Belgium selects F-35 over Typhoon

[chopper2004]

Belgium has selected the F-35 over the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Cheers

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/belgium-reportedly-picks-f-35-to-replace-f-16-fleet/?no_cache=1

[MPN11]

Brave Belgium. That will screw their Defence Budget.

[Onceapilot]

34 aircraft and four spare engines. I presume that there is actually a contract for ongoing engine overhaul and the four spares just act as the rotating buffer? I guess that is enough, if they accept lots of grounded aircraft in times of high aircraft utilisation, such as a war! :rolleyes:

OAP

[Pontius Navigator]

I guess that is enough, if they accept lots of grounded aircraft in times of high aircraft utilisation, such as a war! :rolleyes:

OAP
There's an oxymoron in there somewhere. Anyway, best to play safe.

[Onceapilot]

It could be they need a few more of them? ;)

OAP

[Rigga]

Belgium has selected the F-35 over the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Cheers

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/belgium-reportedly-picks-f-35-to-replace-f-16-fleet/?no_cache=1

So did the UK!

[Buster15]

Difficult to see Typhoon getting many more orders.
Fantastic jet but very expensive and of course it isn't 5th Generation...

[GlobalNav]

34 aircraft and four spare engines. I presume that there is actually a contract for ongoing engine overhaul and the four spares just act as the rotating buffer? I guess that is enough, if they accept lots of grounded aircraft in times of high aircraft utilisation, such as a war! :rolleyes:

OAP
When was the last time Belgium went to war? When was the last time they had a difficult budget to pay for? Reality.

[F-16GUY]

When was the last time Belgium went to war? When was the last time they had a difficult budget to pay for? Reality.

December....

https://www.blogbeforeflight.net/2017/12/belgian-f-16-syria-iraq-isis-daesh.html

[Pure Pursuit]

Difficult to see Typhoon getting many more orders.
Fantastic jet but very expensive and of course it isn't 5th Generation...

it’s not even 4.5....

I suspect tha the Qatar and Omani orders may well be the last. Shame we didn’t buy Super Hornets, far better in most respects with much more customer focussed support.

[Pontius Navigator]

December....

https://www.blogbeforeflight.net/2017/12/belgian-f-16-syria-iraq-isis-daesh.html
Gift to satirists, you couldn't make it up.
Kleine-Brogel, Dec. 26, 2017 - Early this morning, four Belgian combat aircraft took off from an air base in the middle east for the last time. The fighter jets have taken the road back to Belgium after 18 months of operations over Syria and Iraq. This marks the end of the Desert Falcon mission for the F-16.
Maybe the ran out of engines and had to be towed.☺

[melmothtw]

Brave Belgium. That will screw their Defence Budget.

With these to be delivered in the mid-2020s at the earliest, the F-35A will be significantly cheaper to procure and operate than any of the competition by then,

[SASless]

One could follow the roads (IFR NAV) back to Belgium could they not?:E

[Gericault]

Be interesting to see how this affects Rafale. Dassault struggling to sort the hugely reduced India order due, I’m led to believe by offset issues. And if Typhoon is allegedly gen 4.5, what can Dassault do to the French fleet to keep them part of the night one day one team that their politicians still seem to want when the entry level is F35? Heard a lot of French senior airmen saying stealth is irrelevant, but that could possibly be because they don’t have the capability. Guess we just need the Germans to tilt towards F35 and the European club is almost complete without France. A voir.....

[glad rag]

With these to be delivered in the mid-2020s at the earliest, the F-35A will be significantly cheaper to procure and operate than any of the competition by then,

Well played, stops them getting the early build dross....

[NutLoose]

Shame we didn’t buy Super Hornets, far better in most respects with much more customer focussed support.

And you could have lobbed them off a Carrier.. if only........

[Jackonicko]

"Shame we didn’t buy Super Hornets, far better in most respects...."

How, exactly?

Not in terms of being able to defeat the perceived threat, which seems to be the key.....

[Onceapilot]

"Shame we didn’t buy Super Hornets, far better in most respects...."

How, exactly?

Not in terms of being able to defeat the perceived threat, which seems to be the key.....

