Do I believe the manufacturer’s figures – validated by the customers’ independent Typhoon Structures Team, or do I prefer the uninformed prejudice of some anonymous French spotter on an internet bulletin board……?

Now let me think…… 😉

:rolleyes:

:dev2:

Sens,

With respect, like so many enthusiasts (and UAV salesmen!), you’re dazzled by what the UAV makers claim, but which, in reality, remain little more than future possibilities and future potential.

The limitations of UAVs today, and the problems of airspace co-ordination and bandwidth, and of realtime monitoring and control, are such that even those now responsible for operating frontline Predators and GHawks will acknowledge that the promise of fully remote operation remains largely unfulfilled, and that for most tasks (especially recce and weapons employment) their platforms need in-area, offboard cueing.

The more persistent a role, and the longer the required endurance, then the more attractive UAVs become.

But for any role where an ability to get a near-instantaneous, panoramic view of the situation is useful, together with immediate target recognition and interpretation, no existing UAV can do the job.

Force commanders currently demand U-2S/Canberra/etc more than they demand G-Hawk – making it absolutely clear that, even with the shortage of manned assets, they still have a vital role to play.

Even for tactical recce, there are many things that a manned platform, with a highly trained pilot, can do that no UAV can. From low- and medium level, the human eye can often discern detail that a datalinked video image will lose, while the human will be able to find a pre-briefed target far more quickly than a video or EO sensor with a sodastraw FoV, steered by an operator relying on a relatively lo-fi display. And the human pilot will see ‘targets of opportunity’ which the UAV will routinely miss. Nor can any of today’s UAVs reposition as quickly as a Tac R fast jet.

Of course, where you need to put your platform in ‘harm’s way’ the UAV offers obvious and compelling advantages, and the old ditty about ‘dull, dirty or dangerous’ is a truism. And there are roles where UAVs have obvious application and advantage.

There are, for example, good arguments for de-manning AWACS platforms (the FC task does not NEED to be carried out from on board an airborne platform, but there are very good arguments for having human radar techs on board) but a better option is to have one manned AWACS with UAVs carrying remote sensors to extend that ‘central’ platform’s coverage and range. You can do much the same in the maritime reconnaissance role.

There are also arguments for taking a similar ‘de-manning’ approach to Elint, having a piloted but skeleton-crewed (or unmanned) platform coupled with real time analysis on the ground. While the case for this might seem obvious to the lay person (and to the bean-counters), it is far from being proven, and some of the world’s leading Elint exponents remain convinced as to the value of having heavy interpretation and analysis capabilities, together with expert manual tuning of receivers on the platform, in the air, accepting the costs of putting very large crews into the air, on board the platform.

Sferrin,

It’s not a ‘sensational story’ it’s fact, confirmed by senior programme people.

Dozer is a line pilot (albeit as a squadron commander a senior one), and as such is not as qualified as the programme and DoD desk people when it comes to detailed development stuff. He’s the F-22 demonstration pilot, and as such has a PR role, and I’d be astonished if he isn’t either looking for rapid promotion or a TP job with Lockheed. Either way, I wouldn’t expect him to do anything other than present a positive gloss on any F-22 story.

Larry Lawson, Lockheed’s F-22 programme manager has gone on the record to say that the failure to integrate a helmet in F-22 was due to technical problems, and other senior programme people (for example Col Sutter, Chief of ACC/A8F, 5th Generation Fighter Division) indicated that difficulties in mapping the cockpit were the most insoluble of these.

Dork Matter,

The problems are as detailed above.

Cost and integration are further problems, but technical difficulty was the ‘show-stopper’ on F-22. That’s not speculation, it’s fact. I made it clear that I’m speculating that mapping problems are speculation when it comes to Rafale, as we simply don’t know why helmet integration was abandoned.

WVR, F-22 needs a helmet. And AIM-9X with LBL from within the bay. At very close in ranges, the advantage of stealth vanishes, and the advantage of agility is eroded if the enemy has a HOBS weapon and a helmet and you don’t.

If you’re ever going to fight close in, and if your likely adversaries have HOBS and HMSS, then you need at least a simple helmet mounted cueing system, even if a full HMDS is impossible.

The HMSS is also of crucial importance in the A-G role – especially for CAS. Any fighter-bomber that lacks the capability is second-rate.

And until it gets one, that applies to Typhoon, too.

