True. Can’t wait to see.

Recently the UK Treasury apparently asked departments to invisage massive cuts of the order of 40%+. So without debating the reality of such a statement or whether it will come to pass, what would you keep and what would you bin if you were the MOD and had been told that come next April you have a 50% budget cut. Which “half” of the UK armed forces would you keep.

LETS NOT debate whether this would be a good idea (it obviously isn’t) and lets not debate if it will actually happen (almost certainly not) but cuts are coming and perhaps a discussion about a “50%” armed forces might focus some of the discussions we are having on what really matters.

A final point to add a dose of reality is the recent reports about the future of the German armed forces where “50%” has been talked about openly (reality or not).

so…..which half are you keeping?

I think Germany is doing away with conscription, so a good chunk of the 50% cut will be accounted for by this.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?specialEvent=farn10&id=news%2Fawst%2F2010%2F07%2F19%2FAW_07_19_2010_p65-238534.xml&headline=Typhoon+Partners+Focus+On+Sensor+Upgrade

Typhoon Partners Focus On Sensor Upgrade

Jul 19, 2010

By Douglas Barrie, Robert Wall

Munich, Berlin

1. The U.K. is particularly interested in pursuing the electronic attack (EA) capacity of AESA technology; at least some of the ARTS trials were intended to explore this. The Royal Air Force’s Alarm 2 missile is due to be withdrawn from service around 2013-14, and an EA capability would partly compensate for the shortfall.

2. The AESA concept being considered for the related projects uses a swash-plate design of the repositioner that moves the radar antenna to increase the field of regard to more than 90 deg. Fixed AESA arrays suffer from performance degradation at look angles of greater than ±60 deg. Options for addressing this deficiency include using adjunct arrays or moving the main array, though far more slowly than the snap rate of a traditional mechanically scanned array. Developers have had to revise the initial swashplate design as a result of a polarization issue with the identification-friend-or-foe system and the desire to keep its orientation constant. The repositioner first had only a single rotating joint, but has now shifted to a two-part joint structure.

3. The U.K. has requested that all Tranche 3A Typhoons be provisioned for the AESA, although the radar would be introduced as part of a retrofit. This means the aircraft is able to handle the power and cooling requirements, although the higher-power generators are not being built in at this point.

4. Eurofighter officials are bullish on the projected performance of the AESA, noting it will be more capable than many rivals. Typhoon’s radar will have twice as many T/R modules compared with the smaller Rafale radar, and will also be larger than the F-35’s while having more modern technology than the F-16’s and F-15’s radar, they assert. Flight trials of a preproduction version are slated for 2012.

5. The weight of the new antenna could shift the Typhoon’s center of gravity slightly forward, which will be offset with ballast in the aft fuselage. However, another industry official notes that adding thrust-vector control to the Eurojet EJ200 powerplant would be a more efficient way to tackle the issue.

6. The rolling-upgrade path will also likely be seen in how the AESA and weapons are introduced. The initial focus for the radar will be on air-to-air capabilities to support Meteor. About two years later, air-to-ground modes will follow to add Brimstone, Taurus and Storm Shadow ground-attack capabilities, notes a Eurofighter executive. An inverse synthetic aperture radar mode to fire anti-ship missiles would come in another step.

7. In the meantime, fighter production now tops 220 units; the U.K. is the largest operator, followed by Germany. More than 73 Tranche 2 aircraft have been delivered.

Good to hear that they have a solid path for the AESA radar and are working towards it.

would that would be $108m flyaway ? as opposed to ~$60m flyaway for the f-35a

I am comparing to the price the Canadian government is paying for the aircraft, not including parts/support/maintenance/fuel- which comes out to ~$140m per aircraft (USD and CAD are just about equal). So that is essentially flyaway price. I have a very difficult time believing that Australia is paying less than 1/2 the price Canada is paying. The most likely explanation is that these prices must cover different things, but unless we see an itemized list of what each includes, it’s hard to say.

I’ve done engineering work on turbofan engines. Turbofan engine design is a highly multidisciplinary, non-trivial exercise to say the least. 😀 I’m sure Saturn knows what they are doing, but it’s a very detailed and time consuming process. In any case the 117 is still pretty potent- I think performance of the first aircraft will be acceptable if the Su-35 (which also uses the 117) is any indicator.

The only thing that this article suggests to me is that the first production aircraft will use the 117 engines. I saw no mention of the VLO capabilities or that the current T-50 is representative of the first production models. I do see this:

The first prototypes of the preproduction batch is supposed to reach the Lipetsk Center for Combat Application and Cross Training of Flight Personnel in 2013.

This would suggest to me that the current prototype is not representative of production aircraft. I believe that a frameless canopy is planned for the near future (third prototype most likely). Some current Su-27 variant aircraft have RAM coated fan blades and Have Glass style tinted canopies. I imagine that similar coatings at very least will be applied for the first serial production PAK-FA aircraft.

Russia will buy what they need. Perhaps they are not terribly concerned with NATO as a threat. The Cold War is over. And who knows? They could very well order more in the future should they decide to do so. Production of the aircraft hasn’t even started yet.

That’s funny… I didn’t see one with the wings actually folded.

I agree it might be just the smallness of the image size that hides the split in the leading-edge slats… but we need either a better picture of the area in question or a picture of a J-15 with the wings folded to conclusively say one way or another.

Actually, a wing-fold really isn’t that hard to engineer, even a self-powered one… as long as the internal structure of the wing is designed to properly support the hinges and locking pins.

The question is simply “have they done it or not”, not “can they do it”.

I can quite clearly see a split in the slats. Trying zooming in. It’s there.