So, why the hell are we buying a gen 5 jet for floating about on a vulnerable gin palace at huge cost when the perceived threat is here? :hmm:

OAP

[pr00ne]

Onceapilot,

What perceived threat?

As we are buying BOTH Typhoon and F-35 surely we have all bases covered?

[Onceapilot]

Onceapilot,

What perceived threat?

As we are buying BOTH Typhoon and F-35 surely we have all bases covered?

The argument that Europe needs gen 5 is the perceived threat bit.
The UK F-35 buy has been lynched by the Admirals and misguided Pollies for an inappropriate expeditionary warfare UK capability.

OAP

[SASless]

Was the decision to go with the F-35 due to the Ski Ramp design of the Carrier....or did the decision to buy the F-35 STVOL drive the design of the carrier?

[pr00ne]

Onceapilot,

Says you.

SASless,

I think the decision to go with STVOL F-35 drove the carrier design.

[Onceapilot]

Proone,
If you have a valid point, make it. Don't fish for a response then parrot back a silly comment. :)

OAP

[SASless]

Just how large an "expeditionary" warfare capability does the F-35 purchase by the UK provide?

As an aside....how much of a defense can the F-35 force provide should the Russians decide to come west and take up residence by force?

Are we talking about a bit of sacrifice for National Pride on the one hand....and a pipe dream on the other?

Good is fine....but it takes numbers to last in a war.

[pr00ne]

Onceapilot,

Don't be silly.

SASLess,
Two squadrons of F-35's on one or two carriers provides a significant expeditionary capability. Should the Russians decide to come west and take up residence the reply will be Trident and NOT F-35's! Which is why they won't.

[Buster15]

it’s not even 4.5....

I suspect tha the Qatar and Omani orders may well be the last. Shame we didn’t buy Super Hornets, far better in most respects with much more customer focussed support.

Not really sure what constitutes 4.5 but I have often seen Typhoon classed as that.

Anyway the Customer Support statement is a surprise (to me anyway). Quite a thing to say if it is aimed at BAE. I Had heard that Boeing provided poor levels of support.

[orca]

Jacko,

Given the choice - against any current threat - I would take APG-79 plus MIDS JTRS over anything the Typhoon has today or will have tomorrow.

[Jackonicko]

Not convinced by the WFoV afforded by a repositioner, tomorrow, Orca? Not convinced by Meteor today? Not convinced that you might need Typhoon's kinematic performance advantage?

[orca]

Errr. No.

I’d rather have high quality tracks at proven AESA ranges and the ability to share them with whomsoever I please.

[Onceapilot]

Errr. No.

I’d rather have high quality tracks at proven AESA ranges and the ability to share them with whomsoever I please.
Probably, right up until you encounter an unseen bogey with better kinematics? :sad:

OAP

[orca]

Unseen - likely to be a pickle in any aeroplane and far less likely in a AESA equipped fully linked aeroplane than a mech scan with a basic MIDS fit.

Oh and for the late spot - I’d gladly take the AIM-9X and JHMCS combo to that knife fight.

[Onceapilot]

Unseen - likely to be a pickle in any aeroplane and far less likely in a AESA equipped fully linked aeroplane than a mech scan with a basic MIDS fit.

Oh and for the late spot - I’d gladly take the AIM-9X and JHMCS combo to that knife fight.


So, how about when you are outnumbered? (More threats than your missiles with no run-out ability).

OAP

[orca]

Just quickly explain how that happens and when...and how it varies from aircraft type to aircraft type?

Not sure I get your banter.

I do think that getting into a tussle where post commit you end up with no munitions, and can’t run, and can’t be of use with sensors and link...is far more likely if you have poor sensors and sub optimal link...

[Onceapilot]

Not trying to be too clever but, if you say "I am happy with better missiles/sensors/sights", how about when 1 bogey turns up more than you have missiles and you can't run away?

OAP

[SASless]

No gun....no fighter!

