According JDW the RAF expects the RTS certificate for P1EA in September. The same month an aircraft currently used for testing of P1EB will be made available to Coningsby were the No.41(R) sqn will start operational evaluation in order to accelerate the entry into service of SRP12.

That lies in the nature of researching subjects that are many years, not to say decades old. Dunno what this has to do with disinformation as the later implies an intentional act of spreading false information. Flight Global achieves from 1984 already used the EFA designation so it’s likely that the name change from F/EFA to EFA happened somewhen around that time. It doesn’t change anything about the history of the programme.

Good contribution Jwcook. It might be noteworthy that there are at least three production variants of the EJ200 MK101. The EIS version fitted to batch 1 aircraft, the FOC version fitted to batch 2 aircraft abd the G201 version fitted to batch 3 (tranche 2) aircraft. I would need to look up for the specific differences, but IIRC the FOC version introduced a new HPT and some compressor changes. The G201 introduced the DECMU and some other changes.

Regarding to this, Since the AIM-54 was retired, they’d call Fox-3 to the AMRAAM, guess they used Fox-3 for the Airforce and used Fox-3 for the AIM-54 from the Navy. Then today they’d call Fox-3 to the AMRAAM for both U.S. Navy and the USAF.

But wonder what they’ll call the “Fox” code for MBDA Meteor.

It will be Fox 3 as well. A Sky Flash or Aspide were Fox 1 as well. It is about the guidance in use. IRIS-T or ASRAAM are also Fox 2. It’s merely a NATO wide used code for firing missiles with the respective guidance.

I recall that Fox-3 is the missile code for the AIM-54 Phoenix Missile.

Brevity code “Fox Three” is used when firing the AIM-54

Fox 1 = SAHR
Fox 2 = IR
Fox 3 = AHR

It’s not related to a specific missile variant. The AIM-54 Phoenix was an active radar guided missile and actually the first of its kind. But Fox 3 is likewise used for the AMRAAM.

A proposal to the UAE has been requested and is in the works. It’s not just talking. With a proposal being made the interest appears to be serious. Of course it doesn’t mean that the Typhoon gets selected, but it at least increases the chances.

Lovely..

Aparently:
Facts are irrelevant
History is irrelevant

Only your opinions and beliefs are to be believed?

Like it or not, Package Q happened and the response to it was the F-117, period.

Could they have done it without the F-117, sure. But at what cost?

Btw, the premise that more can be done with less 5th gen came from the DoD and is not a LM claim. It’s historical fact, not an opinion.

What did they send into Baghdad? B-2 and F-117
What did they send into Kosovo? B-2 and F-117
What did they send into Libya? B-2

Argueably the B-2 wasn’t operational in 1991, albeit substracts nothing from the argument. VLO undeniably offers tactical advantages especially if combined with excellent SA and stand-off jamming. As a matter of fact the first strikes were flown by AH-64 to take out some early warning radars and afterwards the F-117s flew missions over Baghdad. Libya saw an immense volley of more than 100 cruise missiles before B-2s were sent and some non-VLO types operated prior this. The claim that a “package Q” is required the way the US did it in Iraq doesn’t mean its the only way, apart from sending VLO assets.

What is clear to everyone here is that F-18 was never intended to be anything else than a stop-gap solution, so the only long term option was, as this article quote, MN backing and they did, indeed back it up and even participate financially to its development costs.

I never insisted it was so what’s your point? Confusing someone else’s statement with mine?

Dates of articles are irelevants, facts remains facts.

Dates of articles do matter as old information might be obsolete at some point, as the date of the article reflects the state of affairs at a given point in time. So IF the French side claims that the MN did fully commit to the Rafale in 1986, then it reflects the state of affairs at that time (1986) and not that of 1983, unless it is said that this was already the case back in 1983. My perceiption was that navalisation requirements did matter, but I changed that perceiption after discussions with several French users on the topic, including a certain Dare2 aka thousand other synomys as it made sense concerning the stated French requirement of 250 aircraft for the FEFA/EFA which reflects the requirement of the AdA only.

EAP was never intended to be equiped with EJ200, Rafale A was always planned to be configured as the final article. i.e as test bed for the M88.

EAP was no as representative to the Typhoon design as Rafale A was to Rafale C, for instance it was a close-coupled canard like Rafale as BAE and MBB differed on this point.

Agreed, albeit EAP was not regarded as short coupled delta canard layout, but long-coupled. It was closer couple as opposed to the final Typhoon however.

Everyone can spot the contradiction here.

There is no contradiction at all. Both Rafale A and EAP were merely proof of concept/technology demonstrators, whether the Rafale A was more closely resembling the final Rafale than EAP resembled Typhoon doesn’t change this very fact.

Actually this is yet another revision of reality:

France claims were never “dictating everything” to other partners, French requierements were clear and are also well documented for those who want to inform themself, saying otherwise is simply not telling the truth…

It is no “revision of reality” at all. The French had clear requirements as you state and they weren’t willed to make any compromises. So in essence the French position was “accept our terms or do it alone”. So dictating the terms isn’t too far stretched even if it sounds harsh. That the French side had its reasons for not back paddeling on their requirements and accepting compromises is yet another story, but so did the others.

So i reiterate my comment on poster OPIT being right to say that France had everything already either running as programme or R&D, there was not the slightest reason for France to stay in this programme after their demands weren’t meet.

I concur with this.

Revisionism is not so much of a curious thing when one spend time rewriting history in front of well informed sources, it is only a dishonest process, little curiosity about it.

We agree on the “eye of the beholder” point but this debate needs to be factual and historical fact be left alone. The points made by poster Opit were perfectly valid, the “paper aircraft” being the only one i didn’t back up, as it seems to me to be an opinion more than a fact.

No one here intends to rewrite history at all and if information forwarded turns out to be wrong, so be it. Discussions live from arguments and sometimes false information emerge based on misunderstanding/wrong interpretation or simply because of one source said so and no other source seen by that person contradicted it. That doesn’t mean that there are no different, maybe more credible sources. To insist that people are intentionally distorting reality, just because they might be wrong is inappropriate and certainly not contributing to a reasonable discussion.

The opposite wouldn’t have been logical, the remaining partner nations used some weird tricks later on to take advantage of some clause allowing them to sell theirs and still go away with it, France didn’t do that.

And what kind of tricks did they use? Care to elaborate?

Depending on their contribution you might come close to be right but on expertise only you are not, appart for BAE not one of the other manufacturers could counter Dassault lead at every level and this is still true today.

When it comes to this only the UK were in a position that France, i think rightly could recognise as equal partnership, on the ground of their experience in the fields requiered at the time since WWII, no other Eurofighter partner nation could claim this.

Therefore, on the ground of number of aircraft and considering that France had a technologic advance on aerodynamics and engines at the time, the claim was justified.

Interestingly there were a couple of collaborative programmes before that didn’t fail on diversion of national disagreement. The Transall, Alphajet or Jaguar are good examples for this. It might be an interesting historical fact that one of the reasons why the Germans didn’t commit to the ACA was the desire to have the French onboard.

In my opinion a French lead of the programme wouldn’t have hurt and I personally wouldn’t mind about a Rafale based European design with some alterations to meet the 5 nation requirements. My understanding is that the French side suggested a split responsibility i.e. airframe by one nation, engine by one nation, avionics by one nation etc. Argueably it wouldn’t have worked out exactly that way, but a principal design lead may not have been bad, with everyone contributing the best he could to produce a better result.

Considering the fact that France was in the lead in most areas conscerning the necessary skills what reason would have the French to stay in this programme at all?

The reason to stay would have been a large customer base, one competitor less on the market and most likely thus a more successful fighter for the export market. Considering current requirements we would be looking at 9 customers (France, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, India, Saudi Arabia and Oman) for a total of 922 aircraft, but possible follow on orders and additional orders from other customers. The funds that have been invested in both programmes are to a large extend redundant and could have been used to better effect. Consider what could have been done with the joint funds invested in the M88 and EJ200 when designing a single engine instead of two, or the funds invested in SPECTRA and DASS in a single system. There could have been multiple benefits if everyone had accepted the one or other more compromise. Not everything would have necessarily been better, but we might be looking at a common European fighter that could have been pushed a fair deal farther with the funds that have eventually been used to pay for two different types.