typhoon staining

[mr fish]

its been bugging me since i first saw it, just what causes the soot stain on port side of the fuselage over the wing. seems too far back for a gun port, is it an apu perhaps?

[ImInaPickle]

Yes...........

APU Exhaust, Intake is below the wing.

[mr fish]

also, is the gun active yet. a little bird told me quite a muddled story about deleting it on cost grounds and then leaving it on because of the weight distribution etc,etc!

[LateArmLive]

I'm not an authority on the Typhoon, but I'm positive that all of ours have the guns fitted.

[Archimedes]

Mr F - gun story goes something like:

1. Air Marshal takes decision that gun should be deleted on cost grounds from all Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 airframes.

2. Remainder of air force mutters darkly that AM is an idiot.

3. Effort to get gun back begins.

4. Beancounters informed that removing gun will mean either:

a. Need to rewrite FCS for UK only (very, very expensive, no OBE for beancounter who signs this off)
OR:

b. Production of a specially machined lump of metal to fill void left by gun to avoid (a) above (very expensive. Asssumption of automatic OBE for beancounter signing this off moves to amber on beancounters' balanced scorecards)

BUT

c. Installing gun (cheap) will obviate need for (a) and (b), thus original plan makes best fiscal sense (OBE balanced scorecard returns to green).

5. Beancounters therefore agree all airframes should have gun, but that the gun will be 'unsupported' (i.e. no ammo, etc, etc).

6. Evidence that gun is quite handy for CAS comes from early ops in Afg with F-14s & F-15s doing strafing runs for TIC. Beancounters persuaded to modify position so that 'cannon capability' can be restored quickly if needed. Some blah on MoD website about how pilots will train to use gun in work-up to deployment, although will not train in its use on regular basis.

7. Further evidence from Afg of utility of gun leads to then-AOC 1 Grp announcing that the gun will be supported in service, although beancounters appear to be reluctant to confirm or deny that money will be available. Open source info that 3 Sqn not currently planning to make use of gun capability for QRA, while 11 Sqn 'expected' to have this option when deployed.

[BEagle]

Hasn't this idiocy been sorted out yet?

The Eurofighter pilot needs to be proficient in the roles for which the aircraft is designed. If it has a gun, he must be proficient in its use.

Anything less is utter bolleaux - so very probable that some multi-ringed buffoon thought it up.

[Wensleydale]

Sadly our lordships continue to see our flying equipment as an aeroplane and that we should be grateful that HMG spends £60m on each Typhoon. What they appear to fail to recognise is that our equipment should be classed as an overall weapons system/package. There is little point in having an all singing all dancing airframe it it lacks the flexibility to carry out its mission efficiently. If Typhoon is given its full weapons package then its detractors will be proved wrong. However if we end up with a glorified pilots' toy that is fun to fly but cannot carry out its mission then the money will have been wasted. Spoiling the ship for a halfpenny's worth of tar springs to mind (although inflationary pressure has changed the metaphor somewhat).

[SVK]

Plus, if you consider today's world of Assymetric Warfare, its quite hard to fire a warning shot across a stray Airliner / possible hijack's nose with an AMRAAM/ASRAAM!

[LowObservable]

So I took the shotgun off the wall and I fired two warning shots...

...into his head.

"Cellblock Tango", Chicago

Pilots I have talked to about this issue say that you don't fire warning shots with anything.
Until all this CAS started in the MidEast - with less anti-air threat than anyone had thought possible - the case for the gun was factually weak, because there had been barely any gun kills since the AIM-9L came along. You could make all kinds of tactical arguments but the discussion always reverted to Vietnam.
Now it's CAS. In theory there are better ways to do that kind of thing but the gun is it for now because of its low dispersion and small collateral damage risk.

[cornish-stormrider]

Can't they put either a vulcan or a GAU-8 in a pod and strap it to the centreline store? Big bullets and lots of 'em......

[South Bound]

Can't they just buy more AH64 that comes with a nice big gun (ooops, sorry, Area Weapon System) and have them forward based to support ops/TICs? Strafing from a FJ seems like a nice idea but does it really achieve much more than keeping peoples heads down? Is it accurate when delivered at typical speeds?

Genuine questions, not anti-FJ digs.

[Ivan Rogov]

CS the Vulcan is 20mm which is smaller than Mauser 27mm already in Typoon.
The podded Avenger is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-13_cannon
great idea just 20 years late, well actually it proved a bit rubbish apparently, that's why the A-10 made a come back.
P.S. You may have whaa’d me, but my spotter side couldn’t resist

SB the UK have 67 Apache, the number of airframes is not an issue, unfortunately a few are in storage.

[ORAC]

North Discusses Gun Use at Air Chiefs Conference (http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3175387&C=america)

In the 29,047 strike sorties flown in the last year by U.S. Air Force planes over Iraq and Afghanistan, the gun was the weapon of choice in more than 25 percent of engagements, said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North, who commands the 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces.........

[mr fish]

another thought occurs ,have raf (or anyone else for that matter), had cause to fire warning shots at probing bears etc ? seems just the tool given the ruskies recent flights

[LateArmLive]

I really hope not as it would be a massive international incident, especially as it all happens in international airspace :eek: