Nope, increasingly outdated and probably near the end of their fatigue lives, and that's even without the bad publicity after the Afghan disaster.
WI: No Eurofighter Typhoon?
- Thread starter abc123
- Start date
Nope, increasingly outdated and probably near the end of their fatigue lives, and that's even without the bad publicity after the Afghan disaster.
WILDGEESE
Gone Fishin'
To the cancellation of the Typhoon, F-18's even the E/F couldn't do the job properly.
Back in the 70's, the R.A.F needed to have a new fighter to replace the F-4 Phantom in the 80's. The problem being though that unlike other N.A.T.O members whose airspace is pretty small, ie an interceptor would be at their territorial limit in 2 minutes or so, U.K airspace (the area we would have needed to patrol and sanitize in WWIII to keep the air bridge from the US open) is bloody huge ,apart from the English Channel it stretches right out into the North Sea and up towards the Faroe Isles towards the G.I.UK gap.
Due to their small integral tankage even with drop tanks and their limited radars, F-18's or even F-16's couldn't do the job properly. Loiter time was limited even with air to air refueling which mean't we would have to spend serious money investing in more Tankers.
The U.K & R.A.F government wanted to purchase/liscense produce F-14 or F-15's as they had the loiter range and the longer range radars but due to the U.K's financial problems they couldn't be bought so as a stop gap, Tornado ADV's were bought until a more suitable replacement could be made.
The trouble is although the Typhoon is a good aircraft, we still have the same problems with range and loiter time as we would have had if we'd bought 16's or 18's. With a bit of foresight from the U.K government, we could have saved the money and bought F-15E's with could have replaced Tornado's as well in the strike role and as a consequence been a force multiplier.
It was the same problem that we had with Nimrod AEW, instead of buying of the shelf and getting 12 x E-3 Sentry's with invested stupid amounts of finite resources on a aircraft that was over budget and behind time. As a consequence it was ultimately cancelled and when we bought the E-3's, we could only afford 7, which isn't enough to do the job.
Back in the 70's, the R.A.F needed to have a new fighter to replace the F-4 Phantom in the 80's. The problem being though that unlike other N.A.T.O members whose airspace is pretty small, ie an interceptor would be at their territorial limit in 2 minutes or so, U.K airspace (the area we would have needed to patrol and sanitize in WWIII to keep the air bridge from the US open) is bloody huge ,apart from the English Channel it stretches right out into the North Sea and up towards the Faroe Isles towards the G.I.UK gap.
Due to their small integral tankage even with drop tanks and their limited radars, F-18's or even F-16's couldn't do the job properly. Loiter time was limited even with air to air refueling which mean't we would have to spend serious money investing in more Tankers.
The U.K & R.A.F government wanted to purchase/liscense produce F-14 or F-15's as they had the loiter range and the longer range radars but due to the U.K's financial problems they couldn't be bought so as a stop gap, Tornado ADV's were bought until a more suitable replacement could be made.
The trouble is although the Typhoon is a good aircraft, we still have the same problems with range and loiter time as we would have had if we'd bought 16's or 18's. With a bit of foresight from the U.K government, we could have saved the money and bought F-15E's with could have replaced Tornado's as well in the strike role and as a consequence been a force multiplier.
It was the same problem that we had with Nimrod AEW, instead of buying of the shelf and getting 12 x E-3 Sentry's with invested stupid amounts of finite resources on a aircraft that was over budget and behind time. As a consequence it was ultimately cancelled and when we bought the E-3's, we could only afford 7, which isn't enough to do the job.
gloster meteor mk3
Banned
No sub threats really, then can you explain why the Russians are spending Billions of rubles on defense. More specifically billions on TEN new Ballistic missile subs and the arming them with 20 RSM-56 Bulava missiles with 6 Mirvs a piece and is the most expensive defence program ever in the history of both the soviet union and the Russian republic.They plan to spend something like 250 billion by 2020 to modernize there entire armed forces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borei_class read this then tell me no sub threat.
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gloster meteor mk3
Banned
The TIFFIE was built to do multiple jobs EG interceptor dog fighter and surgical strike to name a few of it,s intended roles there was talk of using some tranche 1 TIFFIES for the carriers.
Those SSBN will operate in areas where RAF MPA wouldn't operate. The counter will be SSN. MPAs role would be to protected the sea lanes around Britain from SSN/SSK, and the soviet submarine force is no longer geared to operate offensively against Atlantic shipping.
As AdA pointed out those are not the subs that MPA's hunt, more over given the fact that the exchange rate is 1 rubble to 0.02 pounds, spending billions and billions doesn't automatically mean they are in an arms race.
There is no credible potential threat from submarines in this generation or the next if not longer.
or 'Westernise' the best of the WarPac 4th Gens they inherited from the GDR.
If there was no Eurofighter Typhoon, the British would have ended up with essentially the F-18E Super Hornet but with a European avionics suite.
At that point it would be better to hitch on to the Rafale as it is closer to Britains requirements than the Hornet, especially with regards to range. They could probably get a license production deal and stuff it with British weapons and electronics, maybe giving it EJ200s as well.
