In this context I think ‘England’ is indeed appropriate. After all, much of the historical rivalry predates the Acts of Union. 🙂

It must be a Colonial thing…

My first thought was the new Minis. But then that’s a BMW marque now isn’t it? Telling.

Hardly. Very poor example. Like I said, there’s much more designed, produced and manufactured in the UK than many think there is.

it only sound strange to you because you cannot admit your bias and racism. Blah, blah, blah…

When all else fails, just play the Racism Card.

How about you keep quiet and let the thread be what it is, which was rather interesting not so long ago, now it’s just getting like another one to avoid because of people like you.

JSR is right about opportunity cost tho. “Look at the benefits JSF brings to UK industry” ignores the benefits UK industry could’ve accrued by pursuing alternative paths foreclosed by JSF. To be fair the real epic blunders came before JSF — no Harrier successor, Typhoon unable to operate from aircraft carrier, etc.

How is not making the Typhoon Carrier capable a blunder? The JSF/F-35 was always going to be ordered for the Royal Naval FAA, what was/is a blunder is that they’re getting the ‘B’ variant and not the ‘C’. The other blunder is retiring the Harrier early. The worse case scenario should have been the RAF lose their Harrier fleet while retaining the Typhoon and Tornado force, which would have been fine as is the case now, what should have happened is that the FAA should have retained or took delivery of the RAF’s Harriers until sufficient numbers of the F-35 were in service. The Harrier GR9 could have been upgraded in the meantime, a Radar – and why not the Blue Vixen the FA2 had – not on all aircraft but enough to have a sufficient Air Defence capabilities, could have been perfectly acceptable to go with those options but, as always, PMs don’t think in a logical sense.

The Typhoon was always going to be a land based aircraft, it’s requirements were initially A/A and A/G capable later on, actually the latter came sooner than originally planned, and it was always going to replace the Tornado F3 and Jaguar GR1/3 in RAF service. AS is stands now, Typhoon is going to replace the Tornado GR4, as stated by Group Captain Ian Gale. At the end of the day, nobody foreseen the early retirement of the Harrier, no one can’t say that it’s a blunder that the Typhoon wasn’t designed with carrier Operations in mind just because the Harrier got axed, otherwise the same could be said for the Tornado.

Considering that few current systems have ROVER and no non-US systems employ it, yet they seem to do CAS just fine…. I would say your argument that it is “required” is a gross overstatement.

Ehm… The Tornado GR4 has ROVER.

This may have been EElightnings image (perhaps others can see it and its just me?):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]222666[/ATTACH]

Yes, sorry I didn’t reply earlier. But aye, that’s the one I tried to post earlier. Cheers!

Mack8, you’re welcome! Regarding Radar – 1, 2 & 3, I shall post some information soon, later today hopefully. I’ve got a rough idea from memory but I’ll probably miss something out so it’ll just be better if I search through my files when I’ve got a bit of spare time, save on making mistakes. But like I say, hopefully later today.

Not exactly my “domain”, but curious, what are the plans in regard to the AESA? I understand Tranche 3A won’t have it, when is it scheduled to be integrated? Will Oman have the AESA? Is there a Tranche 3B for the 4 partner nations planned ? Thanks.

I’ve been out of touch the past few months due to work commitments so I’m not fully up to date, if ever I was, so I’ve more than likely missed something as things seem to change on a daily basis with Typhoon. To my, somewhat limited at the moment, knowledge there’s been no signed contract when it comes to actually purchasing a number of Captor-Es for each Typhoon operator, however, despite this integration of the Captor-E has been underway for sometime already and there is a Typhoon based at BAE Warton with Captor-E installed and is due for it’s maiden flight in ’14.

Little to no information regarding what the RAFO (Oman) will feature on their Typhoons has been released, but taking into mind the time/delivery schedule of the aircraft and the Captor-E’s Roadmap, they will likely have Captor-E, quite possibly the ‘Radar-1’ variant which is an export model. There are three variants, ‘Radar-1’, ‘Radar-2’ and ‘Radar-3’.

As for Tranche 3B. As far as I know the partner nations haven’t signed anything due to economy concerns. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tranche 3Bs are exported, to the likes of Oman and Saudi Arabia and such.

Any major upgrades being talked about???

Yes. P1E has been finalised – release to service will be early/mid ’14, and what Aereo and Scorpion82 have posted a few posts ago. Initial flight trials of Storm Shadow are this year, possibly the back end of this month/early December while SR&J trials are due in the first quarter of ’14. If I understand correctly, BAE Systems will possibly conduct end-to-end firing trials in ’14 also, likely at the Outer Hebrides range due to it being a stand-off weapon. All trials of Storm Shadow will be with two or one weapons configuration.

There’s quite a bit more information but I’ll keep it back for a later date, soon(ish).

Note: The fittings on the mid/rear fuselage section for the CFTs.

As peaceful as a Jedi me like, wor kid! Nae bother, man!

Geordie… Translated into Poncey Queen’s English: ‘All is good!’

That Typhoon image was never mean’t to be my Avatar, I couldn’t find the one (not a Typhoon) I was looking for and just stuck with that, couldn’t ar$ed to change it. But, to some Plane Spotters it’s a very early Typhoon, an F2 standard, long before it was re… thingy… I’m too knacked I can’t think of the word… a while before it was FGR4.