Bulgaria as a nation of peasant people anyway like most of Europe. I very much doubt they could afford much more than a used MIG-29.

This post is a gem, it shoes not only complete and total ignorance, but the candour, oh, the candour…
Remarkable.

Bulgaria
Labor force – by occupation:
agriculture: 7.5%
industry: 35.5%
services: 57% (2007 est.)

In terms of Typhoon being originally conceived for the air superiority role, even Eurofighter’s own, dedicated website places a not insubstantial emphasis on Typhoon being, and I quote, a single-seat, twin-engine fighter, and, a growing prescence in European Air Superiority. You have to dig into the site before you read of ground attack roles (or multi-role).

Michael

How many hundreds of official documents, do you want to be presented to acknoladge the obvious fact that the Eurofighter was designed right from the start has a swing role fighter?
I have been following the program for the better part of three decades, i have in my library, literaly, hundreds of texts from the specialized press, the Eurofighter consortium, the four partners, etc (and if i am not mistaken, one particular book from Janes writen by a certain journalist who, by the way, is an active part in this topic).
I will repeat myself, the original AST403 was for a ground attack aircraft, with a robust ATA complement, the P106/110 to the P120 designs were swing rolers, the original 1985 EFA requirements included the substituion of the entire Jaguar force by what have became the Typhoon, etc, etc.
This is very easy to check, i have given you direct links to one of the most respected aviation magazines in the world wich contained official declarations from industry and the RAF, from 1978 to 1985, there are a bucket load of information available in the net…
The reasoning that you need dig in the Eurofighter site to find out about the ATG capabilities of this particular fighter is not even a argument.

But to be honest your entire argument is completely off, you just have to look to that very light “not a pound for air to ground” air defense fighter, the YF-16 to understand that is vastly easier to transform an ATA plaform into a very potent ATG one than the doing it the other way around (Tornado Fmk3 anyone?).

Cheers

It seems I did not make myself clear enough. In any give FY, the price given for the FUC (Flyaway Unit Cost) is only an estimation. The real cost is not known for two more years as all the bills come in.

The FY2007 F-35As (2 units) were ordered at $243.6 mil, but the final price (after all the bills came in after two years) was $229.6 mil.

The FY2008 F-35As (6 units) were ordered at $200.1 and ended up two years later at $179.9 million.

The FY2009 F-35As (7 units) were ordered at $211.7 and ended up two years later at $208.9 million.

As you can see, in each and every one of the 3 early LRIPs, they were produced for less than what they were ordered for.

Spudman

I see, didnt understood your post (my fault, interestingly enough one of the reasons why i joined this forum, was to improve my english, well, it stil is a disaster).
If we had this talk a few days ago (before the release of the 2011 budget) you would be completely correct, i had the exact same idea but have a good look at this years budget, look at the first colum, the one that says “Prior Years”.
Those are the eight aircrafts that were ordered in Fy 2007 and FY 2008, now do a litle math with the numbers in the Budgets of
2008, 2009 and 2010.
Join the costs of the 2+6 aircraft divide it by eight, the result was a complete surprise to me.

Budget 2008 (February 2007)
Unit Fly Away Cost for the first eight F-35A (FY 2007 and FY2008) – 210,9675$ million

Budget 2009 (February 2008)
Unit Fly Away Cost for the first eight F-35A (FY 2007 and FY2008) – 223,13875$ million

Budget 2010 (May 2009)
Unit Fly Away Cost for the first eight F-35A (FY 2007 and FY2008) – 192,295$ million

Budget 2011 (February 2010)
Unit Fly Away Cost for the first eight F-35A (FY 2007 and FY2008) – 229,600$ million

Year after year, every budget showed smaller “UFAC” than the predicted, on a downward spiral, sudendly the 2011 budget blows everything to space!

On the Production side, in any of the given first 3 LRIP cycles, the cost has gone down when you look at the estimate given when purchased compared to the final bill 2 years later.
.

February 2007 – predicted Unit Fly Away Cost for FY 2009 – 199,3$ million
Bill in February 2009 – 211,7$ million

February 2008 – predicted Unit Fly Away Cost for FY 2010 – 158.5$ million
Bill in February 2010 – 191,9$ million

Don’t be silly! You’re taking the mickey with your talk of Grand Slam. In the LM documents they don’t claim it’ll take anything bigger than a Tallboy :diablo:

Ooops, sorry… 😮

A Tallboy then… 😀

I am hoping that he is speaking of each bay instead of total internal.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed waiting for a clarification from Stephen Tremble (the interviewer).

Its total internal. The original MBDA studies were for one single Meteor in each bay.

all capabilities described above can be achieved by a rafale I think.

As far as I remember the rafale in the only fighter in the world to have demonstrated a hand over of missile coordinates data (Mica) to another fighter (rafale). Demonstrating a networked missile capability.

widspread formation and third party targeting is also used by rafales.

I don’t see the fundamental difference for the moment.

Those capabilities are enabled by the MIDS-LVT, not by something exclusive to the Rafale. Almost every combat aircraft in the USAF and the US Navy have those same capabilities, the Russians were networking AAM´s and Ashm target information for the best part of three decades, the Swedes were right behind them, etc.
For the direct competition look here:
http://www.eurofighter.com/news/20090104_AMRAAMFiring.asp?srcx=dev2

AIM-9X doesn’t have TVC, so theoretically it can’t be fired rearward. It can however be fired over the shoulder in LOAL mode.

Google AIM-9X and TVC…
It has TVC. What it doesnt have is a LOAL mode (thats until the AIM-9X block II enters service).