toanThe cake of tomorrow is nice for dreaming but useless for keeping life right now. Swiss AF won’t retire its own F/A-18C/D until 15 to 20 years later at least, and there is even no guarantee that the productional line of Rafale can be kept alive at that time…..
toana fighter to replace the typhoon and the rafale, having a prototype flyinh in 2020… seems a bit early, unless they plan a 15 years flight test…
Not a bit early, but too late.
Year of entering service for Mirage 2000C and Tornado ADV: 1984~1985.
Year of maiden flight for Rafale A and EAP: 1986.
Year of maiden flight for Rafale C01: 1991.
Year of maiden flight for Eurofighter DA1: 1994.
15 years or even longer flight test before formally entering service….this has already come truth for Typhoon and Rafale. And I see no reason why the successor for Typhoon and Rafale, which shall be more expensive and complicate than Typhoon and Rafale, can be an exception, especially if you plan to use AI to totally replace the fighter pilot’s brain and eyes for the whole fighter’s job…….
toanWell, it is not Gripen yet.
The Switzerland parliament hasn’t approved the procurement, and even the procurement is approved, the anti-militarists in Switzerland still have good chance to veto it.
And that should be the main reason why Switzerland government chose Gripen finally ~ It is the cheapest choice that shall have the best chance to be accepted by the Switzerland parliament and people.
toan1. What a nice backstab, General. You have successfully ruined all the confidence and belief for Eurofighter’s future now. Well done:mad:
2. IAF: “That is the reason why I shouldn’t choose Typhoon ~ The project’s partners are totally unreliable and untrustable.”
Italy’s procurement chief Gen. Claudio Debertolis:
1. Debertolis was gloomy about the future of the Eurofighter program, stating that “unfortunately, India has shown that the cost of the aircraft — the competition was lost above all on cost — as well as the air-to-ground capabilities are factors in making the aircraft uncompetitive.”
2. Speaking during the second session before the commission on Feb. 7, Debertolis said the JSF would cost Italy less per aircraft than the Eurofighter, which had cost 79 million euros per aircraft.
3. The loss of the India competition would now hasten the end of Eurofighter production, he added, but there would be a migration of staff from that program to the JSF in Italy. The figure of 10,000 working on the JSF was a “guaranteed minimum,” he said.
4. Even if Italy’s order was “much lower” than the proposed 131 aircraft, he said, Italy’s “entrepreneurial decision” to offer assembly work to other JSF partners, starting with Holland, would help keep the facility going.
toanOne thing that amazed me was that the F/A-18C/D was ranked as high as it was compared to the ‘eurofighters’ in certain parameters, such as WVR combat!
Swiss AF used the upgraded F/A-18C/D with JHMCS HMD and AIM-9X as the basis for evaluating the WVR combat capability ~ And don’t forget, all of the three European fighters had no HMD during 2008 and 2009.
Rafale:
I think it should be thanked for the significantly longer range superiority of MICA IR over AIM-9X, so that Rafale can still get a significant better score than F/A-18C/D in WVR combat, even without the help of HMD.
Typhoon:
Although IRIS-T, which is generally an equivalent to AIM-9X, had already been integrated, the Eurofighter had no HMD during 2008. In such situation, the result that Eurofighter was evaluated as a little better WVR fighter than F/A-18C/D with JHMCS HMD and AIM-9X by Swiss AF (Typhoon without HMD: 6.06, F/A-18C/D with JHMCS: 6.00) should be the proof for Typhoon’s superb A2A maneuverability and agility.
toanSens has used this analogue before: if your employer asks you “would you like to drive a Ferrari or a VW to work”, what will your answer be?
Swiss pilots want a new shiny toy to bring to Red Flag and the like. In the real world, these planes are going to replace the F-5E.
If you’ve been doing your job for 30 years with a Fiat Doblo, it’s hard to see why you’d need a Maserati to continue doing it.
For example, if Swiss government let Swiss AF choose Rafale over Gripen for replacing F-5E, then all the ground hangar for F-5E right now will be useless, and the Swiss government will have to pay the extra-cost for removing the ground hangar for F-5E and building the new home for Rafale.
The Swiss pilots don’t have to to care about this when they choose their new toy, but their parents, Swiss government and taxpayers, have to:D
toanOtoh engagement – Typhoon is better because Amraam > Mica i suppose.
And the better radar lock-on range and the better high speed performance may also be helpful for this.
Aerodynamic performance of Typhoon is unmatched and pilot workload is lower..but again it says sensor fusion is weak which can mean that the pilot is not getting adequate data or that workload is lower when the pilot is working only with radar data:confused:.
The better cockpit design such as direct voice input system can help pilot to reduce the workload of handling the fighter, which has no direct relationship with fighter’s sensor fusion capability.
Also data dissemination: all three have low scores..are they referring to datalink?
I think it should mean that all of the three fighters have not been well integrated into Swiss’s C4I, CGI, and air-defense system right now ~ and of course they haven’t:D
toanSome of the terminology seem confusing.
Detection , identification and Acquisition are functions of the radar and IFF and Rafale is better.
