Keeping the Hunter and Canberra longer

uk 75

uk 75

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A bit of a Brain sneeze prompted by reading the Vanguard book on the Su25 in which the author noted thst the Soviet Union found thst the Mig 17 performed better in the ground attack role than the later Mig and Sukhoi designs that replaced them.
The Canberra and Hunter replacement programmes for the RAF proved too expensive and the planes were not effectively replaced until much later than originally planned.
Could upgrades or different weapons fits have kept Hunters and Canberras in service longer?
 
uk 75 said:
A bit of a Brain sneeze prompted by reading the Vanguard book on the Su25 in which the author noted thst the Soviet Union found thst the Mig 17 performed better in the ground attack role than the later Mig and Sukhoi designs that replaced them.
The Canberra and Hunter replacement programmes for the RAF proved too expensive and the planes were not effectively replaced until much later than originally planned.
Could upgrades or different weapons fits have kept Hunters and Canberras in service longer?
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Yes, both airframes lasted much longer with other users.

Hunter, maybe someone could have got a LLTV going, and maybe cluster bombs a bit earlier? So you would be putting stuff down roughly where the enemy was, even at night?

So maybe you get a few sqn of new aircraft, as the point, but we keep RaAXF squadrons going, with hunters, dotted about, good for intercepting bears, and the war plan is a bit like the phantoms with Hawks.

Canberra, the totally 'modable' aircraft. Maybe someone realises the answer isnt VTOL but numbers, perhaps quoting Stalin, that quantity has a quality all of its own?

Blanket attack by 2 or 4 sqn of canberra, a lot of time practicing TOT attacks from several directions? again cluster bombs would be handy.
 
The nuclear role dominates the pressure to replace Canberra and Hunter but also their perceived vulnerability to Soviet aircraft and missiles.
Ironically the answer was the Buccaneer S2 anf later on of course Jaguar S and Tornado..
But for many roles Canberras and Hunters were still valid. The TWU operated large numbers of Hunters into the 70s (effectively an RAF reserve)
 
uk 75 said:
The nuclear role dominates the pressure to replace Canberra and Hunter but also their perceived vulnerability to Soviet aircraft and missiles.
Ironically the answer was the Buccaneer S2 anf later on of course Jaguar S and Tornado..
But for many roles Canberras and Hunters were still valid. The TWU operated large numbers of Hunters into the 70s (effectively an RAF reserve)
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Yes, I had a lovely camp at Brawdy, mixed bag of hawks and hunters.
 
I could see the Canberra being fitted with Spey's too as a mid-life upgrade; maybe partner with the USAF for their B-57's?
 
isayyo2 said:
I could see the Canberra being fitted with Spey's too as a mid-life upgrade; maybe partner with the USAF for their B-57's?
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Maybe, probably more likely to upgrade the Avon’s, a la pr9.

also, how about a ‘gnat’ under each wing(tip?)or one in the Bombay, to ward off migs. Or Canberra takes gnat near a bear, then launches gnat for intercept? May actually be easier to put it on top?
 
Well there's a potential host of Canberra options really. At the extreme, a backup to the TSR.2 and the Fighter variant.
Another thought is hanging EW kit and ARMs on some.
Fitting them for Martel might help.

Hunter....not so easy, as was rather tight on space for new stuff.
But wasn't the TFR set trialled on a Hunter?

What would've transformed this is had the new small 30" turbojets been funded instead of the Gyron Junior. Then internal space and modernisation would become a much more attractive proposition.
 
There is always the English Electric P.28; a Canberra with clipped wings (the outer 6 feet), new 500 gallon wing tanks, the strengthened tailplane of the PR.9, along with the nose of the PR.9 but lengthened with the Ferranti TFR. Powered controls would be fitted, and the engines would be replaced with Speys. The Bombay would be modified with doors that would retract completely with, and it could also carry the TSR2 reconnaissance pack.
 
The Swiss loved their Hunters and used them well into the 90's. Frack, refurbished Hunters even bet the crap out of A-7 Corsair II and Mirage V "Milan" in 1973 !

Meanwhile in South America Canberras also lasted into the 80's and beyond.
 
royabulgaf said:
What was the joke about MRCA during development? Must Respar Canberras Again?
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Must Refurbish the Canberras Again ? ROTFL. British humor as it best.

