AFTER TIFFIE
 

I want to start a discussion among those better informed than I am about why we couldn't begin the long process of producing a British successor to the Typhoon. What would we want? Can we do it? (France did) What are our thoughts?

You mean British as in Lightning?

It'll never happen so long as selling factory sites and airfields off for housing makes more money.

British manufacturers have learnt the hard way that building a 100% British aircraft is a certain way to cancellation - it's only the international treaties and agreements that protect you from the Treasury..........

NO CHANCE
 

....because we sit on the pillion of the American juggernaut, as said a much wiser man than I.

RF
 

What new fighter do France have in development?

Sounds exciting

Because the market size we'd need, versus the market size for a collaborative project is vastly smaller. This would make unit costs unaffordable and reduce export sales as people would be reluctant to buy into something which has few customers.

We'd be better going joint, we will go joint and the chances of any country other than china or india ever solo developing a jet fighter again are close to zero.

...or of course the most likely to go it alone in the future, the United States. India's attempt at an indigenous fighter is akin to that time Homer Simpson designed a car.

Thought we already did - wasn't it called the Tempest?

Surely Tiffie has another 20 years of development potential?

I'd keep refining and keep building

Does anyone in the RAF really refer to the Typhoon as the 'Tiffie'?

Or is that some spotter thing :8 ?

No - geek use only.

BEagle: I hope not!

Is one of those Tiffies, int'it?

http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7031/...9e52f5f6_m.jpg

How the hell did this country get into this state ?, in the early years we had led the world in aviation research, development and production with sales of our kit all over the world, though not in great numbers but we were surviving and in general we had what we wanted apart from the airlines with their quirks and politicians with no idea what they were on about, who basically sold out this industry.

Why are we now resigned to be a nation of fast food workers, domestic servants and care workers in the service industry.

When i joined the Royal Air Force in the seventies there were so many British a/c in service that were excellent assets with last one that entered service the Hawk a world beater, so good even the US bought it, then came the 'collaberation projects' where basically to join we had to shut down all of our factories, smash all the jigs and equipment and sell the actual companies to any joker with a wad in their pockets.

We then end up with buying items from outside the UK that when we get them we can't use, such as the tranche of Chinooks that sat in the hangar as they were not up to our spec or the initial fleet of C 17 that we obtained from Boeing, who dictated how many hours we were 'allowed' to fly and the latest with the aquisition of Airbus and voyager through PFI initiative, where things seem to be hotting up in the east with Ukraine and what happens then a fifth of the transport/refueler fleet is off to Thomas Cook Airlines to fly holiday makers all over the world, or the F35 that we bought with no arming codes, basically allowing the US government to decide if we could mount an operation such as the Falkland campaign outside of NATO control, how does that happen ?

Now the government say we need to do more engineering and be exporting said projects, what said items !!, carrier bags, supermarket trolleys etc.

Surely rather than spending billions of paying benefits to the engineering workers to sit on their backsides as the jobs have been ripped from under them and other people who could train, why not invest in not only the aviation industry but shipbuilding and other defence companies to restart the prodution of our own equipment and use that highly experienced core of workers that are twiddling their thumbs at this time .

Possibly i'm being a bit symplistic, but there may be an initial outlay costs, but if we could produce the world class kit we have always done on our own for not only our own needs but export as well, i think we are too late to get back into comercial aviation, but who knows if the defence side goes well for these companies they may develop into other areas.

The only thing is though, these companies have to be left alone, without politicians changing their minds after the initial requirement is given by an expert group who have come up with the final requirement prior to ordering and keeping out the greedy fat cats who want a piece of the action for themselves adding to the costs.

In time, these industries would grow into productive companies again and not only contribute to the coffers by being a british tax paying company rather than a foreign company evading taxes etc, but the more support they are given the greater the rewards will be and this would not only reduce the benefits bill out but and reduce unemployment but bring in money into the uk economy via sales abroad where some of that revenue could be reinvested to stop the present self perpetuating circle of losses - redundancies - unemployment - benefits and so on.

as i say, just a symplistic view from a normal simple man, how hard could it be ?, heres to the future, rosey tinted glasses off heres hoping.

I can't help thinking that there are some rose tinted glasses about our history of aircraft building. Empire of the Clouds looks at it in part - gross company mismanagement and waste feature.

