Please Sir – Can We Have Our HARRIERS  Back ? – The Daily Express reports that the once frontline of Britain’s strike force, now lie abandoned.  The skeletal row of fighters – minus wings and sophisticated nose-cones – stand propped up on wooden pallets in “The Bone yard” near Tucson, Arizona.   The 74 HARRIERS were retired eight years early and sold last year for £ 116 million to the US Marine Corps for spares.       The sale came as the planes were undergoing a £ 500 million upgrade to their avionics and weapons systems.    The move was part of a Ministry of Defence decision to replace the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers with ships that would deploy US fixed-wing Joint Strike Fighters.

Would is not be an option worthy of consideration to buy back the HARRIERS and refurbish say 48 of them (again) for service on the QUEEN ELIZABETH from 2016 when the aircraft carrier is due for delivery.   That then leaves to decision on the US Joint Strike Fighters open to question and maybe our approach should be more muscular with the option to commission BAE Systems to design and build 100 SUPER HARRIERS for the Fleet Air Arm, the be funded from the monies saved from the buy American programme.   That would be a shot in the arm for the UK manufacturing industry and play a significant part in rebalancing our economy.   That would seem a sensible approach to a myriad of problems that beset our current defence policy.