Jacko

The A/S capability was always (contractually) the secondary role -primarily intended for the UK alone. As such T1 was almost entirely A/A dominated. It was always the case that A/S would be introduced throughout T2 & T3.

Smartman,

This isn't to dispute what you're saying (after all, you know more about it than I do), just to point out that if you look at some of the evidence given to the Commons Select Committee on Defence for the 1991-92 session (EFA was their 6th report of that session), the Deputy Director OR (Air) and Director General Aircraft 1 both appear to have been under the impression (or trying to give it!) that CASOM (as it then was) would be ready to go with almost the first EFA in service.

Now - was the customer:
a) plain wrong
b) telling porkies to the MPs
c) repeating what they'd been told by the Eurofighter/BAe sales team?

(I don't know the answer)

IIRC correctly, a subsequent Selet Cttee report has very similar evidence too - but then the DDOR(Air) was the same as for 91-92.

The point about A/A being the primary role is clearly stated in the evidence as well - talk about no compromising the A/A ability. [Edited to add that at least one of these reports states that the A/G capability had been dropped by the Germans at the time]

Archimedes

You're not wrong. They were indeed saying that CASOM, the weapon, would be ready to go on the first Eurofighter. Which is very different from saying that the first Eurofighter would have CASOM. But far be it for me to make such an assertion - perhaps H could comment?

Jackonicko,

<<I merely mean the kind of f*ckw*ts who seriously suggested that EF Typhoon was lacking because it didn't have F-22 levels of all round LO, and who erroneously (and probably knowingly so) sugggested that aircraft like the F-16 were more agile, or that aircraft like the F-15E promised to be less expensive. The kind of idiots, in other words, who seriously suggested that the F-16 could have fulfilled the role.>>

Errrmm...
Don't recall too many people saying that at the time.
On the other hand I do remember EF boosters saying that the aircraft was "stealthy" without qualification. There was also a modest proposal making the rounds that the RAF should lease a few F-16s, on the grounds that it might be some time before EF entered service. At the time (96-97), there was no publicly disclosed entry into service date, and those on the outside who were estimating 05-06 were loudly hooted down. The idea that there were some serious handling/FCS issues around was regarded as scurrilous gossip.
Today, IOC in any realistic sense is 05-06. Handling/FCS issues (pitch-up, low-speed recovery) are still being dealt with. It's now appreciated that the Spanish, thanks to their F/A-18s, have a valuable perspective on high-performance fighter operations that the other partners don't.
And the multi-role capability - which the boosters back then liked to imply was just a matter of hanging the right ordnance and pods on the machine - is more years away and slipping to the right as we speak. Whether EF will ever get to the same point in this regard as an F-16E/F or Super Hornet Block 2 or even a friggin Mirage 2000-9 is a good question.
Much of this is water under the bridge, but some of the f***wits and idiots back then seem to have got it more right than the officials did.

Your recollections differ from mine. I have never heard anyone seriously claim anything but a low FRONTAL RCS for EF Typhoon.

I even recall John Turner and Keith Hartley flying HAVV rolls (and other manoeuvres which no US teen fighter and no 'Flanker' or 'Fulcrum' could emulate) in an aircraft with a very early software release at airshow altitude, in a cleared airshow routine, at a major trade airshow, while the very f*ckw*ts to whom I refer were banging on about the aeroplane's 'serious' and 'major' FCS and handling problems. Maybe they should have removed their heads from their @rses long enough to watch the aircraft in action.

You are, however, more optimistic than I am. I don't see a realistic IOC (one may be achieved politically, however) before 2008, in any meaningful sense.

The basic A-G capability required by Typhoon should not be rocket science. Integrating TIALD, PWIII, and ALARM has been considered for the F3, and could be achieved easily using QinetiQ and DARO resources. Integrating these bits of kit, and Storm Shadow and Brimstone should not be a major task for the Design Authority, though I have no doubt that they will make an utter horlicks of it.

LO

As a now very dormant 'booster', I can confirm that you couldn't be more wrong with your comments on stealth and FCS. Stealth was always referred to in the frontal signature sense - there was never a lack of qualification by those that were responsible. Do you think potential overseas customers were/are stupid?

As for the FCS, there was indeed a shed-load of scurrilous gossip about at that time. It was largely without any real-fact basis then - and is now. Go watch an airshow. That's not to say there weren't difficult issues; and minor ones (in overall context) remain. And Tornado/Gripen/F22/JSF faced/face similar hurdles. It was/is called development - does it never sink in????

Your inference that only Spain has a handle on modern combat aircraft performance is purile and, all else aside, is an insult to the calibre of Service and civilian TP's throughout the four EF Nations.

As for continued delays in operational capability, for starters ask HMG.

It may also be germane to point out that even the most enthusiastic EF Boosters (Ned!) always seemed a tad more realistic than the notionally independent souls who've dominated media coverage of the F-22 and JSF......

I see denial is not just a river in Africa...

The puzzle in '95-97 was the slow pace of FT and envelope expansion, given that (IIRC) all seven DAs were available. Now Smartman says that there were no major FCS problems, while Jackonicko says that there were, but it was all the fault of the Germans. Which is it?

Having put a few datapoints together and with hindsight, I'd say that the issue was as follows:

The EF basic design is a gutsy attempt to get outstanding supersonic agility without the brute force (giant engines, VT and huge control surfaces) elements of an F-22. Near neutrally stable supersonic, highly unstable subsonic, more so than the X-29.

This poses unusual demands on the FCS in terms of response speed and integrity (fault detection, isolation). I believe, most likely, that this is where problems lay. It took some time which is why remaining issues on the path to carefree handling are still being sorted out.

