Scorpion82wilhelm- Im very aware the M2K is ~different~ to the Mirage III, I never meant the planes were exactly the same. And yes I’ll take fault for using the term “upgraded Mirage III” to describe the M2K, I didnt think people would take that literally.
Don’t mind too much some of the people who are complaining now are describing the Typhoon as a souped uo M2k as well which isn’t that much different from your claim.:diablo:
Scorpion82It certainly indicates that small aircraft like the AMX are significantly cheaper to operate. In essence this makes sence and the M346 as an operationalised platform might be viable solution to fill such a role, maybe a single seat variant carrying more fuel and additional operational equipment. For missions like this they might be adequate on the other hand one must bear in mind the rather limited range performance as opposed to larger aircraft also reducing the effective loitering times and who knows by what amount the costs might raise when fitting advanced targeting sensors which are required for save weapons delivery, target acquisition and identification. The US is also considering pro ac for COINOPS as in Afganistan or Iraq.
Scorpion82That’s a matter of point of view (actually I was thinking the same about you although I would not call you an ignorant) and to date I have never read a clear denial on both pilots declarations.
Anyway I don’t want to begin a flame war with a poster that I respect… Perhaps better to move on, everything as been said.
Agreed let’s move on.
Scorpion82You are assuming quite a lot here and I notice that you repeatedly avoided the most important part “Typhoon pilots know better”! In your effort to defend “your” pilots and trying to add some credibility to the utterly ridiculous and false claims which are easy to debunk as I have done in greater detail in the Typhoon thread you are loosing yourself in an ignorant mode of denial.
Scorpion82We have two pilots who have never flown the Typhoon and who may not even be those who actually fought the Typhoon and even if they did it wouldn’t prove anything wrt what they say about the MMI/sensor fusion vs a number of named Typhoon pilots (Craig Penrice, Chris Warning, Mark Bowman among many others) and tons of material you can gather from public sources alone. There are even simulator videos out there where Penrice is actually answering questions and demonstrating some elements of the MMI including display formats. I know who is better qualified to judge about and talk about Typhoon’s MMI/sensor fusion etc. and it certainly ain’t a Captain Romain or a Lt.Col. Grandclaudon. You are also downplaying the way they have actually trash talked these aspects of the aircraft and try to excuse it with “it’s not meant that way” when the words of them are very clear and leave little room for interpretation.
Imagine foreign pilots would come up with similar claims about the Rafale, you would certainly be one of the first to protest and post links to pilot claims and other documents which describe the sensor fusion process in the Rafale disproving and also discarding the nonsense. You guys expect us to take such crap for granted when all EVIDENCE is proving the contrary! That makes empty phrases vs facts. Don’t know about you, but I’m choosing the later.
Scorpion82@Quadbike
I wrote an article about Typhoon’s air combat capabilities a couple of years ago. It includes a number of details about the MMI as well, wrt WVR and BVR engagements in particular. Hope that link works:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=394.0
I might add that this article is more than 5 years old and some of the information used aren’t valid/current anymore. However the basic description still fits. I might add that this is a non comparative article.
Scorpion82I would appreaciate the translated English text or a link?
Good day all, Tay.
Hi Tay
here is the link from where I grabbed the English version:
http://russiadefence.englishboard.net/t930-interview-with-a-rafale-pilot
@Vnomad
Once the Luftwaffe starts retiring their Tornados, they have the option of either junking their refueling pods or integrating them with their remaining fleet (of EFs). Interestingly, unless I’m mistaken the Tornados and Su-30MKIs share a refueling pod type.
You won’t see a buddy-buddy pod being integrated on the Typhoon at all. There is no requirement for something like this and the refuelling pod would most likely not fit in between the main landing gear doors.
Scorpion82The so called “small mistakes” are gross exaggerations to a point they must be described as utterly wrong. Yes there are different display formats used on the Typhoon as there are different display formats used on the F-22 and even the Rafale. The point of the separate formats is to give you a less cluttered picture, filter the relevant information and display the details necessary for the task at hand. If you take a look at the HLD of the Rafale you won’t see the separation of different aircraft in height unless you call up the elevation format for example, which in Rafale’s case is presented at the bottom of the HLD in a separate window like the RWR format, which can be presented on the lateral displays as well. The purpose is very much the same keep the display as much uncluttered as possible while providing all relevant information as required. I respect your opinion on the “better level of sensor fusion” and I’m not even challenging it at all, it might well be true as stated above, but the margin is much lower than what’s being described by the pilots. The formats on the Typhoon (attack, DASS and PA) are all fused and not “single sensor stats only” as described in the article you posted. If someone deals with the specifics are hardly see how Typhoon pilots are “overstressed” and seriously disadvantaged in BVR situations it doesn’t take an eternity to cross check to displays if required (i.e. take a look at the elevation format or FLIR image for vis ID). I subsequently don’t share the “Typhoon is seriously disadvantaged by the lack of sensor fusion” view at all.
Scorpion82scorpion, I was probably not clear enough and I acknowledged to Tmor that when I said MMI and was thinking “sensor fusion” as the information was more fused on the rafale giving a clearer view of the tactical situation. I recall at least one article which said that foreign test pilots prefered rafale MMI. I’ll post it when I have time to google it, probably tomorrow.
There were another capatin Romain intervention and I was thinkig more sepcifically about this one and the comparison is quite direct :
from grandclaudon :
again the comparison is quite direct.
I’ll have more time tomorrow to answer the next messages.
Don’t worry I perfectly understood what you meant and actually wondered whether your claims about “not talking about the position of a switch or the colour of the symbol” wasn’t some sort of sarcastic comment. I didn’t talk about that either. So be assured that we are talking about the same thing here.;)
Thank you as well for bringing up these articles, so my memory didn’t fool me it were just different articles which stated what you claimed and not those which I had and mind and posted above.
I still stick to my previous statement that these claims are simply plain wrong whether intentionally or not. One must also note that there are errors within these articles for example this:
To put it bluntly, Lieutenant-Colonel Grandclaudon said the two air battles – battles with IR-guided missile and cannon – which opposed Rafale and Typhoon gave a score of 7 wins for the first and 0 for the second
The bolt part is apparently wrong as these were BVR encounters and the Rafales were simulating the AA-10C a SAHR guided missile. Or have the Typhoons flown with WVR armament in a BVR DACT? I personally doubt so and it would contradict the other claim made by Grandclaudon in the AFM interview.
These claims from Romain leave a very exaggerated and partially ridiculous impression:
The Rafale merges the informations coming from its sensors to give a very reliable and clear picture to the pilot. It’s already a considerable advantage over previous-generation aircraft, including EF and Gripen.
So does here really want to tell us that the Rafale is a generation ahead of the Gripen and Typhoon? This would be in line with Dassaults own marketing spin (Fox Three issues), but it’s apparently a ridiculous and clearly exaggerated claim.
Faced with these sensors, stealth is useless and we know, thanks to our tests ,that our missiles are very effective in such context.
Sure stealth is useless, even Eurofighter’s PR department couldn’t make a more ridiculous claim than this one.
For Fabrice Grandclaudon, the limitations of the “red” plastron role don’t prevent a weapons system to show its real capabilities, because the pilots are taking advantage of the real human-machine interfaces and sensors on board, one of the Rafale has benefited from a refresh of its tactical situation by his teammate via Link-16.
Which is something a Typhoon or fill in any other LINK 16 equipped aircraft could benefit from as well. In this case it leaves the impression that the Rafale is the sole aircraft with that datalink. Similar claims of “being unique” were made wrt the Libyan operations were the re-tasking via MIDS was mentioned in one of the countless articles. Again something other MIDS equipped aircraft could do just as well.
This claim was obviously the one I had in mind before:
Instead of each sensor to display its studs (aircraft detected) on a specific screen, forcing the Typhoon pilot to operate an intellectual gymnastics , annoying in combat stress, to check if the plot of its corresponding screen of electronic warfare was or was not the one visible on the radar screen or IRST, the Rafale’s systems present to the pilot a single plot on a screen, the system automatically compares the plots provided by the various sensors on board and decides if it is or not the same plane.
The bolt part is a COMPLETE mis-representation of the Typhoon. I recognise that the claim isn’t wrapped in quotation marks and might in fact be an addition by the author, but nothing could be more wrong. The non bolt part describing the Rafale’s system would very well fit the description of the Typhoon as well. I went through it in lengthy detail in the Eurofighter Typhoon News Thread V (the current one) at the beginning of the thread, so I’ll spare the time to repeat it again.
In the end of the day I’m not going to judge about whose sensor fusion is better, it might be that the Rafale enjoys some advantages and I’m at least aware of some features which aren’t known to be part of the Typhoon’s sensor fusion such as integrating the data of missile seekers into the process for example. However the claims made by the French pilots appear to be largely exaggerated and the part about “Typhoon pilots must operate an intellectual gymnastics” is completely bull in the way it is stated and there is absolutely no doubt for me that they regard the Typhoon as a “sensor fusion less” aircraft (Romain says as much along the same lines). Senior officers or not those guys who may not even have fought the Typhoon themselves during these TWO encounters (Grandclaudon definitely hasn’t) have definitely a very wrong perception of Typhoon’s weapon system. Considering all of what I have seen/getting told/read/heard myself Typhoon’s sensor fusion is much closer to that of the Rafale than those pilots and most of you Rafale enthusiasts are either willed to acknowledge or are aware of.
Scorpion82Just as a note wrt the operating cost figures…
The German government opposition party “Die Linke” (The Left) sent a request to the Government about the costs of the AB Neuburg and the operating costs of the Eurofighter. Here in excerpts the translated questions and answers and some additional notes:
1.
Q: How many flight hours were conducted by the Fighter Wing at Neuburg in 2010?
A: In 2010 1053 hours were flown with the weapon system Eurofighter.
4.)
Q: What were the total costs of the military airbase Neuburg (Personal costs, flight operation costs etc.) in 2010?
A: In 2010 the total costs for the Fighter Wing 74 at Neuburg an der Donau were ~84 mln Euro.
Note: Costs of the procurement of the aircraft are not included in that figure.
6.)
Q: What were the total costs for a flight hour of the weapon system Eurofighter in 2010?
A: Total costs for the weapon system Eurofighter were calculated with 76961 Euro.
7.)
Q: What’s the acquisition cost of a Eurofighter with and without the weapon system?
A: The average acquisition costs of the aerial vehicles Eurofighter Tranche 1 based at Neuburg an der Donau were ~57 mln Euro including VAT. The Eurofighter uses weapons which were purchased for other weapon systems. These are purchased separately and are not assigned to the Eurofighter. For this reason it’s not possible to calculate the Eurofighter acquisition costs with weapons.
Note:
Not the price per unit but the financial shares of the partner nations are defined in the Eurofighter acquisition contracts. The unit cost was calculated on base of the German financial share of the Tranche 1 aircraft and all ancillary services. Comparative figures for Tranche 2 aren’t yet available as the delivery isn’t complete and a final calculation can subsequently not be done.
——————————————————————————————-
Own notes:
1.) 76961 Euro x 1053 (fh) = 81.04 mln € (total costs ~84 mln €)
2.) The relative low number of flight hours has a significant impact on the average costs as many of the total AB costs (personal costs etc.) are relatively fixed with limited variations independent of the number of flight hours. This year JG 74 plans to log around 3000 fh. Maybe we’ll see a similar request next year which may allow us to see a trend.
Edit:
Link http://dokumente.linksfraktion.de/drucksachen/23314_1706830.pdf
Scorpion82@scorpion : I believe we are going to disagree on this one. I would like nevertheless to precise that I am not saying that the Typhoon has no sensor fusion at all or no possibility to display syntetic information in some cases. Just that the overall “sensor fusion” and information digest seems to be better with the rafale. I don’t believe Grandclaudon and captain Romain are wrong, just that they were misiterpreted and that their analysis were taken to the extreme : sensor fusion vs no sensor fusion at all which is not the case. for them their is a real significative difference and I believe it is the case.
I had a look at the various articles again and must acknowledge that neither Romain, nor Grandclaudon were actually stating anything wrt Typhoon’s MMI. They were only describing the sensor fusion of the Rafale and regarded it as an advantage in general. Maybe there was another article stating that? Or maybe it’s an outright invention by some Rafale fans which is so widely spread that people (me included) took this for what they (Romain & Grandclaudon) said!
