Originally Posted by
Just This Once...
there is more than just a nod of EAP in Typhoon.
I believe that this is true although many of the influences will be fairly invisible to most observers. I understand that in the early days of the Typhoon FCS Joint Team (GE lead), there was quite a bit of debate as to whether the EAP or FBW Starfighter experience should be given most weight. A presentation comparing the performance achievements of both programmes was made to the whole team after which there were far fewer arguments.
Originally Posted by
Just This Once...
I contend that we do have the baseline required to go it alone
While technical information and techniques can be preserved much of what makes a 'technical capability' is resident in the engineers actually doing the work. Capability which isn't exercised in meaningful work is soon lost. Hopefully the Tempest is an attempt to keep the capability alive. F35 helped but the UK was technically active in a small subset of the range of capabilities. Some years ago (before retirement) I was involved in an exercise to investigate the whole range of capabilities to engineer fast jet aircraft including assessment of when the loss of capability becomes a threat to future competence. The outcomes were so concerning, they were briefed at senior level within Government (not just the MOD). I'm pretty sure that some areas of technical capability have now diminished to the extent that recovering them will take some time and investment.
EAP