Sintrajust had a thought… for those nitpicking on “Europe” and putting forward the “continent”.. as Russia is on it, we may say that “Europe” has a 5th gen fighter in development which is the PAK-FA…
So, while we go that way: why not just partner with Russia, and everybody buys PAK-FAs or its derivatives, more or less customized? The french, for example, could put their RBE-2 AESA on it, with a much larger antenna (space in the nose cone allows it)..
European nations looking at the F-35 could drop it instantly, and you’d get the whole continent full or air forces lining up PAK-FAs in much more significant numbers..
of course, I have some doubts that it would be very appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic :p
Any real reason for a) destroying the likes of Dassault and b) put the entire European western air forces at the tender mercies of camarade Vladimir Putin?
SintraThis thing stands and falls with the Europeans’ ability to produce a new engine. One that moves the game on from the Pratt 135. If that’s not achievable the thing might well be a Euro-version of the JSF.
Even defining a mission profile for the thing is difficult as long as Europe is per design a vassal of the Empire.
LOL
Life’s hard, eh, Distiller? Feeling a bit nostalgic for the CCCP lately? 🙂
If you are questioning the ability of SAFRAN, MTU and RR to deliver a new generation engine you are way out of it (and by the way if Dassault/BAE/Airbus just wanted to toy around with something close to the weight/thrust/SFC/size of a F135, they need to get a few chaps into a car, drive to any of the several dozens of Typhoon airbases and ask for a pair of EJ200’s) if the trouble is KPP’s, well a look at the Anglo/French FCAS and the two twin engined euro canards, and here we go, a system composed of a pair of airframes, one manned and one unmanned, the ability to strike heavily defended targets deep inside North Africa or the Midle East (or somewhere around the Baltics) and the ability to defend the European aerospace from an evolved air threat. If whatever comes out of European efforts in the “thirties” and “fourties” is a lot different from the above I will be quite surprised.
Cheers
SintraThat Airbus link was working when I posted it, and now the release is nowhere to be found….
I have been troubled by the BAE side of FCAS for a while, if only because BAE have nothing to say on the subject, but if you can find any more information ?
I have found the article you mentioned: http://www.ttu.fr/fcas-retour-taranis
here is a translation:
“Despite the agreement signed with Paris for the development of a common UCAV, London has in no way abandoned cooperation with Northrop under the UCAS-D program of the US Navy. But above all, Britain is pursuing with great discretion its work on its “black program” of national supersonic UCAV, the Taranis.
Directly inherited from the joint work with Lockheed in the late 1990s on the Dark Star, BAE has capitalized on this partnership by developing for its prototype its own stealth solutions. But most importantly, the British group has carried out important work on the integration of high-capacity batteries to enable the Taranis (the god of lightning among the Celts) to generate the electrical impulse necessary for the use of a future Weapon directed energy unusable on aircraft driven because of the deadly effects of its radiation.
BAE remains faithfully attached to this project because of the underweight that threatens it after the stop of the Eurofighter production line. But also because he considers himself disadvantaged compared to Dassault within the framework of the FCAS, as demonstrated by his campaign of lobbying the British parliamentarians. This campaign seems to have had a first effect.
Shortly before the Paris Air Show, it was decided to integrate the Llanbedr air base, also located in Wales, to the Aberporth test center, now operated by QinetiQ, and used until 2001 by the DTOE and The DERA for weapon system testing. While Aberporth is hosting drone trials, such as the Watchkeeper, the most secret projects, such as the Taranis, HERTI or Mantis, were tested in flight far from any potential listening area on the RAAF prohibited area In Woomera, in the Australian desert, located 450 km from Adelaide. The MoD has recently decided to launch new test campaigns on the Taranis, no longer in Australia this time but in Llanbedr.
The awakening of the Taranis would have been presented to the Welsh parliamentarians as a lever for economic development. A decision which, if confirmed, may give rise to financial arbitrage in the face of the FCAS, due to the state of British military budgets.”
British cooperation with Northrop on the UCAS D?!
Working with Lockheed on Darkstar?!
Supersonic Taranis?!
Either the chap who wrote that article is the best informed aerospace french journo in the continent or the entire text is horse m####e, I suspect the last.
SintraBack to topic plz?
X2
SintraNope, I mean an obviously Kurdish pilot.. Someone like these guys..
