The Red Arrows face being grounded for years because of Keir Starmer’s dithering over defence spending, it is claimed.
Defence sources have told The Mail on Sunday the year-long delay to the defence investment plan (DIP), finally published last week, means it is now ‘almost impossible’ for the RAF to have a replacement aircraft ready for the Red Arrows by the time the display team’s ageing Hawk jets retire in 2030.
In a hugely embarrassing move, this would result in the famous display team being ‘stood down’ for several years until the replacement jets became operational, it is claimed.
The claims come as the Red Arrows today joined a spectacular flypast over New York City to mark America’s 250th anniversary of independence.
It is part of a month-long tour of the US, with the display team’s pilots, dressed in their famous red flying suits, posing for photos in Times Square on Friday.
In May, the RAF announced it is cutting the number of jets in many of the Red Arrows aerobatic displays this summer to seven from the usual nine.
The reduction, which did not include today’s display, was imposed so the engines of the display team’s Hawk T1 aircraft, which are more than 40 years old, can be rotated, amid growing maintenance pressures.
After a marathon delay, the DIP committed to investing £360 million in developing a new ‘British Jet Trainer System’, which will include ‘new jets for the Red Arrows to replace the ageing Hawk aircraft’.
But the MoD now has just three-and-a-half years to launch a procurement competition, choose a replacement aircraft and for those jets to be built and authorised for aerobatic displays and for aircrews to be trained.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) would this weekend only say it was an ‘aspiration’ for the Red Arrows to have its replacement aircraft in place by 2030.
Tim Ripley, editor of the Defence Eye website, said: ‘You are looking at a four-year-plus time scale from signing on the dotted line with the manufacturer to a working jet being delivered to the RAF.
‘The Red Arrows requirement throws in added complications. After the basic conversion to the aircraft, to do aerobatic flying, pilots would need a period of rehearsals and training to get ready for displays. On top of that, the jets would need to go through the stringent RAF safety trials.
‘Most experts would say this is almost impossible to do in the time the Red Arrows have left on the Hawk.’
We should know by now that Labour don’t like anything that makes us proud to be British, but this is typical – one of the few things the public treasures and is proud of – shame on Labour.
Starmer is an embarrassment to the UK, and he will never be remembered as a statesman.
Starmer said he was a good Prime Minister because he was trying to frame his time in office as stable, competent, and responsible, but the public narrative around defence, welfare, housing, and the NHS has been chaotic, so when people hear that claim, they think, “What planet is he on?” and living in Britain is a badge of failure.
How on earth can Starmer say that he’s done well whilst being Prime Minister? He has been useless, dithering, and unsuitable for the job, and he was way out of his depth.
The Red Arrows are known worldwide, but this shambolic mess this government has made of this country is also known worldwide, and everything this man has touched, he’s destroyed – he definitely didn’t have the Midas touch.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 