UK Joint Strike Fighter (JSF): Unable to land on new UK Aircraft Carriers

The UK hi-tech jets that will be flown from the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers cannot land on the ships in "hot, humid and low pressure weather conditions", a report warns today.

The version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) that has been bought for the £5.5bn carriers is still in development but currently cannot land vertically – as its predecessor the Harrier jump jet could – in warm climates without jettisoning heavy payloads, the UK National Audit Office (NAO) says.

Though the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) insists the problem will be overcome by the time the first carrier is ready for service in 2020, it is one of a number of concerns pointed out by the NAO over a project that has been bedevilled by delays and cost increases.

The spending watchdog says the early warning "Crowsnest" radar needed by the carriers will not be fully operational until 2022, meaning the ships will need protection from other navy vessels for two years while trials are completed.

Despite the difficulties, the NAO says the MoD avoided further financial calamity last year by choosing a different version of the JSF to fly from the carriers, the biggest warships ever built for the navy.



Originally the military decided it wanted the so-called "short take off, vertical landing" (STOVL) version of the JSF, which is being built and tested in the US, but in 2010, the MoD dumped the plan, with the ill-informed and dis-credited PM, Cameron, arguing in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) that another type of the fighter-bomber was much more capable and compatible with the UK's allies.

The chaotic UK coalition government changed position again in May last year, reverting back to the STOVL aircraft because of the cost of refitting the carriers to accommodate the superior planes was said to be too costly.

Today's report castigates the decision, saying it was "based on immature data and a number of flawed assumptions". It is also obvious that the decision-makers were completely out of their depth strategically and focused only on cutting budgets.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, said the saga was a "terrible waste of public money."

She said: "Decisions were based on the same wildly over-optimistic assumptions and poor understanding of costs and risks that have characterized this programme from the start."

Jim Murphy, the UK shadow defence secretary, said: "Flawed ministerial decisions have wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers' money at a time of mass service sackings and cuts to pensions and allowances."