The F-4 proved that in Vietnam

[Onceapilot]

Another interesting aspect about the LO "stealth" hugely expensive fighter/bombers is that they seem to be pretty much creatures of the night. Optical/IR in day/VFR seems to remain a vulnerability. Maybe the LO empire is night precision bombing but day fighting could still be owned by high spec Typhoon in much greater numbers for your $. Anyway, it is all probably wasted. Eastern doctrine seems to be leaning heavily towards first use of nuke missiles if they feel the need. With no ABM or dispersed capability, there would soon be no defence. :uhoh:

OAP

[Pontius Navigator]

OAP, I know at one time BAE experimented with day LO using adaptive lighting.

[Pontius Navigator]

SASless,

I think the decision to go with STVOL F-35 drove the carrier design.
I thought it was a circular argument.

​​​​If we went cat and trap we would have needed and angled deck, etc and a system for powering the cat whereas a ramp was cheaper.

So it was really money rather than capability.

Cat&trap got you a cheaper more capable variant.
Ramp got you a cheaper deck and more versatile and expensive aircraft.

[SASless]

Or.....could ya'll just not part with the Harrier tradition and thus went with another "Jump Jet" design?

That surely drove the USMC's thinking I believe.

[Pontius Navigator]

It would certainly have been a factor hence my versatility comment. Also with only one deck cat&trap doesn't give you any redundancy. At least you are not as dependent on ship speed, there are more landing spots if someone messes up, and ultimately probably a lot more emergency decks around. 'Over the side' was an expedient way of getting a clear deck when aircraft were cheap and plentiful.

I might also say that we have a history of major reconstruction through life so adding catobar and an angled deck would not be impossible in 20 years time.

[glad rag]

The argument that Europe needs gen 5 is the perceived threat bit.
The UK F-35 buy has been lynched by the Admirals and misguided Pollies for an inappropriate expeditionary warfare UK capability.

OAP

Seconded. :D

[glad rag]

It would certainly have been a factor hence my versatility comment. Also with only one deck cat&trap doesn't give you any redundancy. At least you are not as dependent on ship speed, there are more landing spots if someone messes up, and ultimately probably a lot more emergency decks around. 'Over the side' was an expedient way of getting a clear deck when aircraft were cheap and plentiful.

I might also say that we have a history of major reconstruction through life so adding catobar and an angled deck would not be impossible in 20 years time.The truth on the Navy carrier debacle? Industry got away with murderSold 'adaptable' ships which couldn't be adapted[be nice to resize text in html too]Ref.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/06/defence_committee_carrier_badness/

[Jackonicko]

Orca,

That's most enlightening, thank you.

Do you have experience flying Typhoon/using Captor M?

What makes you rate JHMCS and 9X higher than Typhoon's HMSS and ASRAAM/IRIS-T?

[Onceapilot]

OAP, I know at one time BAE experimented with day LO using adaptive lighting.
Hi Pontious,
Yes, there was quite a bit of coverage about this. I have not seen anything more recently though? Cheers

OAP

[orca]

Hi Jacko,

No - I have only experience of Blue Vixen, APG-73 and APG-79. Discussing them at length with Typhoon drivers has led me to believe that the 79 is a far better system than Captor M. Same goes for the link fit.

You will see that I have never compared the two helmet mounted systems or heaters you mention - just stated that I’d be more than happy to fight pop ups with the JHMCS / 9X combo. Not sure how good the Typhoon helmet is - but I did hear that the guys didn’t like the weight and didn’t wear it for some sorties. Not something I encountered with JHMCS.

[TwoStep]

Oh and for the late spot - I’d gladly take the AIM-9X and JHMCS combo to that knife fight.

AIM-9X...a weapon that failed to shoot down a 1960s era Su-22?

[orca]

Valid point Reginald - but zero from one might be a little on the ‘statistically non significant’ side; or it might not - I wasn’t there!

[glad rag]

Errr. No.

I’d rather have high quality tracks at proven AESA ranges and the ability to share them with whomsoever I please.
Really?
You need to get up to speed.
Or is this one of those brochure capabilities that will be along shortly after $$$$$$$$$ rebuild ?

[orca]

Yes Glad Rag really, and I would consider myself as close to ‘up to speed’ as I need to to arrive at a considered opinion.