It seems that Swiss AF doesn’t care about the maximal range that the radar can detect / track a target, but the effective range that the fighter can make a confirmatory detection / acquisition / identification with all the sensors (radar, IRST, datalink, EWS, IFF etc.) it has.
So even Typhoon’s radar has the longer detective / tracking range than Rafale, if its IRST, EWS, and IFF gave the inferior performance for confirming the target than Rafale during the flight test, then Rafale will still be defined as the superior one in this area according to the Swiss AF’s definition.
toanSwiss AF gave very high scores for Typhoon’s A2A flight performance (9 points, while 7 points for Rafale and 5.4 points for Gripen) and Pilot’s workload (9 points, while 8 points for Rafale and 7.1 points for Gripen). Besides, Typhoon was also ranked as the best for engagement.
I think the main problem is that Swiss AF was very unsatisified with the performance of Typhoon’s EWS, CNI, and data fusion capability from the multisensors, which had severely effected Typhoon’s performance in target detection / acquisition / identification ~ It seems that Swiss AF doesn’t care about the maximal range that the radar can detect / track a target, but the effective range that the fighter can make a confirmatory detection / acquisition / identification with all the sensors (radar, IRST, datalink, EWS, IFF etc.) it has.
toanSo once again, the European governments of Typhoon fighter project prove how supportive they are for exporting EF-2000……:D
toanGripen didn’t join the A2G mission during the Libyan war.
toanXXXXXX Clean up XXXXX
Well, you should be happy about that. The more venomous they are towards Indian decision of L1 for MMRCA, the less chance they will have to win the heart of Indian back.
The most foolish way to try to win one’s heart back is to declare his / her decision is completely wrong and threaten to punish him / her because of his / her decision out of free-will.
toanI don’t understand how the credibility of EF GmbH ” is close to zero” just because they didn’t manage to make a sale.
It is not the credibility of EF GmbH itself, but the credibility of UK / German / Italy governments ~ I think that Mr. Jon Lake has explained this very clearly in one of his previous post.
Mr. Cameron declared that Typhoon is superb, and he will do his best to persuade IAF to change its mind and adopt Typhoon. However, because of his own government’s great decisions and well done in the past few years:
1. The Tranche I Typhoons for RAF will be retired after 2018.
2. The Tranche IIIB Typhoons for RAF may never be introduced.
3. The total number of Typhoon for RAF may be reduced to 107 or even less after 2019, and only God knows that how many Typhoons can still be remained in RAF at the time of 2030 ~ when Rafale will become the only manned fighter in FAF and FN.
4. The painfully ultra-slow pace for RAF to upgrade its own Typhoons, and the time for integrating AESA radar, Meteor BVRAAM, STORM SHADOW, Brimestone etc…..onto Typhoon still has no confirmatory schedule, not to mention CFT, TVC, EJ-2XX, or any aggressive project for RCS reduction or anti-stealthy technology.
If you were an IAF officer, would you have any confidence to Mr. Cameron’s declaration and slogan, after watching what his own government has done to the Eurofighter project in the past few years?
toanI feel sorry for the IAF, who are getting bread today instead of cake tomorrow
Well well Mr. Lake keep having your imaginary cake , I am sure it tastes delicious:p
IAF: “I like the practical hard bread more than the imaginary soft cake ~ especially when the credibility of the baker house for the tomorrow cake is near zero now…….. Feel sorry to your own government at first, no matter how good Typhoon might be, your government’s decisions and behaviors in the past few years have already screwed its chance for MMRCA competition up.”
toan1. AESA Radar:
* Rafale: ready for enter service after 2013, and French has already ordered.
* EF-2K: still in the phase of development and needs foreign customer’s investment. No airforce of EF-2000 has ordered the AESA radar for its own Typhoon up to now.
2. A2A capability:
* Rafale: no problem for using the 450 MICAs that IAF has just ordered.
* EF-2K: not integrated with MICAs yet.
3. A2G capability up to now:
* Rafale:
1. Nuclear striking: ASMP-A.
2. Long range stand-off attacking: SCALP-EG.
3. Short range stand-off attacking: AASM.
4. Anti-ship: AM-39.
5. Damocles + LGBs.
6. Tactical reconnaissance: RECO pod.
7. Air-to-Air Refueling.
* EF-2K:
1. HMD.
2. Lighting III + LGBs.
4. Marine variant:
* Rafale: Rafale M.
* EF-2K: Beautiful anticipation and imagine that even Royal navy itself shows no interest to invest.
5. Government’s attitude:
* France:
1. Never declaring publically that it will reduce the order of Rafale.
2. Rafale will be the only manned fighter for FAF and FN after 2030 ~ No need of worry about its future maintenance and upgrading.
3. Confirmed serial domestic order and prodution to 2018 at least.
4. Clear and confirmed roadmap of future upgrading until 2025 at least.
* UK and German:
1. Doing their best to get rid of Tranche I ASAP.
2. Declaring repeatedly that they don’t want Tranche IIIB.
3. Ultra-slow pace of upgrading because of lacking of fund, and keep declaring: “We are very happy for this !!!”.
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