Meanwhile at the same time (1969) the future B-1 had churned so many paper studies since 1962, some said AMSA stood for "America Most Studied Aircraft".

On the French side, early Mirage 2000 entering service in 1984 with the RDM radar were much inferior to the in-service Mirage F1C with Cyrano IV (they couldn't fire Super 530D yet, when the F1 had 530F) and as such, the RDM got rebranded as Radar De Merde.

Also TEFAL, because of this https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tefal "doesn't stick (on a target) but lot of heating nonetheless".

Meanwhile on the other side of the Channel, Tornado F2 flew with Blue Circle radar ballasts.

The funny thing is, we have an expression in french

" ce truc, c'est du béton !"

(literally: "that thing is concrete !", but actually mean: it is formidable, in the sense of "very strongly build".)

So I can imagine the French Mirage pilots being told of the "blue circle" joke by their RAF Tornado F2 fellows, and saying in French
"Ah ça c'est sur, ce radar blue circle, c'est du béton !" A joke inside another joke, in two different languages. Pretty cool.
 
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Remember that you only have to out-gun your adversary.
As long as the RAF was not fighting the Soviet Air Force, they had little need for supersonic airplanes to replace Hunter and Canberra. If Britain had retained most of her colonies after WWs, the RAF would have kept busy bombing and straffing insurgents/guerillas/patriots/freedom fighters/dirty, rotten, low down, scum-sucking communists/narco trafficantes/etc. with Hunters and Canberras.
 
riggerrob said:
Remember that you only have to out-gun your adversary.
As long as the RAF was not fighting the Soviet Air Force, they had little need for supersonic airplanes to replace Hunter and Canberra. If Britain had retained most of her colonies after WWs, the RAF would have kept busy bombing and straffing insurgents/guerillas/patriots/freedom fighters/dirty, rotten, low down, scum-sucking communists/narco trafficantes/etc. with Hunters and Canberras.
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... and that's the exact role in which France used its Jaguars, in the former empire continuing as Françafrique. Right from 1977 - Mauretania, Chad, Lybia, Gabon, Ivory Coast - and countless others countries.
 
There was the Hunters modified for trialing the Blue Flash and Blue Jay development programs. I recall reading somewhere that it was suggested that the AI 20 radar installation used in the Blue Jay testing could have formed the basis of a AI 20 Firestreak F6 retrofit program, I have not seen any source material on this so don't know if it was a real proposal, wishful thinking, or fantasy.
 
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
 
Alresfordian said:
Hope you like this P.28 model - "3 Sqn, RAF Laarbruch"
P1330116 by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
by Glenn Gilbertson, on Flickr
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Lovely, but they would have had to change the navigators entry, the nose was heavy enough on the PR9, it wouldnt have been a swing nose, maybe a hatch like the earlier marks.
 
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
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But how do you get an aircraft that first flew in 1949 to remain in front line bomber service until at least 2015?
 
SSgtC said:
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
Click to expand...
But how do you get an aircraft that first flew in 1949 to remain in front line bomber service until at least 2015?
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B-52 first flight in 1952, cough, cough
 
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
Click to expand...

The B-57 in Vietnam, notably the Ho-chi-Minh-trail night intruders, was (give or take) what you describe. With 1960's tech level, obviously.
 
Archibald said:
SSgtC said:
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
Click to expand...
But how do you get an aircraft that first flew in 1949 to remain in front line bomber service until at least 2015?
Click to expand...

B-52 first flight in 1952, cough, cough
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Except the Canberra was retired from bomber service by 1972. And to be fair, not only does the B-52 carry almost nine times the bomb load of the Canberra, it has over 5 times the combat range. Not to mention, the US has tried to kill the B-52. Multiple times. It's replacement kept getting killed.
 
SSgtC said:
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
Click to expand...
But how do you get an aircraft that first flew in 1949 to remain in front line bomber service until at least 2015?
Click to expand...
Canberra was very simple and robust. Big cockpit, and lots of space for new avionics, you could get in a walk around in the tail section, definitely cant do that in a Tornado....

Also a lot of fuel, so if you did switch to turbofans, you would have a very good loitering capability.
 