The comment you’ve highlighted is in response to a debate within the thread essentially espousing that we should have bought Super Hornet, not Typhoon. I don’t agree, I think we should have bought F-15E - a long time ago. But was making the point that I would prefer to go to war in the Super Hornet than the Typhoon due mainly to the sensor and link fit it carries. (There’s obvs the chance that had we bought a full up US system that we’d have found a way of retrofitting it into mediocrity.)

Rather than me explain how far behind the RAF is in this - just google NIFC-CA. Then tell me how you’re going to do it with Typhoon/ E3D/ LVT terminals etc. Then have a look at how long this has been working for and we’ve been avoiding implementing it.

I did my last Red Flag in an aeroplane with this technology. It made the whole thing very straight forward compared to countless CQWIs and TLTs. I’ll take any other operator’s opinion as to what I’ve missed?

[Jackonicko]

Begging your indulgence, Orca,

I did google NIFC-CA, and it seems to offer exactly what Typhoon now has with Meteor and the latest Phase Enhancement. Clearly that's something that the Super Hornet has had for some years, while it's new to Typhoon - and it probably needs some wrinkles ironing out. However, using offboard sensors for targeting, and targeting for a wingman's missiles, would seem to have been something Typhoon has been supposed to be able to do for rather longer than it has had Meteor.

I'm still not really clear as to why MIDS on the Super Bug would be so superior to MIDS on Typhoon (are we talking about the difference between LVT and JTRS, or is there more to it than that?), nor as to why APG-79 should necessarily give better tracks at longer range than Captor - especially at the limits of azimuth coverage (where physics tells us that AESA range will drop off markedly), nor why the fused combination of Captor, PIRATE (not something that has been working well until very recently) and DASS, combined with good Mission Data, is so much poorer than Super Hornet's sensor suite?

Parametrics are unnecessary and could be useful to the unfriendly, I am just asking for broad principles, here!

[orca]

Hi Jacko,

Pirate is (I believe) fabulous...but the basis of my opinion is that the fundamental here is the ability to send enough information with a small enough latency for a weapon to acquire and guide.

A mech scan can do it for host platform weapons and has been shown to be able to do it in some circumstances for wingmen via link.

What AESA gives you is ultra low latency - because you dont wait for the next sweep to update a track. It also gives a higher quality track at range (and therefore higher range) due to the shape of the beam. The update rate allows each player to scan a huge volume of airspace - siro +/- 60 degrees in azimuth and elevation and all tracks are high quality. Mech scans can’t do this. This combined with a better MIDS fit allows you to off board more messages. In other words - it becomes ‘to everybody, every day’. MIDS JTRS keeps on giving because you can get your own radar to do its own mini scan around MIDS tracks - whilst doing its thing at not far off the speed of light!

In slack handfuls MIDS JTRS takes data rates up above 1Mbps in comparison with about 100kbps for other terminals.

I am a big supporter of the AESA radar upgrades planned for Typhoon but have lost track on how they are progressing.

Meteor’s latent kinematic capability will be unlocked by a AESA and conversely not maximised with mech scan. No point having a long stick and not being able to see far enough! (My opinion only.).

[Asturias56]

Hitech capability is all well & good but what about numbers?

The Me 262 was well ahead in WW2 but the Allies swamped them with numbers.

[orca]

It’s more a case of information being more important than metal.

[Asturias56]

You can have all the info you want but if there are no aircaft available it's not much use...

this is what they found out at GCHQ in 1940-41

[Bing]

Hitech capability is all well & good but what about numbers?

The Me 262 was well ahead in WW2 but the Allies swamped them with numbers.

The 262 was also primarily used in the wrong role thanks to the renowned air strategist Lance Corporal Hitler so it may be unhelpful drawing direct comparisons. After all would the Battle of Britain have gone so well if the RAF was equipped with 10 x more Sopwith Camels than it had Hurricanes?

[Buster15]

The 262 was also primarily used in the wrong role thanks to the renowned air strategist Lance Corporal Hitler so it may be unhelpful drawing direct comparisons. After all would the Battle of Britain have gone so well if the RAF was equipped with 10 x more Sopwith Camels than it had Hurricanes?

