Belgium selects F-35 over Typhoon
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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.
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 murder
Sold 'adaptable' ships which couldn't be adapted[be nice to resize text in html too]
Ref.https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/0...rrier_badness/
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?
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?
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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.
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.
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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?
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?
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!
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!
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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.).
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.).
Last edited by orca; 26th Oct 2018 at 16:29.
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 Me 262 was well ahead in WW2 but the Allies swamped them with numbers.
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
this is what they found out at GCHQ in 1940-41
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?
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?
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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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
Last edited by Jackonicko; 26th Oct 2018 at 22:08.