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DarthAmerica wrote:

Scorpion,

I hope I don't come off too harsh. But the Eurofighter crowd needs to do a bit better than regurgitate what they have heard in forums and on Eurofighter websites. Also, the ubiquitous "Better Aerodynamic Performance" claim needs to be backed up. That marginal performance advantage was achieved by accepting some serious design compromises which were acceptable at the time but today have been unacceptable. There are reasons why the Super Hornet, F-35 and F-22 are so big. There are reasons why the Su-27 is so successful and why the F-15 continues to be the dominant fighter besides the F-22 even to this day. The Eurofighter really is a "Euro"fighter and that's it's chief drawback. It's too European.

That's why European nations wanting to have an ability to fight elsewhere effectively are buying F-35s. It's why Asians and Australians are buying Su-27s, F-15s and Super Hornets. It's why some of them wish the F-22 was for sale. It's a size thing man.

-DA

Don't worry DA, I can deal with it and as I guess that we are both educated persons I think we can keep the discussion on a civilzed and informed level. It's of course not easy maybe due language barriers and the fact that posting less comprehensive replies might give the other one a wrong impression sometimes.
~20 years of interest in the topic of military aviation gives me some confidence that I know what I'm talking about, of course I don't know all and there might be some errors here or there as well, we are humans Wink

.
Basically every airframe has its pros and cons by the fact that every aircraft is designed to meet specific requirements. Many requirements are conflicting therefore there will be compromises and there is no sole perfect airframe at all.
The F-15 and Su-27 had both to fullfil the requirements as long range aircraft, the Super Hornet had to fullfil that requirement to certain degree as well that's the reason why they are so large in comparison to other fighters such as the Typhoon. The Typhoon is indeed a "european" fighter, built for European requirements. One of the problems I see is that people don't know about these european requirements and draw wrong conclusions by that.
One of the reasons why many european countries will also buy the F-35 is the strike role. No of the countries which operate Typhoon want to buy it for AA work. That doesn't mean the F-35 won't be a good fighter Wink

. I'm sure the Typhoon will become a decent multirole platform, but its main priority and strength is and will be the AA area.

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Darth's problem is that, finally, he's trying to defend a system that hasn't done so well in the past 30 years. The F-16, F-15 and FA-18 dominated the world, as we all know. Unfortunately the F-22 has failed in the area of affordability - if the richest defense budget in the world can only buy 183 jets, you do not have a success. The Super Hornet is slow and short-ranged, outperfomed by the older F-16. And the F-35 - unproven, with fewer flight test hours in its first 20 months than any other aircraft in recent history. In that respect, the Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale and Su-family are delivering capability to their users. I'd be snarky and abusive, too, if I was trying to defend that situation.

Veteran Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 419 Status: Offline

Quote:

Unfortunately the F-22 has failed in the area of affordability

So tell me do you really think that at 69 Million Pounds each without an AESA and without full A2G capability that the Typhoon is really all that cheap? Keep in mind that is with a production run of over 400 planes for T1 and T2. Lets not forget that the program cost for each Typhoon will be over 80 Million Pounds. Lets not forget that this is not exactly a plane that is technologically that advanced. Lets not forget that it is so expoensie that the MOD is talking about mothballing over 100 of them so that they can afford the rest.

Quote:

The Typhoon is indeed a "european" fighter, built for European requirements. One of the problems I see is that people don't know about these european requirements and draw wrong conclusions by that.
One of the reasons why many european countries will also buy the F-35 is the strike role. No of the countries which operate Typhoon want to buy it for AA work.

I think this is a big part of it. The relations in europe, where everything is much closer, has more of a point-defense requirement, as shown by the EF and Gripen design mentalities where agility and performance envelope take precendence over range. Both concepts (and the F-22) were designed with the cold-war still in mind. While this may seem out dated, the Eurofighter consortium nations have not shown themselves as very eager to take part in conflicts abroad on a scale that requires a more strategic presence. Instead, they focus more on humanitarian and logistics efforts. The politics of this can be debated, but that's a different issue entirely. That's not to say the EF can't or won't be deployed somewhere else.

About the performance, well, as has been stated previously the important factor is that the EF extends the maneuverability of the F-teens into trans and supersonic realms. Of course, exact figures other than that are hard to come by (even more so for the F-22 and F-35, and nobody complains there), but frankly, when every EF pilot interviewed (including U.S.) and virtually every other source claims this advantage, I don't see why someone would assume that a much newer design would not have. Scorpion has already expanded on this with some examples.

LowObservable wrote:

the F-22 has failed in the area of affordability - if the richest defense budget in the world can only buy 183 jets, you do not have a success.

When the F-22 was conceived, the USSR was still an issue. Now, there is no longer the problem of a major superpower as a potential enemy. The F-35 will be able to handle any enemy in the foreseeable future and it is being produced in HUGE numbers.

LowObservable wrote:

And the F-35 - unproven, with fewer flight test hours in its first 20 months than any other aircraft in recent history.

What about the F-35, that is unproven, is a show-stopper?

Is it the radar.... nope, that's proven tech.

Is it the stealth.... nope, proven tech there too.

Is it the weapons.... again, proven tech there too.

Is it the DAS.... that part has been in testing for YEARS.

How about the EOTS.... again, proven tech.

I know, it's the lift fan in the STOVL model. Wow, you got me there. Oh wait, that will only affect a small part of the total fleet numebrs. Guess that is a non-argument.

