10/03/2006

Uçak Gemisinde İngiliz - Fransız İşbirliği

Geçtiğimiz günlerde basına yansıyan bir haber oldukça ilgi çekici, özellikle Avrupa savunma sanayiine muhtemel etkileri sebebiyle.

Fransa ve İngiltere savunma bakanları, ortak uçak gemisi geliştirme çalışmaları ile ilgili mutabakat muhtırası (MoU) imzaladılar. Anlaşma 2 adet İngiltere için, bir adet de Fransa için olmak üzere toplam üç uçak gemisinin üretilmesini kapsıyor ve habere göre yaklaşık 3 milyar £ tutarında.


Bilindiği üzere İngiltere 1970'lerde stratejik bir karar alarak konvansiyonel uçak gemilerini hizmetten çekip yerine Invincible sınıfı daha küçük VSTOL uçak taşıyan gemiler üretme kararı almıştı. Bu karar büyük tartışmalar yaratmış ve Falkland Savaşı da bu tartışmalara farklı bir ivme vermişti. Eurofighter EF-2000 savaş uçağının tasarım aşamasında İngiltere'nin gelecekteki ihtiyacı için bir uçak gemisi versiyonu da düşünülmüştü.

CVF ve JSF F-35 projeleri kapsamında halen İngiltere'de konvansiyonel uçak gemilerine dönüş tartışmaları da gündemde. Fransa'nın bu konuda daha rahat olduğu söylenebilir, zira bu ülkenin yeni nesil savaş uçağı olan Dassault Rafale'nin hem hava kuvvetleri (Rafale C/B) hem de deniz kuvvetleri (Rafale M; uçak gemisine iniş yapabilen) versiyonu mevcut ve kullanımda.

Fransa'nın başlangıçta Eurofighter konsorsiyumu üyesi olup daha sonra Rafale'yi geliştirme amacıyla ayrılmış olması ilginç bir not.

FREMM ve Horizon gibi projelerden sonra uçak gemisinde İngiliz - Fransız ortaklığı ilgiyle takip edilmeyi hak ediyor gibi...


£3bn Anglo-French aircraft carriers deal is sealed


Evening Standard


7 March 2006




DEFENCE Secretary John Reid has formally signed an agreement with his French counterpart to deliver near-identical aircraft carriers to the navies of each country.


He inked a memorandum of understanding with France's Michele Alliot-Marie in Innsbruck, Austria, last night to jointly develop and construct the three carriers, two for the Royal Navy and one for France.


France is to pay £100 million towards the cost of preliminary carrier design work already done by Britain's BAE Systems and its partners.


The first Royal Navy carrier is scheduled for delivery in 2012, and the French ship in 2014. The British carriers will operate Joint Strike Fighter aircraft now under development with British collaboration in the US, while the French ship will operate the Rafale combat plane and unmanned combat drones.


Britain has committed around £450 million to the 65,000 tonne vessel's design and demonstration and will make a final decision on building next year. Total cost of the project is likely to be about £3 billion.


The agreement comes despite Britain's withdrawal from a previous programme, Horizon, to jointly design and build a new generation of anti-aircraft frigates for Britain, France and Italy.



Britain and France Build Robocarrier


March 9, 2006: Britain and France finally signed the deal to build three new aircraft carriers. This followed several years of negotiations. What's surprising about all this is not the large size of the carriers (about 58,000 tons, the largest ships ever for both navies), or the unique cooperation (two of the carriers are British, one is French, and both nations will cooperate on design and construction, with the Brits taking the lead.) No, what is amazing about all this is the aggressive plans for automation. These "Queen Elizabeth" class carriers are planning on having a ships crew of 800 (or less) and an air wing complement of 600 personnel. Currently, you need a ship crew of about 2,000 for a carrier that size. The reduction in size of the air wing personnel is even more aggressive.


These carriers are going to cost about $4 billion each, and are to be in use for half a century (including several refits and refurbs). But the biggest cost will be personnel. Currently, it costs the U.S. Navy a bit over $100,000 per sailor per year. Do the math ($7 billion in crew costs over the life of each carrier.) So the smaller the crew, the greater the savings, and the more you can spend on upgrading the ship, buying new aircraft and the like.


The carriers will haul 34-45 aircraft and helicopters and be able to handle about 110 flight operations every 24 hours. That's with current aircraft. The F-35B will be the primary warplane on the British carriers. But it's also likely that many, or all, of the next generation of aircraft on these ships will be robotic. But first, the ship has to be equipped with an unprecedented degree of automation. While 250,000 ton oil tankers can operate with a crew of under 40, all those large vessels do is move their cargo from place to place. An aircraft carrier must fight, and find the enemy, and do a lot of other stuff. The new class of 100,000 ton American CVN-21 carriers are trying to get their ship crew down from 4,000 to 2,500.


Warships have a lot of unique functions, like damage control, and manning many systems for high alert, and combat, situations. Some crew reduction ideas are pretty obvious, like installing conveyers to help move supplies when ships are replenished at sea, or even when in port. Many maintenance tasks can be eliminated by using materials that require less effort to keep clean, and are just as safe as those used in the past. It's also been noted that many maintenance tasks can be left for civilians to do when the ship is in port. Most navies has also not kept up on automation. There is still a tendency to have sailors "standing watch" to oversee equipment that, with the addition of some sensors, can be monitored from a central location. If there is a problem, a repair team can be sent. But in the meantime, thousands of man hours a week are saved, and another few dozen sailors are not needed. Another angle is removing a lot of administrative jobs from the ship altogether. All warships are connected, via satellite, to military networks. So many sailors can stay ashore, and do their work without ever going near the ship. Some sailors have long noted that their administrative jobs aboard a carrier rarely brought them in touch with the people they were serving. Carriers have phones and email. Why use it aboard ship when you can use it from some (much cheaper) shore location? Moreover, many of these admin jobs can be done, more cheaply, by civilians.


But the new British/French carriers aim to take warship automation into uncharted territory. This should be interesting, and it is certainly bold and daring. All three carriers are expected to be in service by the middle of the next decade. Just in time for the centennial of the First World War. Hmmm, that's ominous.

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