When the NASA WB-57F visited Mildenhall a year or two ago, I spoke to their programme people, who said that they had “more than five” further airframes that could be refurbed and brought back into service.

The structural problem to which you refer was solved on the F, but not on the D.

Actually, though there would be penalties (the weight penalties are surprisingly low), and though there are ways in which a Rafale M would be a better carrierborne aircraft, the cost of completing some or all of UK Tranche 3 to Typhoon (N) standards would not be all that high, and the unit price might well be lower than the final price of Dave-B. Rafale M would be cheaper to buy, of course, but would require a whole new support infrastructure.

Typhoon + Typhoon (N) + Typhoon Plus w. CFT

would represent a very cost effective air power solution in a way that

Typhoon + Rafale M + different FOA type

or

Typhoon + Dave-B + different FOA type

would not.

I’m not sure.

The PR9s didn’t have much life left in them – upper wing skins, pressure cycles on the nose section, etc.

They should have kept all of the airframes when No.39 reduced to a five aircraft flight, and spread the usage, instead of scrapping so many PR9s that still had plenty of life remaining.

They didn’t.

The PR9s could have served a little longer, perhaps, but what they should have done was replace them.

As a short term expedient, I believe that they have looked at leasing back the PR9s – or at least two of them, and that if this happened they’d be funded by International Development, not Defence. (Less embarrassing, less of an admission that retiring them was a mistake…..)

Like many others, I heard about the RAF uniforms seen inspecting the WB-57Fs in the boneyard, and I have talked to NASA about the cost and practicality of bringing these aircraft back into service (answer: it’s no problem, we’re going to bring back one or two ourselves, if funds permit!).

These would strike me as the best possible Canberra replacement, but failing that, U-2S airframes (their fragility and single man crew are the only disadvantages) would suffice, or even (as others have suggested) a converted Global Express.

I do wonder whether a dedicated high altitude multi-role military platform would not be a potentially lucrative product for BAE to develop – there are an awful lot of folk out there now buying ‘less-than-ideal’ biz jet platforms for radar recce/Elint/recce, etc.

And how long does it take for Rafale 1 to designate the target, for the pilot of Rafale 2 to then accept that target, and then commit, and then fire? He almost certainly has to look at the target anyway to confirm that he isn’t engaging a friendly.

And what if there isn’t a handy wingman in just the right position to designate the target?

How much quicker, in a turning fight, to see the enemy fighter snotting past to try and get in your six, and to press one button to lock him up, before squeezing the trigger?

With an HMSS, the Rafale shot down by Jim Luke could have had him for breakfast.

And even if you decided that you didn’t need a helmet for A-A, it’s still worth having for A-G.

Air-to-air, an HMS gives you the ability to engage without getting nose on, perhaps without diverting from your planned route – that’s relevant whether you’re in a lumbering bomb truck Jag or in an agile Rafale or Typhoon. It’s always better to have it than not to.

Spectra, L16, offboard stuff are all very well, but if you can designate a target by looking at it and pressing one button, it’s ALWAYS an advantage.

Air-to-ground, an HMS allows you to update the nav kit without pointing the nose at the point of interest (which can be escalatory, and/or dangerous), it can allow you to slew an LDP simply by looking at the target. It gives the pilot cues as to where to look to find a target sent to him by another aircraft or the FAC.

The M2Ks may have done a good job in Afghanistan, but they’d have done it better with an HMSS. They’d have been able to get eyes on to a target quicker, cycle a formation through a target quicker.

This is getting pathetic, guys, it’s starting to look as though some of you will defend any short-sighted decision or problem on a French jet, regardless of logic or fact. If the French are doing it, then it must be the right decision – whether it’s relying on UAVs for recce, or failing to integrate an HMSS in a fighter bomber. Who’s going to be the first to claim that not getting any export orders for Rafale is actually better than selling some, or that deleting elements of the DASS or the IRST is a better idea than retaining them?

On that basis I’d be claiming that not having an interim helmet on Typhoon is a great idea – and it’s not. Or that not having laser ranging in the austere Litening integration was sensible and an advantage, or that proposals to delete Typhoon’s gun were a good idea, or that integrating the DTED oinly into GPWS wasn’t a huge missed opportunity.

Swallow the national pride and look at the issues on their merits. Failing to integrate even a basic HMSS on an Omni role fighter is bonkers. Really poor decision making.