RAF to sell off Eurofighters upon delivery

[David Hingtgen]

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=614292004

So, no Jaguars, no Harriers, F-35's that can barely fly, and EF-2000's that are too expensive to even keep. Boy, hope they come up with some Tornado upgrades soon.

Sigh---I think the world would be better off if we just made fighters, and strike aircraft. Quit mixing them, it just leads to hideously expensive "decent" aircraft. Successfull small/medium sized multi-role planes, I think, was a one-time thing for the F-16 and F-18. The standards are so high now, no plane can do both to "modern" standards. Unless you're a HUGE plane, like an F-14, F-15, or Flanker.

[hellohikaru]

So who is gettin them ? The Austrians ?

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

hey david what is EF2000 like compared to the tornado>? can it outdo it? (i kind of think by the looks of it the ADV has more range over the Ef...but by al means the Ef can run circles round it)

[ewilen]

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet:

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticl...42&section=news

Eurofighter's wings clipped

Fri 28 May, 2004 12:36

LONDON (Reuters) - Air force pilots must restrict how they fly their newly delivered Eurofighter jets after a classified review identified safety risks, the Ministry of Defence says.

Risks from cockpit computer glitches found in testing could be "immediately catastrophic", the UK's Evening Standard newspaper reported this week, citing a leaked copy of the report.

The ministry, which has approved six of the jets for further flight trials with the Royal Air Force, acknowledged safety concerns had been raised and limits placed on the planes.

(See the link for the full story.)

[David Hingtgen]

I think that Typhoon issue was mentioned early in the F-35 thread. It's kind of like the F-16 nightmare scenario. If the F-16's pitch-control ever failed, it'd rip itself apart in moments. So it was designed to be as utterly fail-proof as possible, and that's never happened. EF-2000 has the same problem (pretty much all unstable planes do), but it apparently isn't nearly as reliable as the F-16's FBW.

Anyways--Tornado lacks power. Always has. It simply doesn't have the right engine design for a mid-to-high altitude fight. It's the fastest, most agile fighter/striker there is at low-altitude, skimming the valleys, because that is its primary role. The engines simply do not have any power up high, and it doesn't have much power, period. Also, it does not have an infinitely positionable wing like the F-14. It has 4 positions. Fully swept, fully unswept, and 2 spots inbetween. It only goes to those positions, and will never "stop" at an optimum position. Also, it only selects positions by airspeed, no other factor. F-14 takes into account G-loads and alpha when selecting wing position, and how quickly to swing them. The wings swing, but not nearly as "suitably" as the Tomcat's.

I love the Tornado, but it's frankly like a poor F-18 or F-16 in performance. The IDS's have been continually upgraded, and now that they've got new laser designators, ALARM, and the Storm Shadow--they're a heck of a strike aircraft. But the ADV is still the same F3, with Skyflash and lack of power, and not that great of a radar. (For some reason, F3's do not use AMRAAM---there's apparently something about the latest Skyflash missile that they actually prefer to keep using them) And I prefer the ADV over the IDS!

Overall, the F3 is really not a fighter, more of an interceptor. Think MiG-25, but slower. Designed for sheer air defense, not air superiority.

[ewilen]

Wasn't someone just recently arguing that the Tomcat (or a swing wing NATF) could be made stealthy because the wings would mainly be used in just two positions? So how much does the Tornado give up by only having four positions?

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

does it matter?the tornado isn't stealth, was not meant to be and was designed in the late 60s.

[David Hingtgen]

That was me. See, the thing is---if you are "turnin and burnin" in air combat, you are NOT stealthy, even if you're a F-23 with the bays closed. Stealth planes are stealthy when they're level. Not inverted, banked, or pitching sharply. And their IR signature in full afterburner is also going to be huge. So, if you had a swing-wing fully aft, nice and "aligned" with the other edges, cruising along at moderate engine power, you'd be stealthy like an F-22. But once you got close and in an actual dogfight, ALL planes will "lose" their stealthiness once they're at "awkward" attitudes, so you might was well start swinging the wings in that situation. But you could do a nice stealth bomb-run, and long-range interception. Only when you were actively moving the wings in intermediate positions would you lose your stealth, and if you're in a situation which requires that (air combat), any other plane would have its RCS go way up just from the moves it would be perfoming.

As for the Tornado--well, neither the F-14 or F3 are stealthy at all, so a better swing-wing system is simply better.