Remind me; how did we go from F35 and Typhoon to Sopwith Camels ?????

[MPN11]

Dunno, but my grandfather was stationed at RNAS Dunkirk in WW1 repairing/maintaining Sopwith Camels, which is VERY close to Belgium.

And Camels would probably be low-observable, difficult to dog-fight and generally a bu§§er to hit. So ... cheap option for an oppressed Defence budget.

[Bing]

Remind me; how did we go from F35 and Typhoon to Sopwith Camels ?????

100th Anniversary of the RAF. Although it normally goes Sopwith Camel, Typhoon, F-35.

[TBM-Legend]

As it is said, Quantity has a quality all of its own! ....or he who get's there the fastest with the mostest wins!

Belgium now joins with Holland, Denmark, Norway, UK and USA with the F-35. The Typhoons and Rafaels are pretty much orphans in their region and it looks like Germany may join the F-35 club...

[Jackonicko]

Hi Orca,

You're not alone in being a big supporter of the AESA radar upgrades planned for Typhoon.

You're even less alone in having lost track on how they are progressing.

After a period during which one Eurofighter partner nation seemed eager to just put CAESAR into production, in time to be installed in T3 jets, while another wanted something a little more advanced and a little more modern, the advantages of Ferranti/GEC/Selex Edinburgh's repositioner became evident to all, and a common 'Captor E' baseline was accepted, with three different variants - one for export, one for three of the four core partner nations and another for the UK. That was the last time, in retrospect, that I felt that I really knew what was going on, or at least when EF GmbH, the partner companies, the customer air forces, Euroradar, and the Euroradar companies were all saying pretty much the same thing (or nothing, in some cases).

It soon became less clear and much less simple.

Before contracts were signed in about 2014 it was bad enough, but at least it was (just!) a matter of constantly changing what the basic export, core partner and British radars were called, and of Selex and EADS briefing slightly different things to try and highlight their particular technlogies, and to make it seem that particular things had already been decided in an effort to grab more of the eventual four nation radar programme when it did become a reality.

But after contracts were signed (when they really had to start things moving in order to have an AESA radar for Kuwait (and Qatar) things became far less clear.

At each successive trade show there was a completely different story. At one show we were told that there would be a core radar programme with three different variants, and that the UK radar 2 might even have a completely different antenna, to meet more stringent requirements, including EA. Then, at the next show it was said that there was a single common radar programme, and that any differences between versions would be trivial and limited to software, and that the basic common radar would meet everyone's requirements. Then at the next show we were back to there being two basic standards of hardware - one for export and core nations, the other for the UK and (variously) perhaps Germany, or Italy, or a Saudi retrofit.

The story was changing at least once per year.

The status of the UK Radar 2, in particular, changed with astonishing regularity "ebbing and flowing with the career of Will S********", according to one senior RAF officer. (Wonder if he's on PPrune, because I bet he's got an interesting story to tell?)

When the rest of the partners were driving hardest in the one common radar direction, it was even suggested that the UK might have a different AESA altogether, possibly one based on Bright Adder, though no-one ever seemed to agree on exactly what this elusive TDP was, and uttering the words "Bright" and "Adder" sometimes became a way for journalists to wind up unco-operative briefers, or to try to demonstrate that they knew more than they actually did (while actually proving their cluelessness!) in just the same way as using the words 'Restore' or 'Strongbow' tended to.

No-one has ever explained how a UK radar 2 would actually be funded. Even developing a different variant of an AESA Captor would seem to be an expensive undertaking, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of money in the UK Typhoon future developments pot......

Telling the Belgians that they could have Radar 2, with this in mind, seems to have been pretty bloody bold!

Thanks for your last post - I found it really educational and thought-provoking.

[Jackonicko]

......It also gives a higher quality track at range (and therefore higher range) due to the shape of the beam.

How do you mean, Orca?

[glad rag]

Hi Jacko,

Pirate is (I believe) fabulous...but the basis of my opinion is that the fundamental here is the ability to send enough information with a small enough latency for a weapon to acquire and guide.