[ATTACH=CONFIG]254769[/ATTACH]
He’s Dutch, no doubts on it.The chap is wearing a Dutch uniform, with a Dutch flag in its arm training with an American unit wich trains regularly with the JNTD (Joint Netherlands Training Detachment) wich is based in the US. On top of that the photo collection in where that image was taken features American and … Dutch hardware.
SintraUS ARMY OH-58A with an obviously Kurdish pilot at the controls..
You mean “an obviously DUTCH pilot at the controls”, right?
SintraI read in the local newspaper today there’s also a new tank on the table.
Its called the “Main Ground Combat System (MGCS)”, Nexter and Krauss Maffei have been working on it for two years now, the concept development phase should be completed this year.
Sintraand yet, you have today the F-15 that has first flown 45 years ago and that still has a certain number of years of front line service ahead of it…
But the Raptor was introduced more than a decade ago… No one disputes that the Rafale MIGHT have some kind of utility around 2040/50, but if anyone believes that it can be a credible “tip of the spear” for the French Armed Forces against any evolved adversary when the likes of the USAF and the US navy are going into full “PCA/FXX” mode NOW, they are seriously deluded.
until then, there’s Rafale modernization program running, improving the bird continuously, the MLU that will come next, and so on.. they’ll have something to do up to then..
If there´s no need for anything else but Rafales from here till 2050, any French production line for something that flies and is combat capable will have been closed for at least TWO decades by 2050.
on the other hand, make a political fighter decided by “jupiter junior” and made by airbus with german leadership, and you definitely do kill the french aeronautical industry
France is spending a mit less than 2% of its GDP in defence, for their main future projects either a) it works with partners, b) or it buys american, c) or it raises (very handsomely) its defense budget. Unless someone in the East or Midle East go seriously berserk option c) seems to be (for the foreseable future) out of the cards.
SintraThe decision is purely politic. There is, according to every expert here, no need for a Rafale replacement before 2050
Sweet Jesus!
SintraTurkey-Japan-UK may all join together to develop a fighter of its own
I will be nothing short of amazed if that happens. And at least on paper, the Japanese designs seem to be for something quite big.
SintraSlight mistake there. It’s being bought for land-based applications, to replace the army & air force’s Aspide/Spada SAM batteries & supplement the Aster 30 SAMP/T.
Thanks
SintraThe 60 Gripen E´s wont be enough to fill the six fighter Sqn´s of the Flygvapnet, i have the distinct feeling that we are going to see the “C/D” with Swedish colours for a very, very, very long time.
SintraI can’t see the UK joining them but I can see FCAS feeding into this programme, so you never know.
I can see Great Britain joining with ease, Typhoon willl need a replacement.
How will the rest of Europe go though?
Spain will join, its “EADS” industrial base will see to that, the interesting ones will be Sweden and Italy.
I am expecting two systems, a manned and an unmanned, between Germany and France the budget is there for such an aproach. The UCAV (something directly coming directly out of FCAS) being the first to be developed.
Cheers
SintraThe seeker & battery of an active AAM are too small to prosecute guidance over it’s entire BVR range, which is why all BVR missiles have datalinks to begin with.
Historically the gyro-based INS is used to guide the AAM to the killbox in order for the AAM’s seeker to obtain a lock. During the flight, the datalink can be used to update the target’s last known position. However, because the INS is based on a gyro, that introduces errors that get worse as the range get’s longer and the flight profile get’s more complex.
A GPS assisted INS removes these potential errors so that the AAM knows exactly where it is, exactly where the enemy is, and exactly what velocity the target is on in order to setup the best interception possible.
Obviously i wasnt clear, my bad. My point was, having GPS has absolutely no bearing on the altitude that the AAM autopilot chooses to fly, its not because it doesnt have an integrated GPS that a Meteor will fly lower than a AIM-120D.
SintraGPS would do little good for the SM2 since it is a SAR seeker thereby it’s getting constant updates from the ship.
The original SM6 is based on AIM-102C7’s seeker since the D was not available at the time so it did not have GPS.
SM–6 Blk1 has GPS for BVR & OTH shots.
And an missile with an active head receives constant updates from its own radar instead of an offboard sensor, what has that to do with the GPS data is anyones guess…
And what GPS has to do with the flight profile of an AAM is even more esoteric…
But yes, the Meteor does have a two way datalink, it uses lofted flight profiles, and so on.
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