Edited June 2, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

id also like to add that by the time an F22 enters a dogfight, stealth is irrelevant. BY that time the plane is detectable to radar, it is never really invisible to begin with on radar just a small RCS. To get my point across play DID's total air war and you wil see what I mean. you are only stealth within a certain range, get closer and the enemy can see you. once I understood this it made the game all the more enjoyable. Especially shutting off my radar after terminal guidance on my amramm is no longer needed.,..,watching the flanker get blown up while i hunt down his wingmen...ah ea.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Once again:

HAW Haw!

[Graham]

I've done a lot of reading on the Eurofighter, it's one of my favorite modern military aircraft. On paper it looks amazing, especially in it's full-up Tranche 3 configuration with all the bells and whistles fitted.

IMO it's the best multi-role fighter in the world, except for the F/A-22, well on paper anyway. It's certainly capable of running rings around older jets like the F-15 and has indeed done so in training exercises by all accounts.

However, like most modern planes it is a very complicated peice of machinery and software and due to a certain lack of both political and financial report at home, it's never really had the full support it deserves.

It would be a real shame for it to be scrapped as once the bugs are worked out it would be an immensly capable aircraft.

Graham

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

very very capable. From what i remember it can also supercruise with just ONE engine!

[That NOS Guy]

0wn3d

[GreatMoose]

Overall, the F3 is really not a fighter, more of an interceptor. Think MiG-25, but slower. Designed for sheer air defense, not air superiority.

But she sure is PURTY!!! I love the F3, one of the most handsome fighters ever.

[GreatMoose]

By the way, what does that leave? Tornados and Hawks only (and a few Typhoons)? Not a great way to have an effective airforce. Ooo! Ooo! i know! They're going to start building TSR.2s!

Edited June 2, 2004 by GreatMoose

[ewilen]

From my reading of the article, the RAF isn't planning on reselling all of them, just some of them. But what they really want are the future (tranche 3?) block--the ones optimized for bombing.

[F-ZeroOne]

I've done a lot of reading on the Eurofighter, it's one of my favorite modern military aircraft. On paper it looks amazing, especially in it's full-up Tranche 3 configuration with all the bells and whistles fitted.

IMO it's the best multi-role fighter in the world, except for the F/A-22, well on paper anyway. It's certainly capable of running rings around older jets like the F-15 and has indeed done so in training exercises by all accounts.

The story doing the rounds is that a couple of F-15s jumped a couple of Typhoons on an exercise. One fast counter move later, and the F-15s suddenly found themselves in the unfamiliar position of being chased all round the sky on full 'burner by two very annoyed RAF pilots...

Sigh. Still, it was ever thus for the British armed forces. I think theres a rule somewhere that we can't actually go into combat without all sorts of equipment hassles and shortages because otherwise it just wouldn't be, well, cricket...

[Nilrem]

I suppose it beats having dozens of the aircraft sitting in hangers practically rotting (well not quite that bad) for years before there are the pilots to actually fly them.

It wasn't long ago that the RAF/MOD admitted that they were going to have a load of brand new, high cost attack (i think) helicopters sitting in hangers for years because the pilot training was going so slow.

F-ZeroOne, of course it's not cricket unless we give the enemy some advantages.

It just wouldn't do to show up fully equiped and ready for the fight, we might make them look bad.

[ewilen]

The story doing the rounds is that a couple of F-15s jumped a couple of Typhoons on an exercise. One fast counter move later, and the F-15s suddenly found themselves in the unfamiliar position of being chased all round the sky on full 'burner by two very annoyed RAF pilots...

Sigh. Still, it was ever thus for the British armed forces. I think theres a rule somewhere that we can't actually go into combat without all sorts of equipment hassles and shortages because otherwise it just wouldn't be, well, cricket...

I think if you go to the source you'll find the Eagles were mission-loaded F-15E's. I.e., not a remarkable result. Had it been F-15C's things might well have been very different.

[F-ZeroOne]

The story doing the rounds is that a couple of F-15s jumped a couple of Typhoons on an exercise. One fast counter move later, and the F-15s suddenly found themselves in the unfamiliar position of being chased all round the sky on full 'burner by two very annoyed RAF pilots... 

Sigh. Still, it was ever thus for the British armed forces. I think theres a rule somewhere that we can't actually go into combat without all sorts of equipment hassles and shortages because otherwise it just wouldn't be, well, cricket... 

I think if you go to the source you'll find the Eagles were mission-loaded F-15E's. I.e., not a remarkable result. Had it been F-15C's things might well have been very different.

A little checking does seem to back-up that they were -15Es. The article I saw about this did say the details have become a little exaggerated. Still, you could at least let us "line-shoot" a bit - we need the good news!

Mind you, even if they were -15Cs the result may have been the same - a couple of Jaguars - yes, Jaguars! - supposedly "shot" down a couple of F-15s once...

