Does anyone know how many Typhoons T3B UK, Germany and Spain ordered?
To be accurate no one has ordered Tranche 3B at all. Only Tranche 3A is contracted so far comprising 112 aircraft, this splits into 40 for the UK, 31 for Germany, 21 for Italy and 20 for Spain. The remaining Tranche 3B comprises 124 aircraft including 48 for the UK, 37 for Germany, 25 for Italy and 14 for Spain. T3B has yet to be ordered, but Italy recently announced it won’t buy it and others are likely to follow. We might see T3B but probably for export customers only. The final decision has yet to be made however.
The “HUD” in the rear cockpit is in fact a repeater projecting the HUD image from the front cockpit’s HUD. It’s actually useful to have that capability if the rear seat is occupied. It may even allow the back seater to fly the aircraft with a front visions view from the FLIR.
Well that’s true, but we have seen a couple of aircraft being retrofitted with a lot of new technologies, just take a look at the F-16MLUs which feature a lot of stuff found in new generation fighters. It’s certainly not as easy to retrofit 6 individual sensor in appropriate locations on an aircraft never designed with them in mind, but it might be possible to do the job with fewer sensors. IR based MAWS see a more and more wide spread use and if configured for an EODAS like role, which is merely about software and algorithms these days an EODAS like system is not out of the realms of possibility.
@ww,
yes but there are a lot of customers still operating legacy jets, often enough only a few years examples. Heck there are even countries receiving these aircraft right now!
A nice demo from IPA 5 during Farnborough with a full load of 3 x 1000 l tanks, 2 x ASRAAM, 4 x AMRAAM and 4 x PW II (1000 lb).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4psRKtsy9c
Striker delivered…
Eurofighter partner airforces began to take delivery of the new Striker HMSS aka HEA. The aerial display at Farnborough was already flown with that helmet.
Do you mean the twin seater? The single seaters have just one HuD.
How does then a bomb flying 1/5th of that speed and having 17kg! warhead (GBU-39), will do better?
Simply by being deployed by magic pixie dust fighters.;)
But to be honest technology evolves and with dual-mode seekers it becomes more difficult to escape destruction than before and the terrible miss rate of HARMs was also owed to a lot of pre-emptive shots which weren’t really aimed at destroying the target, but supress it, hence SEAD.
@dn28,
expressing an interest is not a plan as such. Given the economical situation of Serbia I’m more than sceptical that the country can afford a weapons system like the Typhoon. I would believe it if a contract is inked.
Not that new if one considers that the AMI chief has announced that the new planning is for 95 aircraft (add IPA2 and you have your 96). That they do it openly is yet the official move to what was expected. It’s nonetheless curious as Swerve pointed out in the military aviation news thread as the planned savings span over the next two years, while payments for a T3B won’t occur in that timeframe.
Haven’t read anything, but what is the logic behind a smaller more agile force while limiting them to self defence only? Why do you need a deployable, agile force if it does nothing else than defending your glorious island? The logic behind these claims escapes me.
@StevoJH,
1.) The article about the F-35 sale to Israel says “foreign military sale” aka FMS!
2.) If all partner nations decide to skip T3B there should be no penalties at all. Spain is the sole country from where I haven’t seen an interest to cut T3B, but given its economic situation they may well be forced to reject it as well.
I have posted this at F-16.net:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/07/342845/boeing-to-offer-f-35-like-cockpit-display-for-super.html
Not every situation requires your tanks being dropped. Many fighters can achieve M 1.6 with drop tanks, some might go even faster. But as said it is more important to reach adequate speeds quickly.