Scorpion82Most likely a measure to keep on the quite ambitious schedule. Building another prototype with no/not many systems just for evaluating flight characteristics and engines, basic systems is probably to time consuming. The avionics are the most challenging part and to get an early clue about things working or not is important to fix them. I regard this as a de-risk effort.
Scorpion82Beside here is more detailed article about the dependance of the Typhoon toward US technologies (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/23/us_gove_saudi_eurofighter_sale/).
So detailed that there is not even a single “US made” item mentioned… Has been covered before anyway.:rolleyes:
Scorpion82I’m questionning the aircraft type chosen for the task for which a hawk with 2 sidewinders would already be an overkill.
You aren’t serious, are you? Is it unusual to use a dedicated fighter for such roles? The vast majority of AFs around the world must be fools to employ fighters in that role rather than trainers, which aren’t much faster than an airliner, have no radar etc.
That the Typhoon is not up to all the BAE boasting about the supposed huge A2A superiority of the plane.
French Rafale pilots admit that the Typhoon is a valuable opponent but they don’t really fear it in any A2A engagements. Conversely they point out that the F-22 is far superior to the typhoon.
Good god and Dassault, LM, Sukhoi and insert what ever manufacturer you like doesn’t try to sell their products as the greatest thing since sliced bread:rolleyes:
And that the F-22 is the most capable aerial fighter in service today is no news and acknowledged virtually everywhere.
@glitter
My point is so easy that I have a hard time you can’t understand it.
When there are good news about the Rafale after exercices, you have dozen of posts “Exercises are groundless”.
When there are good news about the typhoon after exercices, you have dozen of posts “Exercices are so great”.
There were as much questions and doubts wrt the story about 2 EdA Typhoons smashing an 8-ship F-15Cs on the Cran Canaries… Looks like you guys feel like the poor innocent people who are unfairly treated like no one else. And there is a clear difference between judging about the results from an exercise and just pointing out that a certain capability has been demonstrated/proven during this or that exercise!
Scorpion82As I said, to confront the plane and the men serving it to the reality of a war deployment, operate it in rude conditions, far from its usual cosy base
As have been done during numerous exercises. What’s the difference between operating from Dushabne or Aldafhra etc.?
No need to deploy a full squadron for that. A 3-4 aircrafts would be enough
Unnecessary cost if you have an adequate platform in theater.
Typhoon is supposed to be ready for A/G mission.
My point is UK is sending her best fighter jet, the typhoon, to the Falklands … where there is absolutly no threat at all !
So you are basically questioning air defence? Why does every country which can afford it man QRA, even if there is no threat!?
Deployment of the Typhoon to Afghanistan was advertise by UK 3 years ago, so despite what you say, the RAF did feel the need to send them over there.
Well at one point there were no Tornados in the theater and the runway was not suitable before some work was conducted to allow for the deplyoment of Tornados. Back in that time there weren’t enough Typhoons and crews ready anyway. There might be enough aircraft today, but the EPW II is seen is inadequate. In other words the RAF made a bad choice when selecting that weapon back in time. A 500 lb bomb is the largest weapon seen as suitable for that kind of ops, the UK EPW II is 1000 lb. That’s the main reason for not employing Typhoon these days, next to the fact that Tornados are in the theater now.
Scorpion82– advertising and pictures from 2003 concerning cruise missiles (Storm Shadows and Taurus) never materialized,
– heavy advertized A to G capabilities which never materialized either in Afghanistan,
Well Eurofighter proposed a lot of growth options, but it’s up to the customer to decide what he wants and when he wants it. You can hardly blame the aircraft for inadequate politics.
– we learn that the strong point of the plane which is A to A isn’t that a strong point after all since Corsica and UAE (be it in dogfight or BVR),
Let’s ignore all exercises and evaluations… What have those DACTs in the UAE and Corsica proven? That the Rafale can beat a Typhoon in the right circumstances? Great! Big deal!
– info comming from Switzerland show that the maintenance needs of the plane in Austria and Germany is heavy and not satisfying
Oh from Switzerland. Info from the coming says the Rafale is yesterdays technology…
– they gave up the testing of the meteor for some odd reason in spite it was due to make them (too busy in the Fakland too?)
They had no spare capacity for Meteor development and integration, that’s why the primary work hasn’t been carried out by the Typhoon. Why haven’t the French done it on the Rafale?
– and of course the whole T3 which is very disapointing beginning with lack of funding for AESA but the same worth for anything else
In comparison to what was proposed (not contracted) it is indeed disappointing.
Lastly we come to realize that the more some “spin doctors” pointed out some points in the Rafale: user interface, radar, “under-powered”, the more we can corelate it with actual – and real – weak point of the Eurofighter:
data fusion way behind Rafale’s, radar of RDY2 generation, a engine not better than M88 finally in spite Snecma was late at the starting point.
RBE2 is as “new” as is Captor, what’s “not better” supposed to mean wrt the engine? And what do you know about the datafusion on the Typhoon and the Rafale to come up with such a claim?
Scorpion82Oups, we got informations about that in August 2010 of course.
My point is that good news about Rafale in exercises have seen a tsunami of posts like “What happen in exercises doesn’t matter”, so after your sentence “A-G capabilities shown by Typhoon in various exercises” should see the same epidemic posts ….. unless there is a nice bias from some posters.
We know about Corsica and the UAE much longer than August 2010 or what’s your point here?
Well there is ever a “nice bias” from some posters from both sides, c-sevens nonsense for example from the French side, ppps from the UK side. But I’m certain you know that this comparison is apples and oranges anyway.
