By David Hobbs
Bill Sweetman (https://navalinstitute.com.au/doubts-over-uk-pacific-exercise/) rightly describes the RN Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier class as an achievement, especially with regard to the use of automation to reduce the number of sailors required to operate them.
I also agree with his statement that there is an urgent need to provide a viable ASaC aircraft to replace the rotary-wing Merlin ASaC 2 which is due out of service in 2029. The French and Chinese navies are both introducing state of the art fixed-wing types, the former procuring the USN’s excellent E-2D Super Hawkeye, a type the Queen Elizabeth class ships are large enough to operate if only they had been built, as they should have been, with catapults and arrester wires. His comments about the ‘looming cloud on the horizon’ of F-35B operations are well founded but, if anything they do not go far enough. They apply equally to the Italian Navy and Japanese Self Defence Forces who have also procured the type for operation at sea. The UK Defence Review due later in 2025 will hopefully take a positive view on the way to resolve the problem.
The US marine Corps was the driving force behind procuring a STOVL variant of the F-35 for operation from remote landing strips during amphibious operations like the AV-8B Harrier before it. However, I have never seen images of F-35Bs operating away from bases and this is probably because their hot engine exhaust requires specially prepared surfaces, both on carrier decks and at airfields. It is likely that disappointment with the F-35B’s expeditionary performance led the USMC to announce in its 2025 Air Plan that it is to reduce the number it is to procure from 353 to 280. On the other hand, the Corps has found the F-35C to be a better variant, capable of expeditionary operation from remote Pacific island runways fitted with portable arresting systems and it is to increase the number of this variant it acquires from 67 to 140.
Foreign sales of F-35Bs include the 48 ordered thus far by the UK, 30 for Italy (15 for the Navy and 15 for the Air Force) and 42 for Japan. In the short term production for Japan may fill the gap that will be left by the USMC and so increases in unit price might not take effect immediately. Yes, an overall reduction in F-35B production numbers could well increase future unit costs but for two years the RN has been studying the engineering feasibility and potential cost of fitting catapults and arrester wires to the two Queen Elizabeth class ships with British industry. Known as Project Ark Royal, this would unlock the design’s full potential if it is taken forward. Projected design changes to fit catapults and wires between 2010 and 2012 were abandoned because of wildly over-estimated and inaccurate costings. The possibility of fitting arrester wires to recover aircraft launched with the existing ski-jump was not even considered in 2012 but we now know that both the F/A-18E/F and Rafale M could be operated in this way as both were offered for export to India for operation from INS Vikrant. The F-35C might well be also. Full implementation of Ark Royal would allow future UK F-35 procurement to shift to the F-35C and enable the purchase of E-2D Super Hawkeyes like the French Navy as well as a range of unmanned combat air vehicles which would add mass to the air group.
The reduction of USMC F-35B orders will probably affect the unit cost but the increase in F-35C procurement is likely to lower the unit cost of the that variant, something the UK could potentially take advantage of to lower its still further. What really does effect UK F-35B capability in the short to medium term, however, is the troubled Block 4 software programme which, to be fair, applies to all variants of the F-35, the ‘A’ for the USAF and the ‘C’ for the USN as well as the ‘B’. It needs upgraded hardware known as Technical Refresh or TR 3 which generates far more heat than the earlier TR 2 standard F-35Bs, including those embarked in HMS Prince of Wales at present. The new hardware requires enhanced cooling which is beyond the capability of the existing F-135 engine and can only be achieved after an expensive, single-source engine upgrade programme in new-build or refurbished early aircraft. Until TR 3 can be adequately cooled, only a limited Block 4 software can be installed which allows the aircraft to fly safely but does not apparently allow the use of new sensors or weapons. Those in TR 2/Block 3 aircraft are decades old and, if they can compete with the systems and weapons in the new generation of Chinese fighters, they are unlikely to do so for much longer. Put bluntly, TR 3/Interim Block 4 aircraft can fly but not fight and the UK MOD describes the aircraft to be delivered by the end of 2025 as having a ‘robust training capability’ and they will remain in the UK. At the present rate of progress, this is unlikely to be resolved before the end of the decade. Block 4 problems also prevent the integration of UK-specific weapons which cannot be implemented until the thermal management issues associated with TR 3 and the wider Block 4 installation have been resolved. The MBDA Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile has been in service with French Navy and Air Force Rafales for some years as well as RAF Typhoons but RN F-35Bs are unlikely to get them until 2030. The MBDA SPEAR 3 ground attack missile at present undergoing development falls into the same category.
In summary, Bill Sweetman is right to warn of looming danger. The UK has ‘painted itself into a corner’ by building a large carrier that can only operate one type of manned fixed-wing aircraft. The design was described at the outset as being ‘adaptable’, that is to say capable of being fitted either with a ski-jump or catapults and arrester wires. If the Defence Review takes the right decisions, this defect of selecting the wrong option years ago can still be rectified and these ships have the potential to operate a wide range of aircraft, including fixed-wing unmanned combat air vehicles that will add mass as well as capability for decades to come. The ‘looming cloud on the horizon’ is there but can still be averted if common sense prevails.
