JwcookBut 18 is already around the number of MMRCA that are allowed to be delivered from foreign assembly. “
There is a commitment by the partners to buy the airframes, but not a contract for 3b, the major subassemblies don’t have to be made in India, it just has to be assembled there. so the subassemblies from tranche 3b could be diverted to Indian production.
Curious, how exactly does Indian MoD account for ´expected to come down´, etc, etc? I mean, Rafale is offering the ECO engine, which is basically done and has extensive tests backing it up, so those figures are at least semi-solid, but on what basis could the MoD believe that EF maintenance costs (which are much more multi-faceted than simply the engine) will in fact reduce drastically (of course, they can expect their own costs to be higher at first, what with learning curve, but apart from that)? This is a serious question, is there some methodology for assessing risk in planned programs, assigning ´partial credit´, etc?
This is the big question, the fact that India is offered partner status allows a cheaper offer( by law they can’t sell below what the Eurofighter partners pay) that was around 7%.
The bloated figures quoted for Typhoon included absolutely everything, and doesn’t compare to other fighter figures quoted which don’t include support infrastructurehanger rental and laundry bills.
The Typhoon has already done its version of ECO a couple of years ago.
There is a baselining of costs to be done over the coming months, where all these figures are taken apart and compared like for like.
Cheers
JwcookWell, 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.
I’d agree for sole national programs, but as a member of 5 partner nations the majority of their needs have been met.
and as a partner they can push their requirements to the front of the queue.
That’s almost certain but that’s only 18 aircrafts / 126…And not really a good thing if the Germans want to show their commitment to the project (and commitment is not very high these days in the EF community to say the least).
Hmmm… 18 thats only a fraction of the UK tranche 3b, even so that would be a maximum 14% reduction in the total price, not an insignificant number I’m sure you’ll agree, and possibly more due to other partner nations 3b units.
What i can say is that we know the cost of the curent Rafale F3 for sure (and F3+ price should not be very difficult to evaluate either as first deliveries will begin next year for the French Forces).
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)
The Typhoon Tranche 3 was costed at £75m but that includes lots of other non UPC items, the rough figure would be a tranche 2 price + £2m for the AESA and upgrades to tranche 3.
Export price that we know was €62 m for Austria so €62.00 = £55.2348 GBP +£2m(radar and upgrades) = £ 57.237m
Reduction of 10% as per the Saudi order = £51.5M
or we can go the other route is the global contract was €13b for 236 tranche 2 aircraft = €55m each or £49m
So each of the figures comes out as around £50m for a Typhoon, or US$83m.
These are the higher end of the scale, if you want to do a UPC for the tranche 2 for the UK at the time the contracts were signed it was £37.7m this is the lowest UPC price thats been quoted.
So anywhere between $US65m and $US83m for a tranche 3 jet depending on currency exchange rates on a given day etc.
So I would say they are similar on costs, with the The Typhoon possibly being cheaper.:eek:
The life cycle costs is the big one (approx 60%) of total cost of ownership, The Typhoon was slated for a colossal figure for each flight hour, but that was when there were only a couple of dozen flying and all teh support cost were included, that figure is expected to come down with more airframes to a level similar to legacy aircraft.
2018?? for what capability?
Cheers
JwcookEurofighter consortium won’t give those unfunded capabilities for free (L1 clause again …)
IMHO, The only way for EADS to win this one is Offsets and a huge political lobbying from Germany/UK (which is very possible indeed)
The price battle is already won by Dassault because most of the capabilities has already been payed by the french tax payer (Eagle1, Tmor, Cseven, me…. 🙂 ) So Dassault will not have to charge them to India.
The Typhoon capabilities road map is already done the partners will pay their share, the Indian Gov will have to decide if having a 20% share of all future upgrades is desirable or 50% with the Rafale.
No sure the winning is a done deal, there is a matter of ‘baselining’
The Indians are putting the costs through a process that attaches a value to a capability either planned or in service.
That basically means the costs are not cut and dried as one may think.
Once the baselining is completed, these new figures will be compared and the lowest bidder will win.
Eurofighter have previously waived the 7% export levy on past deals and an also an extra 3% on top of that for the Saudis (10%).
They also did a massive through life cost resuffle to save on through life costs for trance 3.
The UK was holding out for a 25-30% cut before tranche 3a was signed.
The flyaway costs of the Typhoon being bandied about are frankly absurd, depending on fit out (AESA and DASS) the flyaway cost should be roughly the same as Rafale, life cycle costs are something else, I dont have enough info to compare the two (this is where the competition can be won or lost).
Its also possible that Tranche 3b could be diverted to India at a reduced rate.
The assembly of Typhoons in India is also easier to accomplish than the Rafale, as it is already set up as a distributed assembly model.
Then there is the fact that Rafale has so far failed to win an export order, the reasons are many and varied but the fact is it hasn’t done it yet, its a big risk for India to tie itself to an export orphan, what if there is a cost attached to that?
There is plenty of scope for the costs to be ‘baselined’ to the favoured aircraft 🙂 and for a deal this size the costs will be extremely variable and past prices won’t necessarily be a good guide.
Cheers
JwcookNow we all know that things are expensive to build in Europe and cheap to build in India would this make the prices of the Indian built aircraft cheaper?
Hawks were a lot cheaper to produce in India.
India has a good resource of software engineers, there is plenty of scope for benefits both ways.
The down selection means that Typhoon or rafale will get the contract what’s really telling is the Gripen was dropped..
So the decision is now a cost thing (Note the Gripen would have been cheaper if it was still in the running).
L1 will be the cheapest aircraft, Eurofighters recent push to reduce support cost (target was 20-30% reduction) would point to a massive effort to come in under the wire.