[David Hingtgen]

Yes, that was one of the great embarrassments of the USAFE, brand-new F-15C's losing to Jaguars. I have no idea where the full story is, I don't think it's in one of my books.

Basically, the F-15's expected everybody to operate in pairs, like almost everybody did nowadays. However, the Jags were operating in threes, and the third guy got the F-15's every time.

[Graham]

That ScotlandonSunday article is really annoying. Same old BS from reporters who have no idea what they are talking about.

The Eurofighter was not designed just to fight Cold War Scenarios. It's a true multi-role aircraft and will handle very nicely any conflict, land sea or air, that you throw it into thank you very much.

And it is most definitely not obselete. The only plane that has an edge on it is the F/A-22.

Idiots.

Graham

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

I don't really trust these newspaper articles.

It may just be that they want to do a bit of exporting first. Apparantly there was a false report running out there that Singapore had inked a deal to buy 20. The local papers here later stated that it wasn't true and a decision between the F-15T and EF2000 will only take place early 2005.

I got a funny feeling the EF2000 will be bought by Singapore. The one and only local paper has been running propagandalistic articles now and then on how advanced the EF2000 (either that or BAE is bribing the editor) is and how it is better then the F-15 etc etc. The way things work here, the articles are just to brainwash the public into thinking what a magnificent decision the govt. has made when the deal is finally announced next year.

[David Hingtgen]

Well it's not like I get ANY coverage on the Eurofighter here in the US! Reports from biased Scotsmen are better than nothing...

PS--Boeing reports (yesterday) the first F-15K is in final assembly.

[Noyhauser]

I was reading a report out there by a reseach think tank and it predicted that the EF-2000 will be the F-16 of the future in terms of export sales. I didn't look at the research methodology or the findings, and I'll try to dig it up.

A larger project in the European mindset is the new A-400M Military transport. I'll state this now, if the European do this right, they will be sittin on top of a gold mine. The 400 is a Airbus built Transport plane, that can do many of the things that a C-17 can but at 1/2 to 2/3rds the Life cycle costs. This is a market that is completely under represented, since the US just goes with the larger C-17 and C-5 to carry out Strategic Airlift. However these planes are completely unfeasable for Smaller militaries. Ther astronomical costs associated with them make them unnatractive and on top of that are too big to be of use. In Discussions I've had with RAF personnel in Strat Air, they don't even use most of their capacity on their recently leased C-17s because they are too large.

Most Western states today operate the C-130, which is too small and has too short legs to carry out the missions that most states need them to fulfil.

In the post cold war era, Strategic lift is fast becoming a major mission profile that airforces must be able to carry out. The ability to deploy units fast to a crisis point necessitates the need for fast lift. However the C-130s can't get units there, so the A-400M is deisigned to fill the gap between the C-17 at a c-130 budget. The only other compeditor on the market is the russian An 70X, which has better performance, and will be built before the A-400M, however does not have the financial backing of all these western states.

The A-400M main problem is in itself, rather if the new European Oversight body, OCCAR (its a french acronym) can successfully oversee this project. There are a lot of questions on whether the 400 will be able to meet the deadline, and there is a lot riding on it. With the exception of the UK, most have put off purchasing a Strat lift airframe in order to purchase the A-400. If it is on time, likely every country that has a C-130 now, will buy the A-400 instead, and more orders will probably come. Like the A-300 before it the Airbus's entry into this market looks like its sure to make a big impact.

[David Hingtgen]

A300 took a long time before it got acceptance. The early years had very few orders (even in Europe, single digits for quite a while), and they literally had to give them for free to Eastern before they got in the US. (Nice little lease deal--if EA didn't like them after a year, they were returned at no cost--if they wanted to keep them, they'd get a massive discount, basically equal to what it would have cost to lease them for that time)

Still, it wasn't until the A320 came out that Airbus really did well at all.

And of course, the early years were full of "American English" vs "British English" difficulties, mainly regarding tech manuals. In the famous paraphrased words of the head of EA maintenance:

"WTF is a 30mm spanner and why would I use a torch in the avionics bay?"

[Major Johnathan]

Isn't the Eurofighter the one that looks awfully close to the F-16XL..., only they stuck 2 engines in the Eurofighter. I hate conglomerations, let the Brits build British stuff, Germans build German stuff and Italians build their thing... individually they built some stupendous planes over the years.

My number one peeve with the F-35 is that America can't supply them independantly. I hate the idea of being reliant on countries that may have a beef with you one day for military hardware. But as we know, America is just utterly incapable of making anything on it's own anymore... at least the Europeans are mired in the same foolish thinking with the EuroFighter...