None of this can't be fixed, but run back a few years and from the outside it looked pretty bad. Slow testing, no real information as to what was going on, no IOC date...

Re LO: I have to beg leave to doubt (absent hard info again) whether even the front-sector RCS is much to write home about, unless some kind of classified bibbidi-bobbidi-boo has been done about the radar and RAM on the inlets. About the same as a Have Glass Viper, I'd say.

As for A/S: Clearly you can hang weapons on the beast, but not a lot has been done so far given that the aircraft has been flying for ten years. The T2 spec hasn't been completed. Now, I agree that's probably a funding issue, more than anything else - but I suspect that the governments' attitude to funding has been influenced by the cost of getting to T1.

I'm not saying that the EF is a bad design. Realistically, though, everyone has to recognize that it was A/A dominated to begin with and that it will take further time and money to make it into a 21st century, multi-mission precision weapon platform. Much the same, BTW, is true of the F-22. The difference is that the US can (just about) afford the care and feeding of a one-and-a-half mission aircraft.

There. And I made it through the whole thing without one effenheimer or an ethnic slur. Learn from it, JN!

Ethnic slur? A f*ckw*t isn't a racial thing, LO, old boy.

And while I do think that adopting the EAP FCS would have led to a more rapid progress, I am not suggesting that the Boxhead (oh, OK, but that's a nationalistic slur, not an ethnic one) FCS has been anywhere near as troubled as you suggest.

Anyway, shouldn't you be busy defending JSF, which needs loyalty from its supporters right now? (There! I managed that thought without using the words 'unquestioning' or 'uncritical').

Why should I be busy defending JSF?
And after 10 years of flight test, with FCS issues still being cleared before the aircraft goes to the customer (even for training), I would call FCS issues serious. As I'd call the F-22 software crash issues serious.

Jacko.

Unless you are doing a journo wind up job you might like to consider whether you have been used.

Aircraft which roll round their longitudinal axis rather than their velocity vector are demonstrating that they are very departure resistant or have exceptional structural strength or both. Aircraft that roll round their velocity vector are doing so because they dare not do it any other way.

Of course if you want to do multiple rolls under some g and at speed you will have to deal with the velocity vector. But what has some chunk of a rolling circle got to do with combat?

JF

Come come old chap - you know your aerodynamics better than that. And I'm not trying to wind you up. Even your fellow TPs (JT & KH included ) would take you on over this point. Sorry.

The manoeuvre also seemed to display a degree of off-axis nose-pointing ability which I'd have thought you'd find impressive, and which you'd appreciate, JF!

J and S

Morning chaps.

We might have to agree to disagree on this one. My view is that it all depends on how long you want to roll for. I suspect that this is a rather shorter period of time in combat than is often chosen at air displays. The same time issue is important re off boresight stuff. In pitch you can easily arrange for a second or so but in roll I don’t think the time is long enough – but I would not pretend to know about the finer point of such matters these days. There is enough trouble getting weapons released cleanly under mild manoeuvring so I would not like to have to sort those issues during rapid rolling (Aaah guns!) But there you go.

As it happens, in one of those co-incidences, I gave a lecture at a Uni to nine post grad guys doing an IGDS module on Tuesday afternoon this week. The subject included inertia cross coupling and the reasons for being careful about it. Small world.

J

Jacko

Free-up your inbox a little!!

Done

but in the interests of writing enough characters I have to say that I have indeed freed up space in my inbox, oh esteemed Smarty-man!

LowObservable

Still lots of BS about the place! Never mind denial, it's clear you still have to find delight in this debate. Your comments continue to reflect some lack of attention to historical detail - not altogether surprising given your sometimes apparent unwillingness to communicate with those intimately involved. Still, it's nice to see that you're acknowledging a little of F22's downsides - be interesting to hear your overall view on F35 v Typhoon (given that both meet their 'full spec').

Smartman and JN: Please write out 50 times "I must not pass notes in class."

JSF may be an OK proposition if you have a working Typhoon or F-22 or indeed Super Hornet with Phase 4 AMRAAMs to cover you and it it comes with full LO.

The critical element is the avionics, which (if they work) are Gene Adam's famous Big Picture made real and will allow your granny to perform precision adverse-weather strike in a high-threat environment without JDAMming the local orphanage. (Poetic exaggeration.)

You say "Typhoon full spec", but the question is what that is. Tranche 3 as mooted in 2000, with AESA, signature improvements, conformals and the rest? Or T2, with Captor as is, a targeting pod and LGBs? My understanding is that nobody has yet nailed down T2, let alone T3.

If I have to make a decision today, I have to look at a funded configuration and decide what I want. AESA? SAR? A two-seater with independently operable cockpits? Extended range/endurance options (like conformals or big underwing tanks, or both)? Through-weather precision targeting with SAR? All these things are available, or funded, to some extent on several in-production aircraft.

I'm not knocking Typhoon, which is clearly at the start of its development life. Neither do I wholly blame its builders, or the AFs, for the current status, which is largely the result of unstable funding. But the program does urgently need to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.

"JSF may be an OK proposition if you have a working Typhoon or F-22 or indeed Super Hornet with Phase 4 AMRAAMs to cover you"

Fantastic!

So if you don't have either EF or F-22 to back it up, JSF alone is not worth having? (And if you do not have AWACS, RJ, JSTARS and all the other air power infrastructure which makes JSF a good force multiplier for the US.....)

Mind you, even Lockmart seem to be selling the aircraft more on a "You're either for us or you're against us/buying JSF makes you a trusted ally" basis rather than on the grounds of military utility or capability. You'd think that would make life harder for the trench coat mafia who still keep telling us that F-35 is way better than sliced bread, man........