Is it the integrated avionics... sorry, evolution of the F-22 system there. It has also been in testing for years in other airframes like CATBIRD.

As to the 20 month flight test hours.. are you including the delay for weight reduction? Do you realize that the reduction for the B model will benefit all 3 models in production?

Are you including all the CATBIRD (and other test aircraft) flights? Where other airframes have to fly to do all their testing, the CATBIRD allows LM to test the avionics suite independently of the airframe thereby decreasing the total time needed to develop the airframe.

With the massive job that the F-35 will have to do, being the best multi-role fighter in the world, I do not mind them taking their time to do the testing right.

sorry... weird double post

LowObservable wrote:

with fewer flight test hours in its first 20 months than any other aircraft in recent history.

First, I'd love to see some numbers just to see if you could base this opinion on anything credible. And were these aircraft as high-tech? Second, and I know this must be taken on faith, the F-35s will tested at a rate that will put any prior fighter test program to shame. But for now, I guess we will just have to argue about it.

F-35 & EF for the UK:
Typhoon: available now, in 10-20 years mainly homeland defence.
F-35: worldwide, whereever necessary incl. naval operations possible.

What work share does GB have in both projects?

Elite Joined: Aug 02, 2006 Posts: 942 Status: Offline

Maks wrote:

What work share does GB have in both projects?

Foreign work on the F-35 was competed for based on the capability and value offered by the bidder rather than on funding or projected buy of the country. Workshare is not directly collated to R&D contribution or planned buy.

The UK (Mostly BAe & Rolls-Royce but also a few small entities as well) has about 20% of the work on the F-35 program. The UK also contributes ~2 billion or about 5% in development funds. In other words, about 75% of the development work done in the UK is actually paid for by Uncle Sam. The F-35 systems done by the UK includes the Electronic Warfare System, the Lift-fan on the STOVL variant, the aft fuselage, horizontal tails, vertical tails, 1/2 of the F136 engine, throttle and stick controls. The UK also competed for the contract on the Helmet Mounted Display, but lost to Israeli owned Elbit on that.

The UK has a 37.5% share in Eurofighter.

LMAggie,
I guess I don't need to take it on faith. It has to be that way or you are not going to get there. And the numbers may take some digging but you will find them. I believe that EF was at 100 h by 18 months (and that seemed slow) and the F-22 figures can be checked from old releases and Code One. B-2 was 67 hours in the first year.

LowObservable wrote:

Darth's problem is that, finally, he's trying to defend a system that hasn't done so well in the past 30 years. The F-16, F-15 and FA-18 dominated the world, as we all know. Unfortunately the F-22 has failed in the area of affordability - if the richest defense budget in the world can only buy 183 jets, you do not have a success. The Super Hornet is slow and short-ranged, outperfomed by the older F-16. And the F-35 - unproven, with fewer flight test hours in its first 20 months than any other aircraft in recent history. In that respect, the Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale and Su-family are delivering capability to their users. I'd be snarky and abusive, too, if I was trying to defend that situation.

First of all, I'm not trying to defend anything. Second this system is the most successful in the world. Cost has nothing to do with why the F-22 is limited to 183 aircraft. Changing requirements is why. You're really going out of your way to demonstrate your misunderstanding of the subject matter.

Also, the Super Hornet, is by no means slow. Like all other fighters of its generation it is a supersonic multirole aircraft. It is also not short ranged:

http://www.ndia.org/Content/ContentGrou ... allace.ppt

you may have noticed that it carries a 14,000 pounds of fuel, internally. It also has provisions for an external 16,000 pounds of fuel. All numbers are approximate. The benefit of this can be seen on slides 13 and 16. So by what stretch of the imagination are you calling this a short ranged fighter?

LowObservable, the quality of your post is severely lacking. If you have some disagreement please try to use some kind of data or quantifiable metric, so we can avoid wasting time. Also if you'd like to see some kind of benefit of the F-22, you can google images of intercepting Russian bomber aircraft. Or you might want to consider that is developing tactics, technology and doctrine for US Air Force fifth-generation fighters. Again try little harder next time;)

-- DarthAmerica

DarthAmerica wrote:

Also if you'd like to see some kind of benefit of the F-22, you can google images of intercepting Russian bomber aircraft.

I always love seeing photo's of the TU-95 being intercepted, and there are a lot out there. It seems that pretty much anything that can get off the ground can intercept a Bear, and that includes an RAF VC-10 on one occassion. Even though they show up like a glow stick on radar, theres a good chance you'll hear it before seeing it on your screen.

SpeakTheTruth wrote:

DarthAmerica wrote:

Also if you'd like to see some kind of benefit of the F-22, you can google images of intercepting Russian bomber aircraft.

I always love seeing photo's of the TU-95 being intercepted, and there are a lot out there. It seems that pretty much anything that can get off the ground can intercept a Bear, and that includes an RAF VC-10 on one occassion. Even though they show up like a glow stick on radar, theres a good chance you'll hear it before seeing it on your screen.

Lets see that VC-10 "find" and chase down any cruise missiles from said Bear... Wink

-DA

Newbie Joined: Aug 21, 2008 Posts: 12 Status: Offline

Maks wrote:

F-35 & EF for the UK:
Typhoon: available now, in 10-20 years mainly homeland defence.
F-35: worldwide, whereever necessary incl. naval operations possible.

Agree with you there Maks. Though there's competition between the two procurements for government funding, in an ideal situation where funding wasn't an issue (impossible I know) a force combining the two will be most effective.

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