Originally Posted by
Tarnished
A huge expense in EVER having a twin seat version in the first place. It was only done because no one had the guts or the hard evidence to prove that the synthetics would be good enough to meet the modern safety case.
Oh, and to allow certain of the high priced help to get to fly it without putting in the hard hours (and clogging) ground school.....
Oh, and to allow the marketing campaigns a chance to do the same.
Tarnished
The decision to develop a two seat version goes back to the late 80s. Was it appreciated that the capability of synthetic training would be sufficient that a pilot could make his first flight on type solo?
Again, a stop could have been made at production ordering, but was their sufficient confidence in simulator training then?
As a counter, the US decided around the same time not to develop a two seat version for the F-22.
In some ways, the issue is compounded by the fact these 16 aircraft were intended to be a much smaller part fo the Typhoon fleet than they are, when our original buy was scheduled to be 230 aircraft