Here is what Romain says in the interview (I have used the translated version I saved on my HD):
http://www.surlering.com/article/article.php/article/capitaine-romain-pilote-de-rafale
The rafale is extremely maneuvering and thus awesome in dogfight. For example, confronted with a Eurofighter, engaged in a within visual range combat with a neck to neck start, we know we need a few dozens of seconds to validate a ‘gun kill’.
In BVR air combat (beyond visual range, ie at ranges of several dozens of kilometers), the Rafale system provides synthetic information coming from multiple sensors. This information is therefore more accurate. We can do without 1 or 2 sensors during a whole combat while remaining extremely dangerous for the enemy. This gives us access to new tactics of particular interest.
It’s always stated that “members of your squadron described…” Makes me wonder whether Romain was even there in the first place.
Now from the enemy brothers article:
In BVR combat, although the lengthening of the radar and missiles of the Typhoon are superior, the french Rafale fighter’s radar signature is, according to many pilots, much less important than the Eurofighter’s one. It is therefore an asset. Even better: the sensors fusion which enjoys the Rafale is also a crucial advantage in BVR combat, because it offers the pilots a much better understanding of the tactical situation during combat, and this, 360 degrees around the aircraft.
No pilot is actually being quoted here whatsoever and there is no further comparison to Typhoon’s sensor fusion. The crucial advantage sounds more like a general claim.
And that’s what Grandclaudon has to say about it:
http://imageshack.us/f/404/afm010002.jpg/
He’s also admitting that these weren’t the only encounters and furthermore claims “…but I was so proud of the skills of my pilots…” indicating that he hasn’t confronted the Typhoon himself during these encounters!
I think the facts are clear now. :diablo:
Scorpion82No, just made it simple.
Anyway.
So, calculations for the life cycle costs of both aircraft have begun which apparantly – “determine the lowest bidder and the ultimate winner of the medium multi-role combat aircraft MMRCA deal.”
What are ones thoughts of these then? Which aircraft is cheapest to run?
Difficult one.
+1 with TMor. Let’s wait and see. No one can seriously tell anything and given the rather dubious reports of the media wrt the MMRCA competition we better be patient for the next few weeks. After so many years a few weeks doesn’t matter anyway.;)
Scorpion82that’s wrong. You can understand how things work without knowing all the details. There is plenty of example in every day life.
And in our case are we speaking about professional fighter pilots who are true specialists so believing that they would not be able to understand how another system works is wishfulthinking.
It’s not about “not being able to understand”, sure they can, but whether they actually do depends on the amount of information they receive. I don’t blame them for not properly understanding Typhoon’s MMI due to the lack of information and I’m not aiming at the “being better part” in the first place, but the claim that Typhoon pilots must cross check different sensor displays and manually assemble a picture of the tactical situation in their mind. That’s simply incorrect not more not less. We ran through this discussion at the beginning of the Typhoon thread already and there were MUCH more information given than a Grandclaudon or Romain even attempted to.
When you talk to your peers it is another story, especially after a debrief about practising against each other for instance. You can easily grasp that a discussion between professionals is not the same as with amateurs as we are.
The comparison with the sort of briefing we could have both you and me in a cockpit is dubious.
That might be your lot, I’m not talking about peers or being shown an aircraft cockpit at a trade show…
We are speaking about different standard of sensor fusion.
As said neither Romain, nor Grandclaudon brought up any great detail we couldn’t have given, spare that their perception of Typhoon’s sensor fusion is apparently completely absent.
To make an extreme exemple : you don’t need an hour speach and hours in a simulator to understand that a mirage F1 sensor fusion and MMI doesn’t even compare with the rafale.
Which is rather useless anyway. We aren’t comparing two fighters which are 2 generations apart, but contemporary designs.
That’s the same idea with the rafale and typhoon. Grandclaudon and captain Romain focused their analysis on the main properties of the sensor fusion and MMI. No need to debate if the color of that symbol is more appropriate or not, I mean that’s not the point.
That’s not the intention anyway. The rest is already covered above.
Scorpion82They don’t necessarly need to know the slightest detail about typhoon MMI to understand how it is designed and how it works.
If you don’t know the slightest detail you can hardly understand how it works in the first place!
