mudmoving Typhoon
Courtney,
“It was always supposed to be multi-role. The air-to-air role was done first because that was always the priority, especially as F-3 was being withdrawn from service, with the various air-to-ground capabilities to follow. It all just took a tiny, little bit longer than planned. But that's what you get when you have a a multinational consortium.”
Er, not quite Courtney. I remember accosting a Staff officer in the late 90s to ask about air-to-ground in the Eurofighter and he admitted that virtually no money was being spent on that aspect. He said that the RAF brass had realised that the machine was going to be horrifically expensive as well as late; they feared cancellation and at that time the policy was Air Defence and nothing else.
I would also ask various senior officers, “Why are we spending all this money on an agile pure AD machine, when what the RAF really needs is a long-range attack aeroplane?”. I argued that the requirement for a super- agile fighter disappeared decades ago (After the Korean war, in my estimate) . The F3 was perfectly capable of doing all the Air Interception necessary, as you would know. I was an Air Combat Instructor for many years on the Harrier, arguably one of the most interesting aeroplanes to fly in close manoeuvring combat, and I took a great interest in the INT reports on the ACM capabilities of our likely opponents. They didn’t amount to much.
But we all know the real answer to all this.
Like the Lighting, the super-agile fighter will be serious fun to fly, it will warm the hearts of small boys and Air Marshals at air displays, and the squadron shags will love it. After all, we practised all that close-in arm-wrestling for the main reason that it was FUN, although we knew there was little operational justification for it, looking at the likely threats. Don’t tell the taxpayer!
Donning tin hat and awaiting incoming!