And about the Replica, it was never meant for production. It was a technology demonstrator that Britain used to give them a better position in the JSF program.
gloster meteor mk3
Banned
Yes but it was part of the FOAS that looked at replacing the GR4 before we went in with the Americans JSF, Personally i would go with Replica it has all the stealth without the Americans ban on the F22 stealth tech and would of been carrier capable plus the export sales would piss off the Americans and be bought by the countries that wanted the raptor before congress put the export ban in place.
deathscompanion1
Banned
Yes because that is such a good idea when you will probably be buying more American kit at some point and depend on them for logistics and munitions when you want to operate for more than a few days without weeks/months of prep.
gloster meteor mk3
Banned
The money from the export sales would be worth it in the end. Canada,Australia and Japan are three other countries that wanted the raptor as well as us but the Americans put a ban on it. With replica you get F22 levels of stealth and it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than the entire F22 program and more so than the F35 program plus the tech transfer would not be a problem seeing as the Americans did a study which concluded that of all Americas "allies" only Britain,Canada and Australia where the only ones that could be trusted with the tech, now that's a nice "ally" is it not. It is the same thing with the Atom bomb after WW2,It is like a parent saying you have not been a good child so you will not get a new toy.
Breaking my rule, the Replica programme ran from 1994 to 1999 right, and that was for the test purposes, there's no production facilities set up. So assume that the Eurofighter ends say 1995 that's still 4 years for doing the tests, most likely longer for full up operational tests and reconfiguration of existing production lines (Harrier would be the last UK only build so that's going to be questionable).
There's no way that you could get them into full rate production by the time the Eurofighter has it's IOC in '03, So the UK is facing even more years with no 4+ gen fighter. The Canadians and Australians might be pissed about not getting the 22 but since neither of them looked at the Eurofighter automatically assuming that they will jump for a questionable project from the UK is arrogant as hell. Particularly as both have F-18's and the SuperHornets are coming on stream and just because the US has them means that there will be more possible upgrades and more capabilities available than anything that the UK would produce.
If in 1995 the Eurofighter collapsed and the MOD ignored the Rafale for another open ended development project then they would deserve to get sacked.
Just because there's UK involvement in something doesn't mean its "THE BEST and ONLY" option in the world
gloster meteor mk3
Banned
Might i point out that the best American gen 4+ aircraft (F15) is no match for the euro fighter and the F22 does not much better.
If the Germans pull out the Sauds would put money into the program and the Germans would not pull out anyway they own 46% of EuroFighter GmbH with 33% owned by EADS Germany the other 11% owned by EADS Spain with another 33% owned by BAE and the other 21% owned by AA Italy.
If the Germans pull out the Sauds would put money into the program and the Germans would not pull out anyway they own 46% of EuroFighter GmbH with 33% owned by EADS Germany the other 11% owned by EADS Spain with another 33% owned by BAE and the other 21% owned by AA Italy.
gloster meteor mk3
Banned
And before anyone (SPARKY) i do know what i am talking about with the Euro-fighter VS the F15 because i saw it, i was at winder-mere in 05 for a visit to my cousin.What a sight it was as well.
Far be it for me to point out the restrictions they might have been operating under, or the fact that the USAF F15's are nowhere near the most modern variant of the F 15 family, nor that the only 4.5 gen fighter the US uses is the F-18 so (which includes the Growler platform and the proposed 4.75 gen that Boeing are now putting forward, underlying my point as to why the 18 family would be more attractive to the Canadians, Australians) and as such should be the yardstick against the Euro Canards.
I raised several points as to why your suggestion of British beats everything weren't entirely accurate and you failed to answer why you thought my points weren't valid.
As usual it seems that all you post are vaguely Nationalistic with the view that simply because the UK is involved then it's best. Your rant about the US not making the F22 available is another case in point.
There might have been suggestions but not by anyone that had half a clue about what they were talking about. Part of the reason, aside from demanding a disproportionate amount of the work share, that the French pulled out of the Eurofighter project was that they wanted it to also be carrier capable but that was going to be very expensive and difficult to add which no-one else was interested in. To try and modify an already produced plane for carrier operations - it's not just a case of adding a tail hook, I've seen carrier landings described as controlled crashes - would be insane and probably end up costing billions if not tens of billions of pounds for at best so-so performance. The Typhoon was too fast coming into land, the angle of attack was too steep and the canards blocked the pilots view of the deck on landing which is the last thing you want. I've seen suggestions that variable vectored thrust might help alleviate the high landing speed and the need for canards somewhat but that's all just theoretical and still leaves the need to re-design and strengthen the aircraft frame and systems to survive carrier takeoffs and landings. Even doing that during the initial design phase was going to be bloody difficult and expensive.
Haven't we already been over this in another thread? Replica was never an actual development programme. It was simply a design study by BAE Systems to gain some knowledge and show that they were capable of stealth work, some people suggesting it was as much about proving the capability to the Americans as anything else so that the company/the UK could get included on future US aircraft programmes that involved stealth. And it seems to have worked since IIRC the UK is the only Tier 1 partner involved in the F-35 programme.