Eurofighter vs F-16/F-15

A friend of mine, a pilot in the RAF was recently based in the US. Upon is return he informed me that alot of USAF pilots feel that the F-16 is no match for the Eurofighter but the F-15 is, any thoughts. Surely the Eurofighter beats both hands down due to it being a more modern advanced fighter. Cheers Ted

I think it's clear that the typhoon is better than the F-16C and F-15C. It's better in every respect.

Now put new engines in the F-15 ( 34000 lbs of thrust vs 23000 ) + AESA radar + MIDS + AIM-120D/ AIM9X and see what happens.

An F-16 block 60 with AIM-120D would certainly not fare bad either..

How about WVR, fitted with ASRAMM is the Typhoon still not on top? In a dogfight the same pilot said that the only plane which would be a prob would be the Su-30, of course BVR the F-22 will win. He speaks very highly of the USAF pilots saying that they are practically second to none.

Without AIM-9X the typhoon is better of course.

With AIM-9X, it's different. The 9X has better off-boresight capability than the ASRAAM from what I know.

Concerning manoeuvrability, the typhoon is better than the F-16, which is better than the F-15.

Given the fact that the F-16 is smaller than the typhoon, has a good instantaneous turn rate and more off boresight capability, I'd say they would be equal.

The F-15 is bigger, so easier to see, and less manoeuvrable, so it would probably be the worst of the 3.

If the typhoon is equipped with TV, it has a clear advantage.

EF-2000 has bugun to equip MIDS since this year, and after 2010~2012, the AESA radar, new engine (EJ-230 or even EJ-270; 20,250 Ib/13,500 Ib*2 --> 23,290 Ib/16,200 Ib*2 ~ 27,350 Ib/17,550 Ib*2) +/- TVC, Meteor BVRAAM, better low-RCS techonology, and even the certain kind of anti-stealth detective techonology will also be able to be incorporated into the EF-2000 if the customers want.

That's why USAF insists the requirement of F/A-22. No matter how many upgrade plans to be incorporated into the fighters of "teen-family", they still can't get the suitable advantage over the NG fighters of other countries in the near term future.

There are two kinds of WVRAAMs for the Eurofighter in the near-term future: ASRAAM for the EF-2000s of UK only, and IRIS-T for the EF-2000s of German, Italy, and Spain.

The UK incorporated the design of "Lift-body" to the ASRAAM, and although the off-boresight capability and the high-G maneuver capability (50G) of ASRAAM are a little worse than the NG western WVRAAM with TVC and / or complex aerodynamic designs such as AIM-9X, IRIS-T, and Pythoon IV, its extremely low-drag design and the larger 160 mm rocket make it have the better speed performance (maximal speed: 3.5~4.2 mach) and the longer effective (>25 km) and no-escape ranges.

The ASRAAM's designers and the RAF pilots believe that the higher speed and the longer effective range are the main key points for the victory of future air-combat, and in order to make these two main key points to be perfect, it is still reasonable to sacrifice some off-boresight capability and the high-G maneuver capability.

The ASRAAM's designers also criticized the usefulness of TVC. They said that although TVC can make the WVRAAM to have better off-boresight performance at the instance after firing, however, the TVC can only do its work before the rocket runs out off its fuel. When the missile is in the end-stage of interception, which means that the missile has run out off its fuel in the most condition, the TVC is totally useless and becomes the burden of the missile's maneuverability in the end-stage interception.

I watched a clip on the Typhoon on Discovery, and they were demonstrating sustained 9-G turns, without the pilot blacking out. It was amazing....the plane just turns and rolls, and vertical accelerates...all sorts of stuff, like a living bird. its simply amazing. The F-16 and F-15 is surely no match for it.

Maybe in WVR, and with Python 4/5 equipped, perhaps the F-15/16 stands a chance, for BVR, no way man....and the typhoon's RCS is extremely low, and with a powerful radar, the typhoon will get to fire the BVR missiles much earlier than a F-15/16.

Last year, the Typhoon team flew two planes to Singapore for their next-generation fighter evaluation, and RSAF's F-16 pilots got the chance to fly it, they were mightily impressed with its agility...but too bad its been dropped from the tender...but that's another story.

The AFM declared that the EF-2000 of RAF had excercised with RSAF's F-16C and F-5E for three times and won each game at that time, including the game with the scenario of one EF-2000 v.s three F-16C.

Was that really the truth????

You're talking about block 50s here. What version of the radar do you have?

Against a block 60, it's quite different. Range is much better, you have all the advantages of an AESA radar ( harder to detect, harder to jam ).

The difference of RCS is not much, about 0.5 sqm for the typhoon, 1sqm for the viper. which is about 10% difference of detection range.

There is not much difference between the 2, and the viper is significantly cheaper, so the chances are better that typhoons might be outnumbered.

With TV, AESA, and meteor, the F-16 is no match. Without question. That's why the AF needs F-22s and SDBs on UCAVs to kill them on the ground. A fighter spends 75% of its time on the ground.. so maybe we should compare a typhoon against a UCAV.. lol.

toan wrote:The AFM declared that the EF-2000 of RAF had excercised with RSAF's F-16C and F-5E for three times and won each game at that time, including the game with the scenario of one EF-2000 v.s three F-16C.

Was that really the truth????

