Taking off in the backseat of a Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet is, for lack of a better word, awesome. As the afterburners light up the runway races by on both sides. Your back presses hard against the ejection seat and things seem to happen very, very fast.

Courtesy of Boeing I had the chance to experience this very sensation in a US Navy Super Hornet on the sidelines of the Langkawi International Maritime & Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA) 2011. I also had the chance to experience loops, a 6G turn, and even break the sound barrier.

Aside from the phenomonal experience of flying in one of the world’s top fighter jets, I also learned a great deal from the pilot, a US navy aviator who goes by the call sign ‘Tonto’, about how pilots actually work with the Super Hornet in the real world, as well as some of the things they like most about it.

Winging along over the Straits of Malacca I took the stick for a while. Manoeuvring was easy, just like an air show simulator. Tonto told me that new Super Hornet pilots only spend four or five flights actually learning to fly the aircraft, and after the first flight the emphasis is on instrument flying. For pilots of the F/A-18 A/B the transition is even easier. Super Hornet training, he told me, lasts for nearly a year, but about 90% of this time is learning, as he put it, “to fight the aircraft.”

Tonto also demonstrated the Super Hornet’s ability to retain useful manoeuvrability at very high alphas where most other fighters would stall out. At 20,000 feet he pitched the nose 45 degrees up, and our speed fell to just 89 knots. Nonetheless, he was able to easily pirouette the nose this way and that. Total control.

“How is this useful in combat?” I asked.

“After the merge, sometimes you can find yourself in a situation where another fighter comes in with greater energy,” he said. “In this situation we can often surprise guys who aren’t used to flying against Super Hornets.”

In other words, a Super Hornet pilot can still bring weapons to bear at low speeds and a high alpha.

Tonto also gave me a demonstration of the aircraft’s Raytheon APG-73 pulse-Doppler radar. Thirty miles from the Langkawi airfield the APG-73 was able to paint a grainy black and white picture of the area. Buildings were clearly visible, but the aircraft in the static area were little more than a string of fuzzy white dots.

A crosshairs appeared and started moving around the radar image. “This is how we’d aim a weapon,” said Tonto. He was using the tiny finger-joysticks on the throttle to move the crosshair.

He added that the APG-79 active electronic scanned array (AESA) radar is an immense improvement over the APG-73 – which was, to be fair, once one of the world’s top radars a decade ago. The image AESA provides is “just like a black and white picture,” he said.

Though our aircraft lacked AESA, Tonto said it is commonplace in the US Navy these days. The APG-79 also equips Australia’s Super Hornets, and is part of Boeing’s bid in the Japanese and Malaysian fighter competitions – in both competitions the Super Hornet is the only aircraft with an operational AESA radar.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/asian-skies/2011/12/langkawi-high-one-hour-as-a-su.html

Perhaps SH will win in Malaysia? They already operate the Hornet.

They have been working on reducing the F-16’s RCS for some time. It is also smaller than either.

The manufacturers of the Eurocanards have also been working on it for some time. Size has little relevance for RCS.

Why not Blk 60? It has a good AESA, very good RwR & jammers, IRST, and FLIR. Not quite sure about it’s level of sensor fusion. RCS is likely less than Raf & EF.

Why do you believe it’s RCS is less than Rafale and Typhoon?

False, you are inventing stuff.

The article doesn’t say that the scores were tweaked, it says the purpose of the leakage was to put gripen into bad lights just before the decision. The part about notes being modified is your own addition.

Just more BS.
And this time coming from halfway around the world by an anonymous forum user… :rolleyes:

BS

1. Funny that it says “Gripen C/D failed on 4 out of 13 point”… However the text does not say how the modified Gripen fared in the later report, I wonder why? Gripen C/D is not really interesting since it was not chosen! Still we get that little useless piece of information on a config that is not relevant but we do not get the same piece of info on the updated offer.

2. We don’t really know if the 2009 report describes the Gripen NG or not. Bill Sweetman believes that’s not the case, he believe it describes an upgraded C/D (something inbetween today’s C/D and the NG), but nobody knows. We are all speculating. It’s funny that the leaks don’t clarify this important point though…

3. gf is, unlike you, a person that has worked in defence industry for many years. He is in particular knowledgable about procrurement processes. Unfortunately for you, he is one of the very very few anonymous people on these boards with some credentials. But I suspect you choose not to believe that…

Is “good enough” the new defense procurement decision-making mantra?

Swiss Defense Minister Ueli Maurer is unabashed in acknowledging that the government did not opt for the most capable aircraft when it decided on the Saab Gripen NG over the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon. Instead, it went with the aircraft that met its objectives—and at a cost that leaves money on the table for other defense needs.
…

Dassault argues that Switzerland could have met its requirements with fewer aircraft—at an equivalent or lower cost—if it had simply opted for Rafale. Maurer retorts that the government examined buying fewer aircraft, but wanted to have enough on hand to field two operational squadrons and meet training needs (the program had already been curtailed from fielding three squadrons).
…

Once the program is finalized, it will still need endorsements from several political entities, including a submission to parliament around mid-2012, with the goal of completing the deal by the end of the year for inclusion in the 2013 procurement plan. A fighter purchase in Switzerland is always fraught with discord, but the deal is likely to pass because a majority in parliament is eager to make it happen. In fact, the executive branch was ready to hold off, but parliament decided to push the issue in part to take advantage of the strong Swiss franc, which provides a relative price advantage for the fighter.

Maurer says decisions are still pending about the Gripen serving as the eventual replacement of Switzerland’s existing fleet of older F/A-18s. It certainly would be a contender, but so would other aircraft, both manned and unmanned, he suggests.
For Saab, there is one more upside; Uncertainty over its Gripen production line has been eased considerably. Of the existing Western competitors in the market for fighter exports, Gripen had the smallest backlog. The Swiss deal, coupled with the Swedish plans, effectively leave Saab in a secure spot until at least the end of the decade.

Full story: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awst/2011/12/05/AW_12_05_2011_p36-400600.xml&headline=Swiss%20Give%20Saab,%20Gripen%20NG%20A%20Boost&prev=10

Government sources say Spain will pay Eurofighter 309 million euros over the next few weeks, despite the country’s harsh belt-tightening. The payment will reduce Spain’s debt with the fighter plane manufacturer to some 400 million euros, which will be paid next year.

The Defense Ministry has been struggling to finance a 31.6-billion-euro modernization program, and Eurofighter, which has been contracted for the manufacture of 87 fighter planes, represents the program’s highest expense, at a cost of some 12 billion euros.

Louis Gallois, director of the European aeronautical company, EADS, has estimated Defense’s current debt at 600 million euros, a figure he says could grow to one billion euros by the end of the year due to late payment charges, which rapidly increase the debt. Spain’s largest outstanding payment was with Eurofighter – some 200 million euros last year.

http://www.defenseworld.net/go/defensenews.jsp?catid=3&id=6326&h=Defense%20Ministry%20%20Eurofighter%20309%20Million%20Euros%20Debt%20Remains

Has there been any claims from the French regarding Rafale and S300?

(apart from fanboys fantasies)

My guess would be now but then again, with EW you never know (unless you really do know, and in that case you would not be here) and the Rafale seems to have some quite advanced EWS combined with a quite low RCS.