There have been some pretty sh!te aircraft from the British Aircraft Industry as well. Here are some that spring to mind:

- BE9. This had the pilot in the back, then the engine and propeller and then a gunner/observer in the front. Hugh Dowding later mentioned it was probably one of the most dangerous aircraft he ever saw.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-RAF_B.E.9.jpg

- Boulton Paul Defiant. Awful day fighter. Got hammered once the Luftwaffe worked out it had no forward firing capability.

http://armedforcesmuseum.com/wp-cont...fiant-MK.1.jpg

- Blackburn Roc. Again an awful fleet defence aircraft like the Defiant with no forward firing guns. Apparently the guns didn't fire properly when the aircraft was turning.

http://armedforcesmuseum.com/wp-cont.../Blackburn.png

- Fairey Battle. Hopelessly outclassed at the start of the war. We lost over 100 in a week and sadly aircrew we so desperately could have used in the Battle of Britain.

http://www.pilotfriend.com/photo_albums/images12/55.jpg

There are many more. In recent years there has been Nimrod AEW, Harrier GR5 (needed upgrading to go to war), Nimrod MRA4, TSR2, Tornado F2, Mantis, Herti and others; so for every successful aircraft there were probably half a dozen failures - not good for sustainable business, which is why so many are no longer with us.

B Word

Tiffie, just to annoy those that don't drink Typhoon at Tiffin.

Anyway, tiffie is easier to say than Typhoon. Bit like Spit, Hurri, and Lanc

AFTER TIFFIE
 

No-one who actually has anything to do with the Typhoon calls it Tiffie, Beags. You know, I'm not sure we have a "Tonka/jag" style nickname.

There's nothing to say the MRA4 was going to be a bad aircraft, in fact it was to going to be one of the most advanced MPA around, it's just BAE were way behind schedule and hence probably over budget (not sure about that)

Tiffie's been referred to as Tiffie here since 2002.

In any case, one must be incredibly pompous to object to such nomenclature. I'd opine a 'spotter' is more likely to use the full name, no doubt with FGR4 included too.

Just doesn't sound very, well, tough or hard does it?

It has always sounded like a name given to it by the spotter types rather than serving RAF. Whilst I was in, and since when I have been out, I have never heard it referred to by anyone serving as Tiffie.

Tiffie, just sounds distinctly soft.



S-D

White mans problems abound in the Mil History forum ;):E

'Tiffie' is a pretty terrible nickname. I'd imagine those who had/have anything to do with the Tornado, don't call it a 'Tonka', either.

Why would we want to do aircraft design? It's all about systems these days. We would plough billions of public cash into r and d and end up with little if any profit.

No your right, we call it the grey, swept wing, bringer of death.

Abbreviated to Tonka.

:ouch:

It was certainly `tonka` at Laarparts in the early eighties...that, or maybe `the perpetual hanger queen` ;)

Tornadoes have been known as Tonkas by those that fly and maintain them for as long as I can remember. The allusion to chunky 'toys for the boys' is quite apt!

I've heard some pilots call Typhoon the 'Phoon, but typically only when wishing to make a derogatory statement (sometimes lengthened to Buffphoon for clarity). Most of the time it's plainly and simply Typhoon.

Staff officers who've never flown either sometimes call them "Ty" and "Tor" - because that's how they often appear in documents. Tiresome.

I'm pretty sure that the people involved with the F35 probably don't call it Dave but Dave it is

It's a nice little test to discriminate between flyers and spotters.

Spotters fantasists and flight sim heroes call them Dave, Tonka and Tiffie.

Flyers don't.

Tourist wrote: Quite right! Some non-aircrew members of the service used to refer to the 'Tonka' and 'Timmy' for the TriStar seems to have been an RAF Mount Pleasant thing, but I doubt whether anyone in the armed forces uses the name 'Tiffie'.... Which is incorrect in any case; the wartime nickname for the Hawker Typhoon was 'Tiffy'.....

Neither was the Buccaneer ever referred to as the 'Brick' nor was there ever any such beast as the 'Phantom F Mk 3' except in spotters' circles!

The Tornado was Tonka at T.T.T.E., I think Dave is a pprune thing as it's the only place I've seen it, no idea about the Typhoon.

Ah yes, Thomas the Tank Engine can still remember the dayglo zaps that [kept] appearing on the road signs back in the day [and ever since]..

Tourist, wow! what could one say indeed.

Actually Tourist has unwittingly hit upon a truism there.

The generic name for mil fj from a groundcrew perspective was CABS as they spent 99.9999% of their life flying about with little purpose, well, apart from breaking themselves.......


:E

touché

Quite agree, I have always called my aircraft a "cab", though it is more a rotary thing in my experience.

Didn't the expression come from the FAA back in proper carrier FW days and has since been adopted generally?

I'm certainly not either an ex-Typhoon driver nor a spotter. But a friend of mine who was a Typhoon driver (now peacefully flying tourist day-trippers) refers to them as Tiffie and to Tonkas as Tonkas. He left before Leuchars closed.

So no one thinks w could ever produce a Lightning again? We'd always have to ask the Americans or the French/Germans "please can we use our aeroplanes to shoot something down?"

Presumably we can't hot wire the F-35 to use as we wish, when we wish.....

The Swedes can do it, so why can't the UK?

The Swedes did it, as did we all. No longer.