What the h…?!

“Five and a half ton´s of fuel”…
From the pilot.

5,5 ton´s of INTERNAL fuel?! In a Typhonn?!
That´s half a ton more than expected :confused:

I found his figures interesting too, they seems to be painting a different picture to the official figures.

The loaded weight (full internal fuel with 2 ASRAAMs) quoted by the pilot is 17.5 tonnes or 38,600 lbs. This gives a ptw of only 1.05. This may explain why the pilot considered completing the loop in high temperture as ‘a tricky manoeuvre’.

On another board, Low Observable observed that:

[I]Typhoon is the aircraft the RAF needs now, and a three-tranche buy of 232 aircraft is the right number. (232 aircraft supports a 137 aircraft in service fleet, comprising seven squadrons, an OCU and an OEU).

The third Tranche is almost certainly going to replace the GR4, if it happens, since the perception now is that we no longer need seven Typhoon squadrons to replace three squadrons of Jaguars and six squadrons of F3s, despite the stream of ‘Bears’ testing the UK’s air defences and the obvious relevance of a deployable flexible offensive support aircraft.

It wouldn’t suprise me either if 2 squadrons of Typhoons replaced 8 squadrons of Tornados! Is this really likely though?

[I]

3) No-one is going to “fight like hell to get the LDP moved from the centre station” because they don’t want it somewhere else, it’s in the right place now.

If the centre pylon is the right place why is it not used by other aircraft such as the F15E, Grippen or Rafale?

Just how many bombs are usually required for a mission?, its seems to be over the top to have that many bombs!!

and heres another tidbit the UK MoD are trying to reduce the typhoon tranche 3 order..!

I spoke to an RAF Typhoon pilot of 3 sqn in April 2006. He told me, before the Saudi deal had been publicly revealed, that the Saudis would be getting 72 Typhoons and the RAF 160, which equates to the full UK commitment of 232 aircraft. As the Saudi deal is a government to government deal this surely will count towards the UKs commitment.

The ability to carry fuel on the centreline pylon would only be ‘precious’ if the operators judged that carrying three tanks was necessary to meet their requirements. They don’t.

On the other hand, using the centreline mounting for Litening means that:

You don’t sacrifice an MRAAM
You don’t have to rejig the MRAAM launch sequence
You have a better FoV for the pod
Airframe masking algorithms are simpler

I read somewhere that suggested that the centreline was choosen as the the MRAAM positions were found not to be stable enough. If this is true it would suggest that the flight control software has been more challenging than expected. Any thoughts?

Not really..Pirate wont provide range unless it has a LRF that can range out to 100 nm.

You need all three, height, angular info and range for a proper weapons fix.

Could Litening provide a LRF function? If so, do the RAF intend to use it with Pirate as an alternative to the radar?

Has a Typhoon flown with a Litening pod yet?