It is absolutely normal for pilots to try to understand how pilots from another country works with their aircraft. There is some natural curiosity and a gallant practice is to have a tour and a briefing in the cockpit of the foreign aircraft. Pilots speaks after debrief at the mess etc..
.
Having done this myself a couple of times over the years I know that praxis and I also know the relatively modest scope of such discussions and briefings. In most cases even a halfway informed aviation enthusiast could give you such a briefing. If you don’t experience the MMI yourself it’s rather difficult to judge about it. You can study it as well, but that takes a lot of time and appropriate material to do so. That’s why pilots learn a lot in the simulator and later in the real aircraft following intensive years of preparation in the field of aviation itself and the theory training they receive in advance during their type conversion training.
You don’t need to know all switches functions etc to claim that your MMI and datafusion works differently and you think yours is better. Especially coming from senior officers including a squadron commander who had plenty of occasion to approach and assess the typhoon in various exercises.
For once we have a detailed analysis and not only “raw result”. It is interesting to notice that both grandclaudon and captain romain are consistent which each other on the sensor fusion for instance.
What “detailed” analysis do we have? They claim Rafale’s MMI is superior due to sensor fusion, adding a basic description of the fusion which everyone of us could have given and stating that their is no sensor fusion in the Typhoon. The latter part is wrong as simple as that and you don’t need to be a scientist to figure this. There is enough material out their about Typhoon’s MMI, countless interviews have been given by test pilots and operational pilots, even videos of the simulator are available on the net meanwhile. It’s actually not that difficult to figure that the claims of the French pilots are simply a misrepresentation of the facts, maybe they just don’t know better and didn’t grasp the concept, but that doesn’t change the facts.
Funny to think that the typhoon that was designed around BVR fights in mind will perhaps not be employed a single time in that role in its carreer. Ok I am speculating but there is some truth : investing billions and billions in a system that will probably never be used in its intended role while the rafale is proving its added value in real conflicts and marking History. (Ok it’s a flaim bite !)
It may never happen that’s right, but the existence of threats justifies the design. By that measure a couple of aircraft have not been actually used as intended. The Tornado ADV, Mirage 2000 C/RDI/-5F/N, Mirage IV, B-1B and certainly a number of other aircraft have never been used in the role they were designed for in the first place, meaning they have never employed any weapons in these roles even when being operated in combat theaters.
Scorpion82What I see is that when you look at actual results and even more relevantly pilot analysis (at least for the french side : grandclaudon or captain Romain in the open press) there is no typhoon edge. To be more “diplomatic” and taking into account that scores can cary depending of the situation bla bla bla … I would dare to say that the picture is not as clear as one would like to believe.
Well as I’m not one of those who touts “Typhoon’s vast superiority” I don’t really bother. I’m aware that there are a number of people out there who believe that the Typhoon is a much better fighter, I don’t think so and say since a long time that there are many factors which has to be taken into account and have always admired particular strengths of both aircraft. What Grandclaudon and Romain claim is rather limited to the MMI/SA part and largely based on an ill perception of Typhoon’s MMI. Claiming something about one aircraft doesn’t prove anything with regards to the other. The fruits of such claims can be seen, I may remind on BWs effort to compare each respective aircraft’s MMI in the Typhoon thread (dunno whether the current or the other one before) which clearly demonstrated a lack of understanding of how Typhoon’s MMI works. There isn’t such a clear cut in that area either and when it comes to the descriptions of an aircraft and how it works and what it is capable of I prefer to go by the info/data the respective pilots are telling me in the first place and I treat every aircraft the same here. Pilots aren’t all knowledgeable super humans, but that’s often forgotten.
Another point I would like to stress is that we are always debating about BVR in a typical mine is bigger than yours discussion…How many BVR shot were achieved in past years ? I am not downplaying importance of BVR just pointing that for some it is the Alpha and Omega of modern warfare.
It certainly isn’t, but when it comes to AA pilots will preferably try to defeat their enemies at the longest possible distances. You might also compare how many WVR shots were taken over the last 20 years. Kills achieved over the Balkans for example where all BVR IIRC. But you may aim at the overall picture of aerial warfare which certainly includes much more than AA.
When I assess a fighter jet performance I look at the global package of capability offered. And in my opinion if you look at all the kind of tasks the rafale can achieve you really have bang for your buck. And it is avalaible now.
Agree
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