The UK has 107 T2/3A aircraft on order. It’s somewhat hard to imagine that they’ll do without any spares at all.
5 x 15+24+4+4 = 107! It was said that there would be one spare for each front line unit and 2 for the OCU.

Well the 104 generates 40.48 kN dry and 73.48 kN with AB.
The 105 can generate up to 76.01 kN with AB and is only fitted to German ECRs as stated before. Italian ECRs are converted from IDS and retained the 103.
The 103 generates 38.48 kN dry and 71.18 kN with AB.

@Jo,
GR.4s use the MK103 true, F.3s are fitted with the 104. The 101 isn’t used any more t my best knowledge. All Italian IDS/ECR and the German IDS are fitted with MK103s. The German ECRs are powered by MK105s.

@flateric,
it certainly isn’t ;), some treatments apart.

Hmm it’s just wiki, but maybe a start
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Union_RB199

How reliable is that at all? Sounds somewhat odd to me.

Indeed. And I seem to remember that Typhoons were designed with a relatively short life on them compared to other fighters to begin with, 6000 hours was it? Not the best basis for a sale.

With successful demonstration of 18000 hours during the DMAFT! Aircraft designed for 8000 h has often only demonstrated 16000 h. Shouldn’t be SUCH a big deal unless there are some serious flaws in the airframe structure.

…

Wrt the fixing of some of the issues, it still shows that not everything can be accurately simulated and predicted, though accuracy has improved greatly over time using simulation tools etc.

Except the claim is that an F-35 with 2 JDAMs and 2 AIM-120, outperforms a clean F-16 Blk 50, which means that a similarly equipped F-16 would be even more disadvantaged. Beesley also says that in the subsonic regime, the F-35 performs like an F-22.

The F-35 may match the F-22 in a few regimes of the envelope, but it will certainly not be up to the F-22’s performance level in general, not even at subsonic speeds. It doesn’t offer the F-22’s TWR and TDR, lack TVC, has smaller control surfaces and I could well imagine that the aircraft is less unstable either, given its primary mission.

Well a RAF Typhoon pilot claimed he can fly the aircraft through the entire flight envelope in QRA config (8 AAMs + 2 tanks) with NO degration in performance. I’m certain you would say “impossible”, but he said so, it MUST be true.:dev2:

It’s not really fair to say that an airplane, not yet in service isn’t as mature as one that’s been around over 20yrs. The point is that by the time F-35s come online(or within a few years of IOC), WILL have those capabilities.

It’s not really fair to compare a 2020 spec’d ac to a 2010 spec’d ac either… You HOPE that the F-35 will pose all these capabilities by that time, whether it will be the case remains yet to be seen.

But those VLO characteristics might just allow the F-35 to enter the merge on its own terms.

True, but that’s not what has been discussed here!

As for the AIM-120, I never said all ranges. We’re talking WVR, not a long range BVR shot to the rear hemisphere. Once the JDRADM comes online, it’s effectiveness will only improve.

I was talking about WVR either and the question (not exactly expressed in my previous post) is whether the AIM-120D will be manoeuvrable and capable enough to catch targets at very high OBS angles close in! At what angles has this weapon been deployed against targets and at what range… You speak about it as if the AIM-9X would be superfluous as the AIM-120D is just as good…