JackonickoZedro,
I’m not complaining about being bashed, only at your characterisation of me as not being impartial.
I look forward to seeing you list as many positives about Typhoon as I have done about Rafale.
Where did I get that the Rafale was present for Austria, Norway or Greece? I’ve spoken to Austrian, Greek, Norwegian, and Saudi pilots and engineers who evaluated Rafale. Not all of them flew the jet, but all evaluated it.
JackonickoJW Cook,
Mach 1.4 + with 2 IR and 4 BVR (that is what EF regard as ‘clean’)
Mach 1.2 (1.3 according to some sources) with the centreline tank.
But not in frontline RAF service, where certain clearances are still awaited……
Nic,
Neither EF GmbH nor Dassault could go straight to an AESA when the programmes were launched. Both designed a state of the art back end, and GEC and its partners opted to marry that to an M-Scan antenna, while Thales opted for a PESA antenna.
“Captor has a mechanical scanner, and it has taken that technology about as far as it can go. When the development contracts were placed on Eurofighter, it was by far the better option, rather than the emerging technology of phased array. In the early 1980s, when we were putting the technology together for the radar, we made a risk-based decision….. In the early 1990s, when the radar was finally specified, phased array was still more of a twinkle in somebody’s eye, rather than a technology that could be put into production.”
see http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/categories/military/1048.html
M-Scan antennas may have reached the end of the road, but weren’t a technological ‘wrong step’, while it turns out that PESA’s were – like beam riding missiles. That’s all I mean by the phrase ‘dead end’.
Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and I still admire the bold and visionary French decision to go for a PESA array. It deserved to succeed. It so happens that with the benefit of hindsight we can see that it was the wrong decision, and that the caution expressed above resulted in a better in-service radar in 2007.
Adopting an AESA might have been an even worse decision, however, back then. I see in today’s Aviation Week about the F/A-18E/F AESA still not being ‘war ready’ while we are all familiar with the problems encountered with AN/APG-63(V)-3.
JackonickoMany years, eh? That’s impressive, when I’ve been here for just two.
Almost as impressive as Rafale’s record in ‘open competitions’ where, according to you blokes it’s managed to win every time, and yet it has not managed to gain a single export order.
The problem is that unless one is blindly and uncritically pro-Rafale, one is labelled as a basher by the French people here, and, unfortunately, Rafale threads inevitably contain a great deal of uncritical and inaccurate boasting.
One can be quite open about Rafale’s strengths – a highly focused programme and aggressive, well-fought export campaigns, freedom from political interference, good cost control, streamlined decision making, rapid progress on weapons integrations, good low level handling and low gust response, long range, plenty of hardpoints, a brilliantly designed undercarriage, superb take off and landing performance, good visibility over the nose, a great IR-homing missile, a well designed ESM system and threat library, pleasant control harmonisation, etc. It’s a better Jaguar/Mirage 2000D replacement than Typhoon would be. It’s a better carrier aircraft than Typhoon-N would be. It’s a nice aeroplane to fly (some say nicer than Typhoon). (And though it’s hardly relevant, I think that Rafale’s a much prettier aircraft, too, absolutely gorgeous to look at).
If I were biased against Rafale, I wouldn’t be so happy to admit all of that, and I wouldn’t have written so many articles kicking the Typhoon programme.
But as soon as one raises areas where Typhoon enjoys a clear superiority (MMI, supersonic manoeuvrability, performance and radar performance, for example) there are loud complaints and enthusiastic (but ill-informed) denials, and pointing out where Typhoon has been placed ahead of Rafale, and there’s a chorus of anguish and wounded nationalistic pride. But inevitably, if one is unbiased, one has to admit that there are areas in which Typhoon is superior to Rafale.
And that this has been reflected in a number of export competitions.
Evaluations where Typhoon was selected or placed ahead of Rafale on technical grounds: Austria, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Norway, Singapore. Competitions where Typhoon is the chosen ‘fall back’ should JSF be cancelled: Netherlands, Turkey, etc.
Evaluations where Rafale was selected or placed ahead of Typhoon on technical grounds, or because of timescale: Singapore, South Korea.
Evaluations where Rafale was selected or placed ahead of Typhoon on economic grounds: Brazil, Morocco, Libya.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if Rafale wasn’t placed ahead of Typhoon in India, because of the extraordinarily good reputation the Mirage 2000 (and Dassault, to be fair) has gained in Indian service.
There’s less need to step in and correct Typhoon threads, because even the aircraft’s fans acknowledge the aircraft and programme’s bad points – most of which are programme related. Political interference, delays, cost growth, mismanaged bids, slow development, poor PR, and a much less can-do attitude than Dassault. And there have been a succession of minor (but embarrassing) technical problems – composite fin skins being the first of many, the undercarriage fault being the latest.
JackonickoThat’s interesting, and it goes against what my notes say.
