It seemed a good idea at the time...

[uk 75]

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s there seemed to be an endless supply of new things happening.
Sadly what seemed a good idea when it started out, proved for reasons that fill threads here not to be so good after all.
My nick here UK75 comes from the vision I had of what the RAF should have been flying in 1975.
Even today these three planes working together still seem cool.
So in the spirit of the playground/schoolyard I showed you mine. What's yours?

 

[Archibald]

-Breguet 941 should have done better. That thing could land in merely 400 feet; we could have played "C-130 on Forrestal" with them. Think about the V-22 many variants today.

-moar Vautours in place of Mirage IVA (sounds familiar ? Buccaneer vs TSR-2, here we go). The Israelis wanted a twin Spey, massively upgraded Vautour in the mid-60's.

-too many Mirage whatifs - among them, the aborted F3 is rather tempting, with a Spey or a beefed-up, earlier M53. No need for a F1, no need for a 2000.

-keep the Mirage G8-02 flying after 1974; finish the ACF and fly it in 1976; same for the 4000 as per OTL, in 1979. Fly all three prototypes side by side at Le Bourget 1981: VG, swept, delta.

-US types build under licence in Toulouse: French F-5s and A-7s.

My ideal Foch & Clemenceau (and PA58 Verdun !) air group circa 1980
-Mirage F1M for fleet defense
(Mirage G would be even more exciting)
-A-7E Corsair II for heavy strike (Exocet included)
-Harriers for light strike out of Arromanches, Jeanne d'Arc and TCDs
-E-1B Turbotracer for AEW, with Turbomeca turbines in place of the radials
-Breguet 941M for COD - or AEW, too (with a radome...).
-more Super Frelons for assault and ASW

Harriers flying out of this ship... in a Falklands like scenario...

 

[Hanse]

Are we talking about, "it seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be terrible" or "misguided leaders failed to read the tea leaves and cancelled progams that would have been awesome"?

 

[uk 75]

Are we talking about, "it seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be terrible" or "misguided leaders failed to read the tea leaves and cancelled progams that would have been awesome"?

sadly often both fit the stories as they pan out. Thats what makes the threads here so fascinating.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Are we talking about, "it seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be terrible" or "misguided leaders failed to read the tea leaves and cancelled progams that would have been awesome"?

Which one? Yes: Lockheed's design for a VTOL hypersonic global-range passenger transport using a nuclear light bulb rocket engine.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

Harriers flying out of this ship... in a Falklands like scenario...

You have intrigued me Archibald. What is the name of this ship?

 

[Hanse]

Are we talking about, "it seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to be terrible" or "misguided leaders failed to read the tea leaves and cancelled progams that would have been awesome"?

Which one? Yes: Lockheed's design for a VTOL hypersonic global-range passenger transport using a nuclear light bulb rocket engine.

Any relation to the nuclear powered Mach 3 flying submarine?

 

[Archibald]

Ouragan class LPD.

Ouragan-class landing platform dock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Suceeded by the Foudre Class

Foudre-class landing platform dock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nowadays replaced by the three Mistrals.

Mistral-class landing helicopter dock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

France 3 generations of amphibs, 1960 - 2020, total 7 ships. And... that's it.

Note that the Foudre-class were still "young" when they were unceremoniously dumped to South American navies in the mid-2010's... they could have been useful along 3*Mistrals but Président François "Gnéhéééé" Hollande decided otherwise...

2013 French White Paper on Defence and National Security - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You guess, that (scandalous) document was rapidly abandonned in 2015 after Charlie and Bataclan were gunned down and war against ISIS started in earnest...

 

[Archibald]

Lockheed's design for a VTOL hypersonic global-range passenger transport using a nuclear light bulb rocket engine.

I've red that paper recently. Maxwell Hunter and a Lockheed colleague with the name of Fellenz, 1970.

The tone of the paper was basically "let's make a chemical rocket SSTO... oh crap, chemical rockets are hopeless, all hail GCNR. In fact GCNR performance will be so astonishing, hey, let's add a whole bunch of lift jets to go VSTOL and reduce noise at takeoff..."

 

[riggerrob]

Harriers flying out of this ship... in a Falklands like scenario...

You have intrigued me Archibald. What is the name of this ship?

Why are the two flight decks at two different levels?

 

[Archibald]

No idea !

Just for the fun of it... in case of a "French Falklands scenario", same year 1982, with Harriers included.
Platforms from which French Harriers could fly would be
- Foch and Clemenceau carriers
- Jeanne d'Arc helocarrier
- the two Ouragan TCDs
- And if you grow ambitious (or suicidal !) the Colbert cruiser's helicopter deck.
- Unfortunately Arromanches had gone to the breakers by 1974-76.