Typhoons wings

[jwcook]

Hi All

Just a quick question or two.

The Eurofighter wings are made from composites, just how much of it is composite?

AIUI the wing attachements points are Titanium, But are any of the spars inside metal?.

I have read differing views on this, one source says the wing is an all composite affair (unusual IMHO because of hydrostatic shock from ballistic damage).

Yet another says the wing contains a couple of metal spars for the reason given above.

If it is all composite, is any other fighter flying with an all composite wing?.

and lastly is the gun port on the typhoon covered, and if it is is it 'frangible'?

I know someone here is bound to know!, the real question is- can you tell me!!!.

Thanks in anticipation!!!

Cheers

[GodisMyCopilot]

don't know if the gun port is covered or not but I read an article about how the aircraft needs an EXACT copy of the gun but out of concrete and it has now cost more money to do this than fit the original gun in the first place!

[jwcook]

I think what you read was in reference to the UK Typhoons, The MoD decided to save around £90M and not have the gun fitted to the 2nd and 3rd tranches of Typhoon.

But apparently the FCS needs the weight of the BK27 to work correctly, a proposed answer was to fit a fake canon!!, but it had to have the same weight distribution and g tolerence as the gun.

Now it would have cost quite a bit to produce this lump of metal and get it flight tested... it was found by the bean counters that a real BK27 is an exact match for a BK27!!!.

So real ones will be fitted, and the RAF have promised not to use them;-).


I think the concrete reference is Tornado related and refers to the Portland teams 'Blue Circle' radar!!.

Cheers

[Right Stuff]

Last I read on the subject is that the cannons will be in use but only when a detachment requires it - pilots will only work up on it when necessary rather than it being part of standard training.

[emitex]

Wing construction

AFAIK; CFC co-cured spars (on the bottom skin), Al ribs and Ti attachments.

[Zoom]

The UK Phantoms also had concrete radar in the very beginning. It never went u/s.

[Navaleye]

So the Sea Harrier. Blue Circle radar, the most reliable piece of kit on the plane.