DeDefensa.org is a French source, and not necessarily a neutral one.
My notes come from interviews with a senior Dutch air force officer and an opposition politician (the latter was very anti-JSF, and, I thought, very pro-Rafale).
From my notes, I believe that there was one evaluation ONLY and that it was conducted by the CBP, that it was primarily or exclusively economic, that the aircraft were not flown, that the manufacturers did not supply operational and technical data, and that the “CPB ratings” were 6.79 for the JSF (I obviously scribbled down the figure wrongly), 6.95 for Rafale, and 5.85 for Typhoon.
I may be wrong as to who conducted the evaluation (I have little recollection of the interviews, and I never wrote an article from them, so never went back to challenge or clarify any points, and I therefore rely solely on the notes) but it’s clear that whatever it was, it wasn’t a rigorous evaluation, and that subsequent Dutch examination of both types has resulted in a different conclusion.
Separate interviews with EF GmbH revealed that they were surprised at the perceptions of, misconceptions about and ignorance of Typhoon, and made efforts to educate the Dutch about Typhoon AFTER the evaluation.
It’s clear, in any case, that this 2000-2001 evaluation has been superseded, and that Typhoon is now considered to be the best fall back option in the event of a withdrawal from JSF.
I must look out for my Greek notes next….
JackonickoDiet coke all over the screen, Mr Hilton.
And while stealth might make things more different for fighter radars at co-altitude, how far away can you see an F-22 using PIRATE or OSF? Since you can get better angular accuracy from an IRST than from radar, how long before someone works out how to achieve a BVR missile solution using IRST for target detection, location, tracking and engagement?
What range was that F-117 detected at using PIRATE? I’ve heard the crewroom gossip, and unless they were exaggerating by a colossal factor, Stealth’s usefulness is already over-stated.
JackonickoLet me tell you what it changes.
The CBP evaluation you’re so keen on was an economic evaluation ONLY.
You French chaps have been quoting it as though it was a technical/capability evaluation, and that it somehow demonstrated Rafale’s technical superiority.
It did nothing of the sort. Quite the reverse.
The Dutch AIR FORCE flew and evaluated the Rafale and Typhoon after (and separately from) the CBP report you love to quote, and subsequent events clearly demonstrate which aircraft they preferred. And it wasn’t Rafale.
Chalk up another occasion when the US (JSF this time) won, Typhoon came second, and Rafale third….
And since you haven’t had the decency to ackowledge that the report you have been quoting was just an economic evaluation, I’m now keeping an eye out for my Korean and Greek notebooks.
As a starter, I’ll ask a question. After Greek Mirage pilots had flown Rafale, why did the Greeks not issue an RFI to Dassault for the Rafale, but did issue an RFI to Lockheed, Boeing and Eurofighter?
It can’t have impressed them much…. :p
JackonickoYou Rafale fans really shouldn’t bring up the Netherlands, because the Typhoon is presently the RNLAF’s favoured alternative to F-35. Both European aircraft have been flown by a number of Dutch pilots (both high profile VIPs and evaluation pilots) and Typhoon was preferred.
And yet you harp back to a paperwork exercise that was so unimportant, and so long ago, that I almost couldn’t find it in my notebooks.
Almost…..
However, I note that the Dutch CBP (CPB? I have both) assessment was published in October 2001, and dated back almost a year before that, having been compiled just after the Netherlands had been invited to join the Eurofighter programme as an equal partner in October 2000 in the letter signed by the defence ministers of the four partner nations to Frank de Grave (I’m guessing that he was the Dutch MinDEF at the time?), and long BEFORE Lt. Gen. Dick Berlijn, Commander in Chief of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, actually flew the aircraft in February 2001.
The CBP (the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) is an independent research institute and it has been criticised for its lack of insight and technical knowledge of the programmes it has scrutinised. In any event, the CBP analysed the three aircraft on economic and industrial grounds, and not on technical grounds nor on the basis of real world capability.
The whole aim was to reinforce and validate the decision to upgrade the Dutch F-16s and to validate Wim Kok’s intention to order the JSF.
Moreover, I was told that it was the attitude to Typhoon expressed in the CPB (CBP) report that led to the effort to educate them about the aircraft and the programme, with the flight for Dick Berlijn and subsequent evaluation flights.
And looking back to early 2001, how would any of us have rated Typhoon even if we’d gone beyond the economic and industrial aspects? Only the prototypes had flown, and no Typhoon had flown with the full standard radar (I remember wondering whether this was shades of Foxhunter, and I’ll bet the Dutch did too).
Can you imagine what level of information that would have been provided to the Dutch (who had never seemed to be a likely prospect, and who had not been ‘courted’ as the Greeks had been) at that early stage? But this wasn’t an official evaluation, so no-one was providing any technical information to the CBP anyway.