Fluff said:
SSgtC said:
apparition13 said:
I think Canberra would be just about the perfect COIN asset. Upgrade to turbofans for additional range and loiter time, add Sniper-like pods and ISR systems to them, load JDAMs and LGBs, and sail them around at 40k feet doing the loitering CAS mission the US has been using strategic bombers for. They'd be a lot cheaper to operate, wouldn't use up bomber airframes, and if necessary could go low level to do CAS with guns or Mavericks as well.
Click to expand...
But how do you get an aircraft that first flew in 1949 to remain in front line bomber service until at least 2015?
Click to expand...
Canberra was very simple and robust. Big cockpit, and lots of space for new avionics, you could get in a walk around in the tail section, definitely cant do that in a Tornado....

Also a lot of fuel, so if you did switch to turbofans, you would have a very good loitering capability.
Click to expand...

The RB-57F did that, too - it got TF33s. Some of these very old birds are still flying with NASA.
 
Archibald said:
India and Peru retired their Canberras in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
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How do you convince the RAF though? It's one thing for 2nd/3rd world countries to hang on to an obsolete type as the best option available to them. It's another to convince a global power to do the same. So how do you get the RAF to keep it in service as a bomber when they're replacing it enmasse with V-bombers?
 
How about - the "Canberra replacement quagmire" goes even worse than OTL. Still - Jaguars, Phantoms, Tornado, RAF Buccaneer... must all die.

Maybe the UK 70's economic crisis goes much, much, much worse than OTL and they have to do with Canberras, per lack of other platform.
 
SSgtC said:
Archibald said:
India and Peru retired their Canberras in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
Click to expand...
How do you convince the RAF though? It's one thing for 2nd/3rd world countries to hang on to an obsolete type as the best option available to them. It's another to convince a global power to do the same. So how do you get the RAF to keep it in service as a bomber when they're replacing it enmasse with V-bombers?
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2 things - 1 Money, the RAF always went for new airframes. So Government needs to insist on 50% of new aircraft actually being an upgrade.

2 - someone high up decides you have to keep the auxliary Air Force, so they have to have something to fly, so they get the old Hunters and canberra's, after a midlife update.

And west gets hold of a Soviet report, which says they will all be back in Mig15 by day 4 of a shooting war.
 
Fluff said:
SSgtC said:
Archibald said:
India and Peru retired their Canberras in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
Click to expand...
How do you convince the RAF though? It's one thing for 2nd/3rd world countries to hang on to an obsolete type as the best option available to them. It's another to convince a global power to do the same. So how do you get the RAF to keep it in service as a bomber when they're replacing it enmasse with V-bombers?
Click to expand...
2 things - 1 Money, the RAF always went for new airframes. So Government needs to insist on 50% of new aircraft actually being an upgrade.

2 - someone high up decides you have to keep the auxliary Air Force, so they have to have something to fly, so they get the old Hunters and canberra's, after a midlife update.

And west gets hold of a Soviet report, which says they will all be back in Mig15 by day 4 of a shooting war.
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That... could work actually.
 
- It would certainly be possible to screw the Jaguar (the French had little love for it)
- And then screw the Tornado just like all the others before it (AFVG, F-111K, TSR-2).
- Then the RAF hates the Buccaneer too much and got zero of them
- Problem is, well, the Phantom. Canberra has zero chance to stick in service, if more F-4K can be procured, including former RN ones. Maybe UK enrages Uncle Sam over Vietnam, and so they have much less Phantoms.

(look, I did my best to screw all the options bar freakkin' Canberra !)
 
Archibald said:
The B-57 in Vietnam, notably the Ho-chi-Minh-trail night intruders, was (give or take) what you describe. With 1960's tech level, obviously.
Click to expand...
Archibald said:
The RB-57F did that, too - it got TF33s. Some of these very old birds are still flying with NASA.
Click to expand...
That's the inspiration, kind of a cross between the B-57G with FLIR, LLTV, and Laser designator with RB-57s for the tactical recon role and ISR role. Toss in some EB-57 ECM* capability and you could do cell phone jamming, saving EA-6Bs as well.

Ideally (so completely unrealistically) someone would recognize how useful the airframe is and it would be kept in limited production. CAS and night interdiction in Vietnam, Sandy overwatch, CIA missions, drug interdiction, SCUD hunting in Desert Storm, on call CAS in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe an active wing and a reserve wing, a couple hundred total (including attrition aircraft), would be useful in a host of low and medium intensity situations. It's a significant investment, but it keeps your front line aircraft out of the COIN mess so you're not beating them up when you don't need to and can keep them in fighting trim for major wars. Just as one example, B-1s could still do low level missions if the swing wing pivots hadn't been damaged from spending all their time at minimum sweep accumulating loads they weren't designed to because they were doing on call CAS over Afghanistan.