Scorpion82@glitter,
I suppose you mean 2009 rather than 2011. But to be honest I don’t get your point.:confused:
Scorpion82@Mildave,
upgrading T1 Typhoons to higher standards equivalent to T3 for example would be a major and costly undertaking. One of the issues with the T1 examples is that they use a meanwhile dated computer architecture which leaves little room for improvements and which are out of production. The latter is particularly important as it makes maintenance more difficult. It is possible to upgrade these aircraft to higher standards as is shown with the IPAs, some of which are upgraded to a T2 equivalent standard, but one has to take into account that the production rate of Typhoons was a fair deal higher than that of the Rafale for example. There are only 10 Rafale F1 and it already costs 30 mln € per airframe to upgrade them to the F3 configuration and takes between 12 and 18 month. Now you have some 148 T1 Typhoons and though I don’t know what it would cost to upgrade them it’s definitely a major undertaking. T1 examples will primarily be used for training and AD duties. They’ll likely receive a MLU in due time, but the time has not come yet and decisions has to be made. I don’t think it’s of great operational value to deploy just 2 or 3 aircraft. The personal resources are limited as well and it takes quite some personal to sustain QRA in the UK, Falklands and keep up training and man deployments for training purposes. The EPW II is not deemed to be an adequate weapon for COIN ops and a lighter weapon such as the PW IV won’t be available before late this year or 2012. I won’t expect any deployment to Afghanistan before 2013 earliest and as the Tornados will leave service probably sooner than planned it makes sense to use them up. At the end it doesn’t matter, every AF sets its own priorities and just because the French do it this way, doesn’t mean others must follow suit. Other new generation combat aircraft haven’t seen combat service either, the Gripen or F-22 for example. No advanced Flanker or Fulcrum derivate has ever seen combat, the F-16 blk 60 hasn’t either and the exported F-15E derivates haven’t seen combat as well.
Scorpion82Should I conclude that Aero India is a more valuable war mission for the RAF typhoon pilots than 6 hours of CAS over Afghanistan ?
Those aircraft were Luftwaffe jets…
IMHO, more than 100 typhoon seems a bit too much for the air policing of UK and Falklands during peacetime.
Certainly, but the RAF has yet to receive that many aircraft. A number of them are unavailable as they are running through the R2 programme as well and you still have the training commitments, exercises etc.next to 24/7 QRA
in two different locations!
.
Or the Typhoon is too fragile, or too expensive to operate, or not ready for anything else than a 1 hour interception.
The aircraft has demonstrated its capabilities in the AG role multiple times during various exercises.
Afghanistan is a low intensity theater. it is a perfect opportunity to evaluate a new aircraft and confront it to the extreme conditions of a real battlefield :
– difficult maintenance conditions
– reliability in sandy, dusty, salty environnement
– very long missions (4-8 h)
– international inter-operability in real stress conditions
– high flight hour rate
Except for “real stress conditions” and probably shorter mission endurance it’s not like the rest can’t be obtained by exercises several thousand km away from home for several weeks or even month.
BTW, in Afghanistan, most laser targetings are done by TACP on the ground and the Rafale does not need anybody for the targeting of its AASM bombs or 30mm shells. + I’m affraid thatThe laser pod of the Rafale will go to Afghanistan well before any Typhoon
And how do they want to target their AASMs against insurgents? The only way is receiving coordinates or using a TGP, if that function is already integrated. Talibans don’t radiate around and humans have a somewhat small RCS for a fighter radar to be detected…
Wrt the LDP it’s most likely, wasn’t Damocles meant to be deployed this year already?
People shouldn’t forget that the Rafale force isn’t burdened with a permanent 24/7 QRA commitment and the Typhoon force has provided air defence duties for allied nations as well… It’s ever a question of priorities and requirements and how you can meet them with your resources at a given time.
Scorpion82When the F15 was first introduced, the Israeli used it to detect, engage and kill Syrian Mig 21 while evading detection by the enemy because they had just scored the first BVR kill in history. Doesn’t make the F15 a 5th gen.
The F22 has had trouble with its radar absobant paint degrading its “stealthy” features making it vulnerable to detection at a greater distance than intended.
Reconfiguring the Boeing airborne laser to detect, engage, and kill fighter over long distances will not make it a 5th gen aircraft anymore than is a AWAC system even if implemented in a fighter (like the USN F18 prowler… ok not exactly a AWAC but still).
F16 can fly with jamming systems to prevent the enemy from using effectively their radar and so detect, engage, and kill while helping the friendly to do so… F-16s are not 5th gen…
Bla bli blub, but an F-117 must be 5th gen because its stealthy and the B-2 of course. :diablo::rolleyes::cool:
Scorpion82+1 with Swerve
On top of that funding of a Captor-E has been included in the German defence budget as well and the configuration of the Captor-E is fixed now. This radar will make it, with or without Italian and Spanish involvement, which remains yet to be seen. With the more recent delays expected within the MMRCA tender, it must be expected that deliveries of the first aircraft will slip to the right as well. In this case it’s good for Eurofighter.
Scorpion82If France will have to wait ’til 2018, when will UK get some Meteors? 2019, 2020?
France WANTS to wait that long! It’s not like France must wait that long!
Scorpion82But what can the Americans do if the French say **** you and sell MIDS without U.S approval.
I’m certain the Americans would do something. As mentioned before MIDS needs GPS to be able to synchronise, the Americans can simply withhold the GPS codes from any country they won’t! One of the earlier Fox Three issues was talking about another datalink for the Rafale replacing the LINK 16 for export customers. No idea what has happened to this, but it was possibly never designed.
Scorpion82There aren’t many US made parts on the Typhoon, the most critical items are GPS and MIDS which require US clearance. The same is true for the Rafale so stop spilling out that nonsense.
Scorpion82LINK16 is US property, not European. It also needs GPS to synchronise. So better inform yourself.
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