Yes of course its the evil Germans, Cassidian, Eurofighter…:rolleyes: Get real France has its own share in the A400M disaster. But of course it’s ever the others fault, like little kids. And sure Airbus would compensate for Eurofighters dumping prices.:rolleyes: In what kind of parallel universe does some of you live?
And did you chaps forget about the oh so proud Dassault paid 25% or so of the Rafales development bill? Military business isn’t overly profitable for Dassault either!
And btw. where is the new IR sensor or HMD?

Then posters started using the designation Su-35BM (which was fictional and a mix of the two above)

Not necessarily true the first 3-D marketing video from Sukhoi stated Su-35 Big Modernisation (in Russian) and I think it in fact stems from there.

SAR.

SAR radar mode or SAR recce pod?

The cheaper weapons argument is somewhat odd, as the sole cheaper US weapon integrated on the Typhoon is the AMRAAM, which may not be selected by the IAF. ASRAAM, IRIS-T, Taurus, Storm Shadow and Brimstone are all European weapons and not US weapons and whether they are cheaper than those used by the Rafale is questionable. Cheaper PGMs such as PWs/EPWs could be used by both aircraft, but the Indians may also opt for other weapons, perhaps indigenous weapons.

Well, it’s not that obvious IMHO. India could very well ends up with having to pay 100% of the bill on several systems/integration if they want them before 2020.

But we don’t really know the cost of the curent Typhoon + the cost needed to bring it to the Rafale F3 level in term of multirole capabilities as none of the 4 EF partners will have such a plane operational before 2018 or so (according to the NAO)

Based on what? Sorry but it slowly but surely sucks that some people try to “sell” their speculation as given fact. The RAF and the Luftwaffe both have a requirement for Taurus and Storm Shadow stand-off missiles as well as the Brimstone. The fact that the partner nations show no interest in buying more aircraft beyond what is currently on order, doesn’t mean they won’t fund and realise upgrades. Following the P1E it’s likely that smaller incremental upgrades are realised similar to CP193. SRP14 is meant to introduce weapons like Storm Shadow, Brimstone and initial Meteor capability, SRP16 should add full Meteor capability and SRP18 is meant to add the AESA radar, possibly with the EA function to replace the ALARM ARMs. These recent SRP designations appear to be linked to the dates they are expected to be introduced, delays can’t be excluded but 2018 as “per NAO report” is a misrepresented figure. People would be better of reading the report itself, instead of the more often than not news paper articles.

(meanwhile the typhoon is stuck with an ageing system with no ID capability, as far as I know)

STTI anyone…
http://www.selex-sas.com/EN/Common/files/SELEX_Galileo/Products/PIRATE_dsh.pdf

Take a look at the bottom of the second page, the right images show the MHDD picture…

As stated many times, the typhoon main A2G issue is that it must choose bettwen weapons and fuel but can’t have both (only 3 weat points, and 4 fuselage points restricted to BVRAAM).
Knowing that, your comparison with the F-15E is quite good for it shows that the typhoon could only improve this flaw with large CFT (a la F-15E) and a hudge center line tank (at least 2000L).

That’s true for large weapons only, i.e. 2000 lb class PW IIIs or stand-off missiles. Small to medium weapons up to the 1000 lb class PW IIs can be loaded on the inner and outer pylons leaving the centre pylons free for drop tanks and 2000 l tanks are a possibly for the wing stations. The centre line station is store size restricted as well so we won’t see a 2000 l tank on that station. CFTs are in fact the only reasonable way to load stand-off missiles and achieve a reasonably good range at the same time.

Besides the fuel issue there are the separation concerns which will certainly be overcome but might have been underestimated at first glance.

I have at least heard about these concerns, but as they come from the rumours corner (from where I got them) it remains to be seen. It think an issue could be with certain configurations if other stores are loaded to the inner and outer wing pylons as well, as the space between the hardpoints is limited. Though I doubt the aircraft will carry anything on the inner pylons if two stand-off missiles are loaded to the outer, except some kind of ARM is integrated, which isn’t planned for the moment. DA3 conducted 1500 l tank drop tests in the later 90s and those tanks are more or less similar in size to stand-off missiles.

What happened to Eurofighter’s CFT plans? Non-starter?

Still offered but not contracted. If a customer wants it he could get it, but only T3 aircraft will be plumped for it.

@c-seven,
the more important question is how much money is required. We don’t know how much money was spent by the UK and German governments for CECAR and AMSAR, we only know that Euroradar invested 14 mln € in the initial CAESAR (up to the first flight on February 24 2006). More money has been spent since, how much isn’t known. It’s also not known how much money was invested in the Captor-E since full scale development has started last year, but it is known that Cassidian invested some 251 mln € of its own money in R&D, how much was actually allocated to the Captor-E isn’t known, but the Industry knows that the customers are currently cash constrained and that they must spent more on their own, otherwise they risk to lose future revenues. The contract singed between the UK MoD and Selex last year is currently valued at 19 mln pound. Add to that the previous investments and experience gained from ARTS, VIXEN and others and Selex’s involvement in the ES 05A Raven. Furthermore Cassidian isn’t working on the Captor-E only there are other AESA programs and GaN is also an option for the Eurofighter radar, though it remains yet to be seen whether they’ll settle for that technology or not. At this point in time it’s impossible to say. This has nothing to do with marketing brochures, but with assembling the puzzle from the various pieces released by various sources through press releases and announcements.