*Toss in a lot of ECM and they'd be useful in high intensity as well.
 
Just as one example, B-1s could still do low level missions if the swing wing pivots hadn't been damaged from spending all their time at minimum sweep accumulating loads they weren't designed to because they were doing on call CAS over Afghanistan.
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Never realized this ! Damn... I didn't understood why the number of B-1 going to the boneyard was on the rise. Now I have the answer.
 
f: it was 7/2006 for the PR9s. For the Hunter-in-UK...it's...not yet, as they are in Red Flag games, civilian-operated. These 1946/47 designs, last build 1960, have done us proud: yet longer use could only have been by cutting the identity number off and pasting it on to new metal (UK-folk: Trigger's broom).

UK Treasury has at last learned that retread may not save a dime. UK examples are: Nimrod MR2-MRA4, Lynx-Wildcat, Apache AH-64D-AH64E. Savings...nix.
(I once tried to save money...taking a surplus Buccaneer S.1, chopping off the front end to be the visible shell for S.2 simulator. Bright idea of mine? No).
 
When you think about it, a Hunter, if carefully tweaked, could play the role of a) Hawk trainer b) Jaguar & Harrier strike fighters. Heck a navalized variant, performance wise would be no worse than the Sea Harrier.
 
L
Archibald said:
When you think about it, a Hunter, if carefully tweaked, could play the role of a) Hawk trainer b) Jaguar & Harrier strike fighters. Heck a navalized variant, performance wise would be no worse than the Sea Harrier.
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Like a sort of Etendard?
 
Bingo. You are aware, however, that "Super Etendard" was a very bogus trick by Dassault ? pretending they could magically turn Etendard IV into S.E at a very low cost ?
The whole thing aimed at screwing the Jaguar M (they hated the Jaguar) and also Aerospatiale proposal to manufacture A-7E under licence (they hated Aerospatiale - SNIAS)
 
(quick check of Google)

Trigger claims that he's had his road sweeper's broom for 20 years. But then he adds that the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.
"How can it be the same bloody broom then?" asks Sid the café owner.
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Don't blame me, blame the thread O.P.

Reminds me of an old joke... in an insane asylum, one of the patient is asked to draw a knife. He instead shows a blank sheet of paper.
"Are you kidding me ?"
"Why ? It is really a knife. It just doesn't have a handle, and the blade is missing. And by the way, you are handling my picture upside down."

Another patient from the same asylum is found hanging to the ceiling.
"Get down you !"
"No, I'm a lightbulb !"
"Please, assistant, get this idiot down."
"Ok boss, but then, if we remove him, the room will be dark."

And yet another patient is seen pushing a wheelbarrow, except it is upside down.
"Why are you doing this, you fool ?"
"Well, I'm not fool. Yesterday I pushed that same wheelbarrow the right way, and some asshole put a heavy load of concrete inside."

Another patient "Eureka ! I'm not a corn seed !"
"What ? we have been telling you this for 25 years ! Well, you are cured, congrats. You can get out.
"I won't. I'm scared to death. I mean, whatif I come across a hen of a duck ? they will eat me !"
"What, no, you KNOW you are not a corn seed, you just told us."
"You are right, but how will hens and ducks will know it ? will they realize ?"

Another patient

"I'm a bird. I'm convinced I can fly."
"You are not, I guarantee you."
"Well, screw you, I'm going away" and the guy get out by the window, flying.

And then - Hitler is coming to the asylum. I mean, the real one. At the end of the visit, the asylum director says, proudly
"And now, the grand finale. Mein fuhrer, all the insane here..." he opens the door. Hitlers wanabees everywhere: moustache, voice, impeccable clones of the real one. "They all believe they are YOU !"
Alas, all of sudden all the whackos start shouting "An IMPOSTOR ! Size him !" and they all jumped on Hitler. And of course the REAL Hitler is impossible to find.
Very annoyed the asylum director shout "WHO IS THE REAL HITLER ?"
"ME ! ME ! I'm the real one !"

Very annoyed, the director takes a decision: he randomly picks one of the whackies, hopping it is the real Hitler... or that nobody will see the difference.

The next day, the idiot starts WWII.
 
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