How is it Russia keeps producing some outstanding planes without much of an economy and without globalist conglomerations?

[David Hingtgen]

I would guess the LACK of lobbyists, congress, and other governmental issues. They're left to their own devices to simply build planes. And not multi-multi-multi-role multi-nation ones either. If they need it to do something else, they make a new variant, or start from scratch.

[Noyhauser]

Hmm I think we have to give Airbus 300 some credit. The sucess of the 300s was finding a niche market that was not forseen before. With development abd refinement of the Hub and spoke system of Airline travel (which resulted in the need for larger commuter planes), as well as the removal of the FAA''s restriction on Transatlantic flights needing two engines, the 300s (and the 310) were very well suited to capture a large market share.

Yes they did give EA a great deal but it was well worth it. It was very much like the introduction of the shopping cart in a grocery store. The first shopping carts were shunned by people, so the owner paid some people to look like buyers using the shopping carts. People then started using them. The A-300 was kinda like that, from absolutely no sales, to 133 firm orders and 26% market share by value. By the end of 1979, Airbus had 256 orders from 32 customers and 81 aircraft in service with 14 operators. Thats fairly impressive numbers from a company that didn't exist 9 years earlier.

[Noyhauser]

sn't the Eurofighter the one that looks awfully close to the F-16XL..., only they stuck 2 engines in the Eurofighter. I hate conglomerations, let the Brits build British stuff, Germans build German stuff and Italians build their thing... individually they built some stupendous planes over the years.

Yeah and they would blow the bottom out of their defence budgets. Completely unfeasable, European NEED to coalece their arms markets or their defence industrial base will completely fade away. I could write a 30 page paper on why. IT comes down to one phrase, economies of scale..

My number one peeve with the F-35 is that America can't supply them independantly. I hate the idea of being reliant on countries that may have a beef with you one day for military hardware. But as we know, America is just utterly incapable of making anything on it's own anymore... at least the Europeans are mired in the same foolish thinking with the EuroFighter...

David do you know what Augustine's 16 law is?

How is it Russia keeps producing some outstanding planes without much of an economy and without globalist conglomerations?

#2 things.. Huge amount of people who are left over from the soviet era, and Russia is the second arms exporting country in the world. Effectively Russia's R&D costs are very low compared to the US. Give it another decade and they will not be able to keep up.

[Nied]

How is it Russia keeps producing some outstanding planes without much of an economy and without globalist conglomerations?

Because they don't ever actually build them! That and most of thier latest planes are leftovers from the Cold War that the Russians fly for marketing purposes (Mig 1.44, Su-47, and the vast majority of the Super Flanker series).

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

oh yea and not to mention russia doesnt have any active Su37 sqyuadrons...hell I dont even think they even have the plane itself! in the militaryu! ONly sukhoi flies it i believe its not an active military plane...russia wishes it was but it just don got the money. Russia makes a lot of money off of exporting so they can make snazzy protos...but for other countries to buy. Their air force themselves is too poor to affor..at one year i think 97 they were at a rate of one new plane altogehter for the air force per YEAR.

[Druna Skass]

oh yea and not to mention russia doesnt have any active Su37 sqyuadrons...hell I dont even think they even have the plane itself! in the militaryu! ONly sukhoi flies it i believe its not an active military plane...russia wishes it was but it just don got the money. Russia makes a lot of money off of exporting so they can make snazzy protos...but for other countries to buy. Their air force themselves is too poor to affor..at one year i think 97 they were at a rate of one new plane altogehter for the air force per YEAR.

That's pretty sad. A country that has two companies comming out with some impressive pieces of equipment, yet they can't afford any of them.

[That NOS Guy]

That's pretty sad. A country that has two companies comming out with some impressive pieces of equipment, yet they can't afford any of them.

Just like American public schools are thinking of going to Linux simply because Microsoft is too expensive?

-NOS

Hey, at least there's always Northrup/Grumman

[F-ZeroOne]

Yes, that was one of the great embarrassments of the USAFE, brand-new F-15C's losing to Jaguars. I have no idea where the full story is, I don't think it's in one of my books.

Basically, the F-15's expected everybody to operate in pairs, like almost everybody did nowadays. However, the Jags were operating in threes, and the third guy got the F-15's every time.

Thanks for confirming that, David - I've only seen it in one sentence in one book and have always wondered how much truth there was to it. Of course, using three against two might not strike people as a fair fight, but in "real" air combat you try and avoid a fair fight as much as possible!

I've always been a bit skeptical of newpaper military coverage ever since I saw one list a A-10 as having a 300mm gun...!