So we can look back to an out of date, purely economic/industrial report (unsupported by any evaluation of the respective aircraft), dating back seven years, shaped more by Jane’s than by the planes (OK, more by the FT, but that doesn’t rhyme), or we can look at today’s reality, at the technical evaluations that have been undertaken and at the comparative attitude of the Dutch to Typhoon and Rafale every time cancellation of F-35 has been mooted since then.
I told you you shouldn’t have mentioned the Netherlands…..
JackonickoIt’s a quote from a March 2006 Press Release. I don’t expect it to tell the whole story. My purpose in quoting it was to point out that it’s a fallacy to assume that a migration to AESA has not been planned, or that it is somehow likely to take appreciably longer than the migration from PESA RBE2.
If you want the full story, sidle up to Carl Graham of Selex and ask him, as many did at Farnborough.
I’m sure that he’ll reassure you as to the limited nature of the hardware and software changes that are necessary.
I’m told that it’s as close to ‘plug and play’ as makes no difference.
JackonickoThe point is that the path from Captor-M to Captor-E is already mapped and planned, and that the migration will not be appreciably more difficult than the migration from PESA to AESA on Rafale.
Claiming an advantage for Rafale because it’s somehow closer to getting a full AESA capability is thus mistaken.
Indeed, unless funding is received and work begins in earnest, there’s a real danger that Typhoon will “get there first”.
OK?
JackonickoOnly if you’re going to drop six LGBs in the same sortie.
On average, in Afghanistan, it’s tended to be a one sortie/one bomb war.
A Mirage 2000 with Damocles and a pair of 500-lb bombs is more useful than a Rafale with six bombs.
This is plainly a politically driven deployment (Rafale won’t even have dual mode weapons available, in a theatre where dual mode weapons are essential), but it’s still a great thing to do, and something worth celebrating.
JackonickoThis is what I really admire about the French.
Here we have the AdlA, the MN, and the French Government making decisions that will directly benefit French industry.
It could reasonably be argued that deploying Rafale at this stage makes little sense from a purely military point of view – it will disrupt and even delay the conversion of the next frontline squadrons and the ramp space at Dushanbe would arguably be better occupied by more Mirage 2000s, which would have the flexibility to be able to self designate.
But it is abslutely the right thing to do, since the political and industrial advantages outweight the short term military considerations, while the training value for the new Rafale force is almost incalculable.
I wish that the RAF (or the Germans, or the Spanish, or the Italians) had displayed a similar degree of gumption, and had deployed Typhoons to the region.
Typhoon has dropped more LGBs than Rafale, and has cleared the carriage of more types of LGB. The RAF has more Typhoons in service than the AdlA has. The Italian Typhoons have had an operational QRA commitment for ages. If the will was there, Typhoon could be gaining the ‘operationally proven’ label that Rafale will pick up after this deployment.
Hats off to the French on this one. They’ve seized the PR advantage here, and as long as the deployment goes well, it should play well with potential customers.
JackonickoEventual migration to an AESA was always planned. In any case, providing processor power and growth was necessary to take account of possible improvements in things like NCTR technology.
Avionics magazine had an interesting quote from Dave Short, BAE Systems’ avionics integration manager for Typhoon: “Captor has a mechanical scanner, and it has taken that technology about as far as it can go,” Short says. “When the development contracts were placed on Eurofighter, it was by far the better option, rather than the emerging technology of phased array. In the early 1980s, when we were putting the technology together for the radar, we made a risk-based decision.”
It’s clear that even in the early 1980s, it was recognised that phased array would eventually be adopted, and that appropriate provision was made. Had it not been, it would not have been possible to install CAESAR in DA5 in five hours.
LM Raptor,
I’m looking at Raptor’s MMI at the moment, and have been talking to pilots and engineers. Finding people who have flown both is not easy, however, so one tends to be dealing with people who have knowledge of only their own aircraft, or who have flown one real aircraft and one rig, and there are precious few of those. It’s not like Typhoon/Rafale, where relatively large numbers of pilots have had some exposure to both types.
My impression is that DVI is a critical differentiator in the BVR air battle, and that the F-22 display modings (and especially the way in which they can be auto-changed with WCS changes) are not as intuitive as those on Typhoon. That’s only an impression, and its based on talking to a very small sample, so my mind is not yet made up on the issue of how F-22 and Typhoon compare when it comes to MMI.
It is my understanding, however, that the F-22 programme people have renewed their interest in DVI. You may recall that some years ago there was a real desire to adopt the EF DVI system ‘lock, stock and barrel’.
I would not want to compare Captor to APG-77. Of all the in service AESA radars, APG-77 is the least known. Details of Captor, RBE2, APG-63(V)-3 and APG-79 are known because all are being actively marketed to potential export customers for the aircraft platforms with which they are associated.
