Ah ha, very good idea, I like it. Something we can all enjoy! 😀

I liked that F-18 performance, very good, very elegant performance. IMO it looked a lot better than the F-22.

I’d have to give that F-18 display a 9/10 too. (We can rate the video on the post before our own, yes?) 😀

So, anyway, heres mine, came across this, an RAF Typhoon T2, WITH six LGB’s, four AMRAAMs, two AIM-9’s and a drop tank. I’d give it 9/10 for elegants, control, smoothness, maneuverability dispite it’s heavy load.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QxB7lB5-gnU&feature=related

Each cft is to be 1500L in the Typhoon.
Each cft carries 1150L on the Rafale.

Nice. I was expecting a little bit more in the Rafale’s CFT’s though, but thats a good capacity anyway.

All of the formal customers for Eurofighter and Rafale have shown no attempt to introduce CFTs up to now.

My guess is they’ll probably be fitted around or after T3 are introduced…I think the Typhoon users, especially the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, would want to update Typhoon with Radar, avionics, Meteor etc etc before anything else…

And just for the record, if you want to add an anti-ship capability to Typhoon, theoretically you could have four anti-ship missiles, one drop tank, six AAM’s and of course the gun. But, would it be possible for Typhoon to carry four anti-ship missiles (Which kind?) AND three drop tanks? Would any anti-ship missile “fit” onto the inner hard-points next to the AMRAAM/Meteor stations?…

The Tornado EF3….

Not the interceptor itself but the SEAD aircraft, proved to be a great SEAD aircraft during GW2 carrying 2 and sometimes 3 deadly ALARM missiles and 4 ASRAAM’s, (Agreed the ASRAAM’s weren’t needed then). It was a short lived project and I believe the RAF wanted to keep it classified, I have no reason why? Although it proved very succesful, and according to articles from AFM magazines etc the RAF loved it’s capabilities, but, it was cancelled soon after GW2….Why? Yep, you guessed it, budget, defense cuts……

There was supposed to be, (I don’t know if it’s true or not, rumours) to have it equiped with 2 AMRAAM’s, 2 ASRAAM’s, and 2 to 3 ALARM missiles as an standard SEAD platform until the Typhoon FGR4’s were to be equiped with ALARM later on. Whether it’s true or not….Neverless it could’ve been done…

The Harrier FA2….

Now, everyone moans & groans about how the FA2 was took out of service in favour for the GR7/9. Now, I was one of those who complained about it, right up until I read Commander Ade Orchard’s ‘Joint Force Harrier’. I have the book with me right now and heres what he had to say about it.

Quote from pages 13-14:

“It’s major disadvantage, though, turned out to be it’s engine. Operating in the hot air of the Middle East, or even the Mediterranean summer, it didn’t have suuficient thrust to land vertically on the deck of a carrier if it was still carrying all of it’s weapons. And dumping unused Slammers – each one costing the British taxpayer just under £200,000 – into the sea before being able to land was neither an attractive nor an acceptable option. In short, the Sea Harrier was an evolutionary dead end. But the Navy, to its credit, had the good sense to reconize this. Money allocated to the aircaft’s development was diverted and enabled the service to buy into the Joint Force Harrier programme and share the RAF’s ground attck Harrier GR7’s. And in retrospect this was a good decision.
If the Royal Navy hadn’t take this route, the retirement of the FA2 wouldn’t have marked the end of an era, but could also have spelt the end of naval fixed-wing aviation itself. If the Royal Navy had decided to preserve with the Sea Harrier FA2, in 2006 the aircaft would probably still have reached the end of its operational life, and there would have been no replacement on the horizion.
Instead the Fleet Air Arm now had access to a proven machine that had played a crucial role in nearly every war of recent years. And that, sadly, couldn’t be said for the old FA2, although it wasn’t for the want of trying.”

His words, not mine.

And also, you have to realise that most, if not all the FA2 airframes were that of the FRS1, some even saw action in the Falklands, and even then, those FRS1 airframes were that of some of the RAF’s GR1’s/GR3′. Very old airframe by time it was retired, although a few years too early.

The GR7/9’s could be updated & modified to carry the brilliant Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM, amybe even the ASRAAM, with the hard points it has it could, theoretically, carry no less than six AAM’s in the air defence role with two drop tanks. But the same old thing crops up in the real world. Budget. Shame!

Conceptually flawed? Purely psychobabble talk! The Lightning rocked.

Of course it rocked! Yes, it had a couple of problems, like, it drank fuel like an alcoholic drank…Well, alcohol, and lacked in weapons load, but it had more good features than it had bad. And as far as performance goes, well, no need to go on about that, it was a VERY unique design with the engines layed on top of each other rather than the traditional side-by-side layout, (Nothing wrong with being different), actually, the engine on top was, I believe, (A little sketchy about that) was approx 1″ sticking out from the rear than the engine below. (I know the reason why, it’s on the tip of my tounge but need to make sure, something to do with fuel, I’ll check). I could go on & on about the Lightning….

But just for good measure, what the hell, it even dropped on an American U2 FROM 88.000+ft, (On more than just the one occasion I believe) overtook Concorde when the F-15’s, F-16’s, F-14’s, Mirages COULDN’T during an NATO intercept training excersize, supercruise (Poke finger in the eye of the Typhoon & F-22 for that one), pioneered the HOTAS….

Just a shame BAC couldn’t do more to update it with the VERY little budget they had, if they’d got the budget they had, then who knows what it would’ve been like, nothing less than great! But hey, again, politics get in the way & they have the last say on what you can have & not have….

Was in RAF service for approx 30+ years and the pilots loved it, even though it drank like a fish. An RAF pilot once said, “It’s our baby, and even if it bites our ankle sometimes and calls you “Sucker” we just forgave it”. LOL (true)

Defence cuts, military programmes cancelled/postponed/cut, job losses, etc etc etc

Can’t have everything you want no matter how good or important they are…

Welcome to the real world. Live with it!

Really, I think the Typhoon is a excellent choice for the Saudi’s and hopefully Oman. Esepcially, in a Air Superiority Role. As they are more that capable of detering Iran………….:diablo:

Let us hope they’ll never have to have a punch up over something.