Wrong comparison. Every fighter is designed for missions the service bought that for.
Did that fighter fullfill that mission in the most economical way?
And from service to service or country to country that answer will differ from period to period. 😉

A:

Of course they should be the wrong comparison, just as wrong as someone here believe that Eurofighter or Rafale as the wastes of time because they have never been the best fighters in the world (or they are not world-beating for long enough time)……

I made the wrong comparison for sarcastic purpose. Please don’t misunderstand my real thought.

The teen series did not become obsolete in 10 or 15 years. In fact later versions of them are just as deadly now as they where back in 1980. It could even be argued that the one that had the most potential, the F-14 was retired prematurely and it entered service in 1975.

A:

They would have become obsolete in 10-15 years after entering service if the USSR were not collapsed, and the new fighter projects (ATF, MIG-42/44, Su-47, Eurofighter, Rafale and so on) were all developed and entering service on their original schedule.

And even with the help of the end of cold war and the general delaying of almost all NG fighter projects in the world, the Teen series (F-15 ~ F/A-18) still not be able to as deadly as they wree in 1970s, after the competitive opponents like Su-27/30, MIG-29, Mirage 2000, Gripen have entered service from 1984 to 1993.

You are missing the point. When the teen series came out they where world beating aircraft.

A: And they are not so world beating 10 ~ 15 years after entering service, when the competitive opponents enter service in the middle era of 1980s.

The same can be said for the F-22 and it looks like the F-35 as well.

A: The time of world beating for F-22A shall be much longer than any teen series.

Updates and upgrades where a normal evolution for these planes. The Typhoon was fielded 10-15 years too late. It’s not being upgraded, it is still being developed.

A: The development for overall flight performance and A2A combat capability had been over when the Tranche I, Block 5 fighter formally entered service in 2007. The capability that are still underdevelopment for Eurofighter today are A2G capability.

How many of those Tranch I airplanes that the UK has are going to be flying in 10 years

A: No more than 49, or no more than 25 if RAF sells 24 of them to Qatar AF successfully in the near future.

Since there is no possibility for Western Europen AFs to fight with USAF in the foreseeable future. Eurofighter should be good enough to meet the requirement of air-defense of Western European AF until 2020 at least. After that, the 5th Gen Eastern threats like PAK-FA or J-XX may become too tough challenges for Eurofighter to handle. But it should be not the problem or fault of Eurofighter Project itself ~ It is very natural for a fighter project to become obsolete and be surpassed by other new challengers after entering service for 10 to 15 years. If this can be the evidence for declaring Typhoon as a waste of time, then you can also declared at least 99% fighters on earth in the past 100 years as the waste of time…….

I never sayed sarkozy’s diplomats words are absolutely exact but can I have the sources of your claim ? I am just curious (no flame intended).

In fact it is a common knowledge in the french defense journalism, industry, politics that the rafale is the best 4th gen fighter (I am just reporting the general trend and it is not an argument from me : everyone relax).

If you look at the senate or national assembly inquiries, defense journalists or industy sources they all claim the same thing which is something rare for a military programme.

This is just a piece of infomation about the general trend about the “sayings” of the rafale programme in france and you are free to have your own opinion about this of course.

Examples:

http://www.domain-b.com/defence/general/20081007_fyodorov.html

Russian UAC chief, Fyodorov, says MiG-35 only fighter to meet MMRCA tender specifications news

“The competition is very tough, but we have several trump cards – the MiG-35’s superb performance characteristics and the fact that Russia and India share a long-standing partnership in strategic and political cooperation,” Alexey Fyodorov said.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread351029/pg1

Boeing formally offers F/A-18 for indian MMRCA

“Our proposal team worked diligently to fully understand and meet the requirements set out by the Indian Ministry of Defense (MOD). We are offering India the best-value, most advanced and proven multirole combat fighter in production today,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS).

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_download-id-10642.html

F-16IN Nothing Compares

Page 2

No Wonder All Other Fighter Aircraft TryTo CompareThemselves to the F-16 With proven performance, effectiveness, versatility, and sustainability, the F-16 rises above all others as the world’s best multi role fighter.The F-16IN is designed exclusively to meet or exceed all of India’s Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) requirements. Evolutionary integration of the most advanced technologies makes the F-16IN the most advanced F-16 ever built. New capabilities – not yet available in other fighters – have already been proven in actual combat by the F-16. It is easy to see why the world’s most successful multi role fighter keeps getting better and best meets India’s long-term defense needs.

Nothing Compares Because Nothing Can Compare.

My opinion: It is very natural that every countries’ person generally believe the fighter of his or her country own is the best of best. There is nothing surprsing that the president of French has the similar belief and confidence……

http://www.timesnow.tv/Newsdtls.aspx?NewsID=26797

The guy is pretty confident !

The manufacturers of F-16, F/A-18E, EF-2000, and MIG-35 have all made the similar declarations and advertisements (“My fighter is the best of the best”) for their own fighters during the MMRCA competition.

The F-15s with AESA radars achieved the exchange ratio of 111 : 8 during the one Red-Flag exercise in 2007.

Thanks Ishikawa. Maybe the 833 km is just a requirement. Hard to believe that the range will be so much lower than for a F-16 which should be able to do some 1000+ km.

It is the original requirement that JASDF set for the FS-X project (more than 450 NM / 833 km combat radius for anti-ship mission) in 1980s, not necessarily to be the real performance of the F-2A/B today.

I imagine it is. Very good, a full air to air load with two drop tanks and going straight into the, pretty much, vertical climb. Incredible!!!

Thanks for that. 🙂

I’ve only seen the Typhoon dual missile rack(s) on cutaway drawings, artists impressions, but not on the real thing. Is this picture a recent one? I’m guesing it’s a new feature they now have. Will the other Typhoon operaters also have this feature? I really hope so!

Two Typhoons each with a ten air to air missile (Both with two droptanks) on QRA/CAP….deadly!!! :diablo:

Eurofighter should be able to carry 10 missiles and 2 tanks without the help of dual missile rack.