Secrecy is endemic in the F-22 community (as it always was on the F-117 force) and hard information (as opposed to PR puff) is hard to find.
I’m surprised at the relatively modest (but still very impressive) radar performance demonstrated by F-22 in Red Flag, but perhaps they are quite deliberately using the radar in a ‘training’ mode which quite deliberately keeps the full capability under wraps.
JackonickoI like French women, Nic, I have to admit. Top ten girls, for sure.
But there’s plenty of great competition that knocks them down the list. Swedish girls (they must keep the ugly ones underground, with the cows), Singaporean girls, Belgian girls (like French girls used to be, slimmer and funkier, less likely to smoke, and rather less arrogant than today’s Parisiennes), Icelanders, Yorkshire girls, Dutch girls (just because, alright?), Cuban girls…..
And it’s not racist to point out that a favourite sport on that side of La Manche is moaning about the Perfidious Anglais – just as it’s a favourite sport over here to raise our eyes skyward and laugh about it when you start. We know that you’re only jealous! :p
JackonickoYou know better than Euroradar, then, Foofoo?
Better than GEC and Selex senior people?
Than the German team who installed an AESA array on Captor in place on DA5 and did so in five hours?
Than those who are about to do so again to fly a Captor-E on DA5?
Because they’re the people who have gone on the record to say that Captor already has the software and modes to support an E-scan array.
Or better than Selex as a corporate entity?
“CAESAR has been specifically developed to fit in the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft and builds upon the highly successful Captor mechanically scanned radar which has already proved to be extremely effective. CAESAR will introduce AESA technology which enable E-Scan capability to be fully exploited by the existing Captor radar, while retaining all features and capabilities of the original system.” (Press release, March 2006)
But of course only the French have gained anything from the Anglo-French AMSAR (Airborne Multi-mode Solid state Active array Radar) programme, or from their experience with the in service radar…… :rolleyes: and flying CAESAR on a BAC One Eleven testbed was a pointless exercise that proved nothing and demonstrated nothing….
Jackonicko“But why doesn’t Singapore write it?”
The MinDEF are really going to explain, in public, why they overruled the air force, in print. :rolleyes: I’m sure that’s what happens when the French Government overrules the AdlA……
“3 “selections” (with Greece) and 3 dirty stories of bribes”
Selected in Greece, Austria, Saudi Arabia, and shortlisted in Norway, second to the F-35 in the Netherlands, and first on technical grounds in Singapore.
Beat Rafale in Greece, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Norway and Singapore…..
“3 “selections” (with Greece) and 3 dirty stories of bribes :-)”
Unproven stories of bribes by BAE on other programmes. ‘Bribes’ which in Saudi Arabia relate to a much earlier procurement (of Tornado), and nothing to do with Typhoon. But you’re French, don’t let the facts get in the way of a chance to whinge and moan about the Brits.
Korea
The F-15K is already operational. With advanced A-G weapons already undergoing clearance. Now is when the Koreans wanted their aircraft. Neither Rafale nor Eurofighter could meet this timescale. The Koreans have explicitely denied that Rafale won. I’ve tried to find any evidence to support that contention (I’d far rather feel that Rafale had beaten the US contender on technical grounds) and I’ve failed.
MMI
I’ve explained MMI. If you are unable to understand, you certainly won’t be able to interpret objective measurements of MMI – whether we used the Bedford Scale, Modified Cooper Harper or NASA TLX. Those were just some of the methods used by the Singaporeans and others who evaluated Rafale and Typhoon MMI, and using those methods, assessed Typhoon’s MMI as being superior. But why do I bother arguing with you? Your mind is made up! Rafale is French. So of course it’s better. Dassault are not only the best fighter designers in Europe, they’re the only people in Europe capable of producing an advanced fighter. And the filthy English haven’t produced a decent aeroplane since the Spitfire (and that was inferior to the D520, of course). So of course Rafale is superior in every single respect, and there is not a single area in which Typhoon enjoys any superiority.
Happy now, in your deluded fantasy world?
TMor,
You haven’t yet shown a single example of an area in which Rafale is ‘superior’. I don’t deny that there are areas, and I’m quite happy that I’ve expressed my admiration for Rafale with a degree of magnanimity and generosity. But where Typhoon is superior, and you try to deny it (or downplay it), then I’ll correct you. I’ll do exactly the same if you ascribe plus points to Typhoon where they aren’t deserved.
I have no problem with admitting French superiority where it exists. French wine and (my wife says) perfume. French weather. The French national soccer team (I prefer league football in the UK at the moment, thanks to “English players” like Thierry Henri!). And even the French national rugby team (despite recent evidence). French motorways. Airbus rather than Boeing. French sculpture (but English literature). Rafale’s programme management and progress. French government support for aerospace. Damocles not TIALD. French tyres and undercarriages.
But MMI? Sensor fusion? etc. I’m sorry, but France comes second.
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