Shorts Belfast

[Lost ranger]

In principle, could the Belfast have been updated like the C130 and still be competitive today? Or was there some limitation in the design?

[Teddy Lop]

It was a much bigger aircraft, although with RAF having to lease airfreight and the herc now being replaced by the atlas it's a good question

[LotusOmega375D]

Dunno, they seem to get a bad press. i used to love watching the Heavy Lift Belfasts flying in and out of Southend when I lived there.

[Mr Pointy]

LotusOmega375D said:

Dunno, they seem to get a bad press. i used to love watching the Heavy Lift Belfasts flying in and out of Southend when I lived there.

They weren't very comfortable in the back that's for sure:

[Eric Mc]

They were big lumbering beasts and I think had some aerodynamic issues, chiefly down to excessive drag.

Like a number of British designs, it was a bit of a "bitsa" in that the wings and tail units were derived from the Britannia mated to a new fuselage. It was originally going to be called the Short Britannic.

It had four Rolls Royce Tynes (the Britannia used the Bristol Proteus) but the Canadair CL44 (also derived from the Britannia) also used Tynes. The Tyne was looked on as better engine overall than the Proteus.

I think adding more powerful engines might have helped but the drag issue would have been difficult to overcome.

[Seight_Returns]

Sometimes less than affectionately referred to as the "Belslow" for all of the above reasons.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

I think adding more powerful engines might have helped but the drag issue would have been difficult to overcome.

They did partially improve the drag issue early on after service entry, with a rear fairing mod that increased the cruising speed by 40mph.

It did have the distinction as being the first aircraft ever designed from the outset to have a fully automatic blind landing system.

Political money saving ended their service after only a ludicrously short 10 years service, when the fleet was retired in 1976. This was largely as a result of the political decision to withdraw from all bases east of Suez, and the UK military being deemed a europe centric military.
4 were scrapped, 1 preserved, and 5 were sold to Heavy Lift, although they only operated 4, using one as a parts source.
Of course just 5 years after they were 'scrapped' by the MOD/RAF, the MOD were forced to charter their own aircraft back again, when the Falklands War kicked off, and yet again within another 10 years during the first Gulf War...as we didn't have anything to transport big items over those distances.
Its been calculated that the cost to the MOD of this was more than the cost of the RAF keeping them in service until the early 90's......
Yet another example of a brilliant cost saving and capability holiday exercise by the MOD.

[LukeBrown66]

The interesting aspect for me, is that we are facing a not dissimilar economic crisis right now, for different reasons, and would any of the parties try and save money by not buying stuff? I would imagine if Corbyn were in power yes, but maybe not anyone else other than the Greens, in the extreme is a right wing party got in we might start spending more!

[Eric Mc]

The Hercules fleet is being withdrawn - so nothing changes.

[Tony1963]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it.

[Simpo Two]

LukeBrown66 said:

The interesting aspect for me, is that we are facing a not dissimilar economic crisis right now, for different reasons, and would any of the parties try and save money by not buying stuff? I would imagine if Corbyn were in power yes, but maybe not anyone else other than the Greens, in the extreme is a right wing party got in we might start spending more!

The simple fact is that in peacetime, defence is bottom of the list when voters want free money and windmills. Nobody wants armed forces in peacetime, then they expect to appear out of thin air when a scrap breaks out.

Defence spending is not the preserve of the 'extreme right' (note, we do not and have never had an 'extreme right' government), communists are very good at defence spending too.

[Tony1963]

We have a commitment to a level of defence spending with NATO. We just need to spend that, spend it wisely, and prioritise. We are not alone in any conflict that we can reasonably expect to face, so we don’t need to cover every possible scenario. We just can’t afford it, and the NHS for example could do with more/wiser spending.

Getting rid of the incredible waste in the military would be a good start, but when that’s mentioned, suddenly everyone wants their local base to stay open, their nearby manufacturer to stay open etc.

We are probably approaching at time when we will no longer have the skill base to allow us to build our own military aircraft. Almost everything we have is American, with all the red tape that involves. I just want to see out my last few years before retirement working on Apaches, then I’m afraid I’ll find it difficult to give two shats about it all. At least we might no longer have a PM supported by Russia!

[FourWheelDrift]

Would those noisy Tynes be allowed today?

[aeropilot]

FourWheelDrift said:

Would those noisy Tynes be allowed today?

Have you heard a A400M

I get them flying overhead my place a good few times a month at high level heading east out of Brize, at 28-30k feet or so, and even at that height, stealth they are not.......

The big issue we as UK plc have is what are we going to do when our small fleet of C-17's are shagged out, because as yet, there is no replacement in design for that at any time on the horizon, as the US bought enough of them, and the other users have not flown theirs to the level we have. We have the highest flying houred C-17 fleet.....and didn't buy enough of them, as usual.

[aeropilot]

Tony1963 said:

We just can’t afford it, and the NHS for example could do with more/wiser spending.

Getting rid of the incredible waste in the military would be a good start, but when that’s mentioned, suddenly everyone wants their local base to stay open, their nearby manufacturer to stay open etc.

The same goes for the NHS. Its the waste that needs to be sorted out, not chucking ever more amounts of cash into a financial black hole.

I shudder at the stories of waste in the NHS from friends that work in it, just the same that there are astonishing stories of waste in MOD and most other Govt departments. Too much tick boxing and not enough thought process and common sense as ever.

[LukeBrown66]

Having worked for multiple defence contractors over many years I can tell there is good and bad, yes there is a lot of waste, but there are also a million hoops to jump through and some very worrying deadlines to hit, particularly during times of UOR need. The pressure is sometimes immense, all nighters, and I can probably tell you where most of it is spent and wasted, overtime payments!!

[Tony1963]

LukeBrown66 said:

Having worked for multiple defence contractors over many years I can tell there is good and bad, yes there is a lot of waste, but there are also a million hoops to jump through and some very worrying deadlines to hit, particularly during times of UOR need. The pressure is sometimes immense, all nighters, and I can probably tell you where most of it is spent and wasted, overtime payments!!

I think I can agree.

I work on the Apache contract. We have almost zero wastage, and zero excess manpower. We have a minimum of 85% productivity vs the army’s 35% ish. We are good value, but held back by out of date and old facilities and tooling. Still, keeps me employed for now.