Comments by "Billy Bob" (@davidrobertsemail) on "Getting a Royal Navy aircraft carrier ready for deployment" video.

@admiralmallard7500 we only have 31 in total I understand of those only 27 are available if they aren’t being maintained. Each of our two carriers is supposed to have 36 on board or at least close to that number if other aircraft are needed for the mission.
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8 f35s What a sad state of affairs.
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@admiralmallard7500 agreed. They are all f35bs anyway so designed for small carriers.
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@admiralmallard7500 they are supposed to have 36 on board which means you would need several more per ship for maintenance and training.
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@tonys1636 getting rid of our light carriers and scrapping our harrier fleet before a replacement was available. Politicians also chose 65,000 ton carriers with ski jumps! Moronic idea. Much better to replace our three light carriers with three new light carriers with f35bs Politicians created this debacle. Now we have two huge carriers with half an air wing between them.
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@admiralmallard7500 large carriers make sense if we were buying the f35c We have been buying the f35b We don’t have enough escort ships or any early warning. We have ended up with two huge ski jump carriers, no early warning or escorts and half an air wing for one carrier. Also no carrier operations for nearly a decade. We shouldn’t have retired our small carriers or harriers until a replacement was ready. I can remember arguing this 10 years ago. We could have had new light carriers with harriers flying off them and replace them with f35bs as they were delivered. Now we have two very big targets.
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@admiralmallard7500 we don’t have early warning as we retired them before the e7-a was available and the helicopter based early warning is inadequate. We should have double the destroyers and frigates but that’s another problem that overlaps the carriers. Replacing the light carriers like fir like was argued for a long time ago. Politicians and top brass got their big shiny ships and the rest of the navy was cut. Equipped with the wrong planes for their size. The f35b is ideal for light carriers because of its short range. Every time I see these ships I see government incompetence and military weakness. Jeez aircraft carriers without aircraft, early warning or escorts. You couldn’t make it up.
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