Unfortunately its true, the Typhoon is the more maneuverable jet. It has the more unstable design, and has a higher thrust-to-weight ratio when compared to the Viper. Still, I would like to see how well the Typhoon would fair against the MATV F-16, the most agile of all Vipers, and my favorite too.

1. The UK declared that the frontal RCS of EF-2000 is smaller than any other fighers that has entered service in the world today except F/A-22, and the main range of the estimation of the EF-2000's frontal RCS is between 0.05 ~0.25 m2.

2. The AN/APG-80 AESA radar, as far as the information I know, has about the 200% air-to-air detective range of AN/APG-68 V5/V7, or the capability of detecting RCS = 5 m2 target 130 ~ 160 km away. On the contrary, according to the report of AFM, the pilot of RAF declared that the Captor radar of EF-2000 could "track" MIG-29 (RCS = 5 m2 class) 160 ~ 185 km away.

1. The UK declared that the frontal RCS of EF-2000 is smaller than any other fighers that has entered service in the world today except F/A-22, and the main range of the estimation of the EF-2000's frontal RCS is between 0.05 ~0.25 m2.

I find that a bit hard to believe, as it is less that of an F-18E, which is said to be around 0.5 m2.

If it's about 0.25, that's about a 25% of difference of detection range between the 2.

2. The AN/APG-80 AESA radar, as far as the information I know, has about the 200% air-to-air detective range of AN/APG-68 V5/V7, or the capability of detecting RCS = 5 m2 target 130 ~ 160 km away. On the contrary, according to the report of AFM, the pilot of RAF declared that the Captor radar of EF-2000 could "track" MIG-29 (RCS = 5 m2 class) 160 ~ 185 km away.

I find that a bit hard to believe too. The APG-80 has 1000 E/R, vs 1100 for the APG-79. Since the 79 should have a range at least 50% better than the non AESA -73 which has a range of about 150km, it should have a range of 225+km.

The APG-80 is a bit smaller. I don't know exaclty how the range varies with the number of ERs, but I guess that with 10% less ERs, it should have a range about 10% shorter, so in the order of 200km.

I also read an article where a pilot who tested it said it had 2.5 times the range of previous radars. Don't know exactly what version of the APG-68 he was talking about.

And the captor might be a good radar, but it's still not an AESA. An AESA radar has a much better range for the same size, and also all the advantages of being harder to detect and to jam. And I don't think the captor is a very big radar either. It's probably not much bigger than the radar of the F-18.

And if the typhoon cannot jam the F-16 because it has an EASA and the F-16 can jam the typhoon, the F-16 may have the first shot..


Also, the chances that an F-16 has to face a typhoon is quite low. How many times have US F-16s had to face tornadoes? I doubt the Europeans would sell their aircraft to potential enemy of the US, especially the britishs - who often fight with the US..

Hi guys, i'm really new here, only 15 years old, so i'm kind of a nub to air warfare, interesting topic, really excited about learning news things here, anyways, maybe it would make it much clearer if you guys were to choose a specific model of the F-16, and compare it to the Typhoon, suggestions like the F-16C/D Block 50's, F-16C/D Block 52's, F-16E and F-16F, these are perhaps the most advanced versions of the F-16

just comparing the frontal RCS of the F-22 and Typhoon, Typhoon=0.05-0.25, F-22:0.001-0.05, correct? If so, do you guys mind giving me the formula used to calculate the detection and tracking range of the aircraft, thanks, sorry for so many questions

hope this could clear some of the confusion, anyways, have a nice day

1. According to the report of AW&ST, the frontal RCS of F/A-18E/F is 0.1 m2-class now.

2. The original purpose of F-16E/F and APG-80 is built for the UAE AF, and it is said that the Congress was very concerned about it (The best USA's radar techonology enters the service of the foreign AF before formally enters the service of USA AF?? That is ridiculous!!) and demanded that USAF should have the better one AESA radar in-service before selling the APG-80 to UAE. The result of this demand is the 18 F-15C with AN/APG-63V2 in USAF today. The effective detective range of the AN/APG-63V2 for the fighter-size target, according to the report of AW&ST, is about 105 NM (195 km) class. The APG-80's detective range should be less than this theoretically.

3. The Captor radar has the size that is larger than AN/APG-73 with the 70 cm-class diameter of antenna. Although it is still a traditional mechanical radar right now, it is the only traditional mechanical doppler-radar with the specific channel for ECCM, which make it hard to jam.

Captor radar will be able to be up-graded to an AESA radar in 2012~2015, the UK declared that this upgrade will increase 50~100% detective range of the radar.

Aviation Week and Space Technology (AW&ST), 2000/02/07

The maximal effective tracking range of the fighters for RCS = 1m2 target:

• F/A-22: 200 km
• JSF: 160 km
• F-15C (AN/APG-63 V2): 144 km
• F-18E (AN/APG-79): 128 km
• F-16E (AN/APG-80): 112 km
• F-15C (AN/APG-63): 96 km

PS:
1. According to the formula for the relationship between RCS and the detective range, the Captor radar should be able to track the target of RCS= 1m2 class 110~125 km+ away theoretically.

2. According to the formula for the relationship between RCS and the detective range, the APG-80 radar should be able to track the target of RCS= 0.05 ~ 0.25 m2 class 50~80 km away theoretically.