke and you have a perfect storm….quite how our armed services work is beyond me…the nutters are in charge of the asylum…as they say
“White trash” was the quote from the RAF officer re the recruits offered to him.
This remains a white majority country and the bulk of our fighting force is still white working class lads and lasses.
Why alienate with discrimination like that?
Hi Daniele,
Hope you are well.
You have as usual outlined a typical tale of decline brought about short sightedness, political dogma and what has become institutionally accepted shrinking of our armed forces. All of it underpinned by a steady deskilling of the MoD’s support structure, the selling off the research establishments being the most obvious example, but the most damaging process I believe has been the gradual down grading of key project management and support skill sets within the procurement system. Financial controllers, project management and project scrutiny teams have all been undermined making it very difficult for the MoD to control its’ decision making processes. Some of this started when I was still inside the system, but some of this process has been reported since. The MoD is understandably quiet about this type of issue.
The problem is until MoD can reskill its’ people I fear it will struggle to get control of its’ decision making processes and will continue to lack the capacity to effectively resist dogmatic demands from politicians and the Treasury to sell stuff off and reduce scale in the name of efficiency.
This new SoSD appears to be genuine in his desire to improve the lot of our service personnel, although this is somewhat undermined by the ongoing RFA debacle, but whether he has the power within the Cabinet is yet to be seen. I fear that the Chancellor / PM relationship will once again be the driving force in our government’s decisions as it has been for most of my live (the one exception being during the Falklands War when Margret Thatcher excluded the Chancellor from the War Cabinet on the advice of Harold McMillian, I believe).
Given the current geopolitical situation, if I was PM I would set up a ‘War Preparation Cabinet’ and the Chancellor would not be included. This groups’ task would be simple – prepare the nation for war in Europe. Grim, but some of our allies are already effectively doing just that, preparing for war in Europe. Poland being the biggest mover in this direction as far as I can tell. This would develop our defence industrial capability as well as our military forces looking at both short term needs and a longer term strategy to ensure that we are capable of defending our home base effectively allowing us to support our allies in Europe and elsewhere, both militarily and materially.
The development that frightens me the most when I think about it is the deployment of North Korean troops to fight in the Ukrainian War. There are now suggestions that the numbers to be deployed could eventually be as high as 100,000. If so that would make a serious impact o the outcome of the war and would demonstrate the benefits of working together to the new axis of Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. If we do not deter these powers conventionally as well as with nuclear weapons we will end up in a fight and as the war in Ukraine shows it could be a long one, and we are not prepared in anyway to fight a long intense war. However, what frightens me the most about the deployment of North Korean troops is that I believe it is potentially a signal that a war in Europe could be much sooner than anyone has been willing to admit, me included. If nothing else it greatly increases the uncertainty and the risks we face…
Cheers CR
Afternoon mate.
Sobering stuff.
Re the skills base, and your DERA/DRA area.
We know the RRDE, RADE, ARE were closed, but I have always hoped enough residual expertise was retained when DERA became DSTL?
The CBRN area at least was kept going.
Don’t forget that they picked a version of the Texan that wasn’t certified to fly over water, a bit of a problem if you are based on Anglesey.
Yes, not so vital with designated FTAs in Yorkshire.🙄
I get the feeling with a few senior soldiers running the shop for a few years with “democracy” on hold until a proper Constitution was written and general draining of a stinking swamp, we would be in a far better place to address the important stuff. Politicians have turned our country into a joke.
Sorry your Generals all stayed very quit to save their pensions and what ever. They are part of the swamp.