Cheers
JwcookWell if thats the price of the Rafale why thye huge difference for the Typhoon?.
Are they comparing “apples with apples” or as I suspect an “Apple with an Fruit shop and staff for a year”.
Cheers
Jwcook-The RAF have released new footage of Tornado and Typhoon aircraft striking Libyan armoured vehicles and rocket launchers. The video shows RAF planes attacking a surface-to-surface missile facility near Misurata, where they destroyed a rocket-storage facility and a main battle tank nearby on Sunday 24 April.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/libya-video/8475933/Coalition-increases-air-strikes-on-Libya.html
Interesting the first few strikes are by tornadoes (The explosions are too small for Typhoon), the last show multiple hits at the same time with the larger bombs (Typhoon?), from 1.05 its a different targetting pod display(Typhoon ?).
Thanks for the link
JwcookI agree this is the reason it deserves more mention, it may stop many young girls from being rich man’s accessories.
I wholeheartedly agree (I’m not rich).
But Women in the armed forces are not new. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica
Regards
Regards
JwcookIntegrated rather than an external pod?
JwcookThat has yet to be implemented. It has neither shown nor failed to meet that spec.
You asked which spec had not been met… all the current measurements are saying it hasn’t met it.
The JSF as a whole hasn’t been implemented yet, so by your definition its hasn’t met or fail anything yet. (makes you wonder what all the fuss is about)
Fatigue testing was a fail.
% of Commonality was a fail
Design weight was a fail.
Electrical capacity was a fail.
These are all specs the JSF has not met, some of which have apparently been addressed such as electrical capacity – oh wait the recent grounding was directly a result of the fix for the previous failure.
The aircraft grounded were the ones with the fixed electrical systems which subsequently failed.
So I guess there are a few failures which would meet the criteria you set.
Cheers
JwcookWhat spec has not been met?
Maintainence costs are more than legacy aircraft!
JwcookAFAIK the CFT planned hold 1500ltrs each.
JwcookThe Typhoon can’t fly without the Canards (Ok I will concede that it will fly for about 1/50 of a second after they fell off)
This is how it was explained to me by a Typhoon pilot.
The foreplanes are not actually physically connected in any way, but in practical terms they can be thought of as being connected. There are in perfect sync all the time, there is absolutely no asymetry at all generated by them.
The FCS is a marvel, tolerances are incredible and the amount of cross monitoring is staggering.
In a stable aircraft the moving control surfaces are used to make the aircraft manoeuvre. In an unstable aircraft the moving control surfaces are used to “stop” the aircraft from manoeuvring. The center of lift and the center of gravity are such in an unstable aircraft that any disturbance is going to result in a huge divergence. In a C150 or B747 such a disturbance would be naturally damped out.
If you look at any pictures of Typhoon in a hard turn you will see that the foreplane is actually leading edge down (ie against the turn). What has happened is that from the S+L condition the foreplane has briefly “let go” allowing the aircraft to pitch up and has then “caught it” again before the jet has swapped ends.
When you fly Typhoon in a gusty day, you have the stick in the middle (ie no manoeuvre demand) and the foreplane is constantly moving to counteract the gusts, in the cockpit the result is an incredibly smooth ride. The Hawk or Tornado chase is being thrown all over the place!!
So to summarize, Typhoon pitch control comes from a combination of symmetrical foreplanes and trailing edge flaps. Roll and yaw contol come from a very clever combination of differential flaperons and rudder. An even more clever schedule of leading edge slats is used to optimise the lift and trim drag throughout the flight envelope.
The question might be more relevant can the Typhoon fly with only one foreplane? I know there are routines for battle damage written into the FCS, but its a one in a million event that you can blow off a titanium foreplane from the carbon fibre front end without removing the front half of the aircraft.
As the canards move in sync IMHO I would imagine that it may be able to fly with one canard, but it would be a close run thing.
Cheers
JwcookShould not be a surprise considering the F-35 is clean. Yet, I doubt the author means the F-35 can Supercruise at the LM definition of > Mach 1.5. More than likely he means it can sustain speeds of over Mach 1 on Military Power.
In fact, the Euroighter remains the only aircraft among the MMRCA competitors to have demonstrated some sort of supercruise capability (though this capability falls far short of the sustained supercruise capability of the F-22A and the F-35). It also exhibits striking short takeof and landing performance.
Falls far short? The Typhoon has been quoted as a M1.5 supercruiser, what is the JSF supercruise capability if it far exceeds that?.
What does that make the JSF? or are we to take this “evaluation” with a large pinch of salt?.
JwcookHiya,
150 pages of food for thought: http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=42361
Direct link to the PDF: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/dogfight.pdf
Enjoy!
Interesting in that it states the f-35 is a better supercruiser than the Typhoon!!. (page 91)
It asserts the LM definition of supercruise as M1.5.. so is it saying the JSF supercruises at M1.5?? 😮
Cheers
JwcookYou don’t need to be a fanboy to recognise that the F-22 is untouched, especially BVR and extremely dangerous in the WVR area as well. The Typhoon won’t match its capabilities and performance in the most prominent/relevant areas.
Untouched?
Airborne detection of stealth aircraft may have already been accomplished in a series of tests done at Edwards AFB, Calif. in the second half of 2009. Those with insight into the research say Lockheed Martin’s CATbird avionics testbed –a 737 that carries the F-35 joint strike fighter’s entire avionics system — engaged a mixed force of F-22s and F-15s and was able to target the F-22s.
Source. AW
So a smaller diameter radar than the Typhoon proposed Caesar can target the F-22, or the IR system on the JSF that is optimised for AtoG.
Either way untouched it is not.
cheers
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