I have no problem with a countries armed forces being run down in the way in which the UK’s have been and still are as long as the politicians giving the orders realise what they are doing. Unfortunately the case with the UK is that those in power over stretch the armed forces and put lives at risk just to staisfy their own egos. If you want a coastal defence force then so be it but just remember that is all it is.

That’s exactly how I feel … one minute they’re slashing the defence budget yet again, the next they’re declaring war on someone new. It’s like they’re trying to see how far they can go without paying before they get caught (and by caught I mean embroiled in a disaster brought about by being spread too thin).

Hopefully, but I doubt it. There were similar problems with the Tornado and even as far back as the Jaguar. Not sure about helicopters, though … maybe the record for the Tiger etc. is better.

I just think it’s funny that the French left the consortium because they wanted carrier capability and no-one else did, and now the British are forced to go to the Americans for planes for their new carriers!

It would have been much better if the other countries had listened to the French … we would now have France on the team to help share the costs and increase orders, less political bickering to slow down development, no competitor to the EF for export, and no need to buy the JSF.

I agree it’s a shame the EF-2000 has taken so long, I think a large part of it was to do with the political bickering between all the different countries involved. It should have been in service 10 years ago, and if it had been it would have been the best fighter in the world. But it’s already lost that title.

F-35 enroute to a target has minimal RF emissions as part of its design:
>IFF transponder – normally turned off, on for traffic management over friendly territory
>missile approach warning system – 360 degree IR imaging through DAS
>radar altimeter – typically turned off, also has an LPI mode, 3D nav via GPS is normal
>voice comms – typically not used except near friendly airbase, also has an LPI mode
>datalinks – compressed burst transmission using LPI mode (if ORCLE can be made to work, laser DL/Comms will be virtually undetectible)
>fire control radar – mainly used in recieve mode, can be used in LPI mode to determine target coordinates, can be used for electronic attack

There are a couple orders of magnitude difference in total radiated RF energy when comparing gen 4 and gen 5 jets.

Here’s where I think the “generation” nomenclature falls down.

I’m sure all of these radiation sources have off switches in the Typhoon too; an off switch is hardly sci-fi.

Any new news on what tranche 3 will actually include?

PIRATE is a FLIR and works in the infrared spectrum. It works only where the seeker is pointed.

ESM = electronic support measures; works in various RF frequency bands. It requires a series of antennas and highly accurate clock that can time incoming RF signals and calculate their bearing using trigonometry. ESM can provide 360 degree coverage if sufficient antennas are used. Modern ESM can detect and classify any emitter within line of sight (hundreds of km).

So ESM requires the enemy jet to be emitting?

ESM is the primary sensor because it doesn’t radiate, is undetectable and provides NCTR capability.

What’s that and how does it work? Is it anything like Typhoon’s PIRATE?