A mech scan can do it for host platform weapons and has been shown to be able to do it in some circumstances for wingmen via link.

What AESA gives you is ultra low latency - because you dont wait for the next sweep to update a track. It also gives a higher quality track at range (and therefore higher range) due to the shape of the beam. The update rate allows each player to scan a huge volume of airspace - siro +/- 60 degrees in azimuth and elevation and all tracks are high quality. Mech scans can’t do this. This combined with a better MIDS fit allows you to off board more messages. In other words - it becomes ‘to everybody, every day’. MIDS JTRS keeps on giving because you can get your own radar to do its own mini scan around MIDS tracks - whilst doing its thing at not far off the speed of light!

In slack handfuls MIDS JTRS takes data rates up above 1Mbps in comparison with about 100kbps for other terminals.

I am a big supporter of the AESA radar upgrades planned for Typhoon but have lost track on how they are progressing.

Meteor’s latent kinematic capability will be unlocked by a AESA and conversely not maximised with mech scan. No point having a long stick and not being able to see far enough! (My opinion only.).







Thank you for that info orca. For years they [we] tried to achieve paired firings on the F4k it never was successful analogue systems, as you state just didn't have the capacity to communicate.

With the digital era, things have changed.

[orca]

Hi Jacko,

If you think about an AESA as a Raster type scan but using a pencil beam - so a thinner elongated main lobe than a Mech Scan - with the ability to scan at a very high rate you get the benefit of more power in a dense lobe. (Although the AESA May actually use s pseudo random scan in practice).
AESA can also have a better signal to noise ratio than other systems.
Contributing to a longer range track is also the ability of the radar set to achieve multiple inputs by prioritising the scan around an initial hit. As discussed before there is no real loss in overall performance as the scan rate is so high. Rather than waiting for the next re-visit of the main lobe in two, four (or so) scans time - the set scans around the first detection and therefore track builds where a mech scan may simply not have the updates to meet its own ‘threshold’ for displaying a track.

[LowObservable]

What AESA gives you is ultra low latency - because you dont wait for the next sweep to update a track.

When I heard John Roulston brief Captor in 2002, he stressed that the radar was engineered with a lightweight antenna, robust gimbals and big motors so that it was not stuck in a constant raster pattern. It could intersperse the search raster with loopbacks to hit high-priority targets. Roulston (correctly) believed that AESA was not ready (even the APG-79 had a lot of bugs that needed to be worked out) and that commercial RF technology would make it less costly and more efficient in a later generation. Edinburgh was also talking about repositioners by the early 2000s, to support "shoot and crank" tactics with Meteor-type weapons.

Returning to the land of moules and lambic: while Eurofighter was not selected, they seem to have given the Borg a harder time than before, unless the Belgians are telling porkies about their terms. Not only do they seem to have secured a lower price than the partners, but by buying in 2021 they should get the new processor and displays, without being assessed for a share of R&D or having to pony up for upgrades on pre-2021 jets.

[orca]

I’m sure that the logic holds - that a mech raster scan can be interrupted to conduct a ‘high density update’ on a contact - that’s essentially a high fidelity/ confirmatory Track While Scan. The AESA gives you Scan While Track. The difference being all targets can be similarly updated using rapid beam shift not just a high priority one/ next in your shot list etc.

[halloweene]

Just fpr the sake of information, french "JTRS" ERS-a is presently in test in Istres as part of the contact program (based on ESSOR waveforms)

[hammy21]

I’m sure that the logic holds - that a mech raster scan can be interrupted to conduct a ‘high density update’ on a contact - that’s essentially a high fidelity/ confirmatory Track While Scan. The AESA gives you Scan While Track. The difference being all targets can be similarly updated using rapid beam shift not just a high priority one/ next in your shot list etc.
Even the F3 in its latter years had "priority track"? Scanner would break from four bar scan to dwell over target(s) of interest without giving the game away,targets of interest going in and out of memory? Having just left the Typhoon world,not much has changed in the mechanical scanned world,remember MScan is 20+ years old now? Agreed faster scanner slew rates and lower noise floors compared to the F3 have made a difference in detection range,but the fundamentals haven't changed that much?