Sven Hassell?

I haven’t had it for months 🙁 my gonads are beginning to itch. I mean she is only 40 weeks pregnant its not like she has got a headache or something.

*Duck……………..and cover.*

GUSSET.

Now, however, its too late

Its not at all ‘too late’. The Typhoon is late and it might be a bit of a compromise but it is not too late and it is an excellent compromise. Air to air it is at least as good as the P110 would have been but it excels in the air to ground role too and that, like it or not, is largely due to the Italians, the Spanish and the Germans. They put enough knowhow into this project to make it (I know you are going to hate me for saying this) an even better aircraft than the P110.

Don’t shout at me.

I know the Typhoon is not exactly pretty, the Rafale is much better looking (but don’t let that fool you it is still a superlative fighter) and I know it is not entirely British.

But let me tell you a little secret.

It is ‘mostly’ British. 😀

seahawk don’t hit me. 🙁 😀

Not a well thought out article IMHO, it makes too many assumptions. We have heard all this before Ainu Man I mean what do they want us to do? Scrap the airforce? Throw in the towel? Are any of them really a waste of money?

Well only if they are never used in anger and at the end of the day if they are a waste of money they have, ironically, gone some way to paying their keep. Sorry that concept was a bit confusing. Stay with me on this. If they are used in anger then I hope that our enemies think that the Typhoon and the Rafale really are a pile of junk because then they won’t have the first idea what hit them until it is too late.

Do you catch my drift?

🙂

Note that I suggested RB199- RB199 has a high bypass ratio (around 1:1) that makes it very fuel efficient in dry thrust and would give the P110 pretty good range

Again I’m not too sure I agree with this. It is very fuel efficient in dry thrust but its dry thrust is only ~10,000lbst even on the later versions because they only modified the afterburner section which in turn used more fuel. Also the RB199 was not well suited to high altitude operations where a lot of its power was wasted. Thats why Tornadoes perform well below ~25000ft and poorly above it.

Now the EJ200 has a similar specific fuel burn rate to the RB199 or if it is more it is not by a significant amount. However it puts out ~40% more thrust dry and ~15% more thrust with reheat in all sections of its envelope except at extremely low altitudes. It is optimised for high altitude operations which is why its fuel efficiency is noteably down on the RB199 and possibly why you came to your conclusion but this difference, though noteable, is not very significant. It still performs well at low altitudes because of its extra power which can, indirectly, save you fuel so in the end it balances out.

The icing on the cake for me and my EJ200 theory is twofold. 1) It is a lot lighter and a lot simpler than the RB, it has over 1000 fewer parts. 2) Most of the development for the EJ200 had been carried out by Rolls Royce it was almost ready to fly, Eurojet developed it into what it is today but there is no doubting that Rolls Royce were easily able to produce this engine on their own if needs be.

None of this is to say that the RB199 is a bad engine, its an excellent engine. All I am saying is that the EJ200 is a good engine too; its just that it is 20 years more advanced. If a company is going to survive it cannot do so by building old designs indefinately. 🙂

Double tails with canards are not allways success…

Yes I think you are right. I reckon it would have had the same single tail that they designed for the Typhoon and also I think it would have had EJ200 engines…..Except…….Except they would be called RB200. The extension of the front udercarriage would be reversed so it extended down and backwards instead of forwards and the main canopy would be ‘one-peice’. Yes I can picture that, I only wish I could draw it. 🙂