WI: Typhoon fighter has a larger "Super Hornet" style upgrade?

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

​

As it says on the tin.

What if the Typhoon was further developed into a larger "Super Hornet" upgrade to be closer to the F-15?

Would this be possible?
Would there be an increase in capability?
Would it take sales away from the F-18 Super Hornet?
Would anyone by it?

Much obliged!

 

[sparky42]

What do you mean by “super hornet upgrade”? The Typhoon has seen plenty of upgrades through to the current Tranche 4 variants.

 

[tomo pauk]

Mixed feelings about that.
I'd rather see the 'Typhoon lite' - the 1-engine derivative with a lower price, that will basically be F-16 of 21st century before Grippen takes that accolade.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

What do you mean by “super hornet upgrade”? The Typhoon has seen plenty of upgrades through to the current Tranche 4 variants.

SuperHornet vs Hornet is a whole new plane. Much bigger and with newer and better engines.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

What do you mean by “super hornet upgrade”? The Typhoon has seen plenty of upgrades through to the current Tranche 4 variants.

"Upgrade" is a misnomer, "enlarged iterative design" would be a more accurate description of the relation between the Hornet and Super Hornet.

 

[Riain]

SuperHornet vs Hornet is a whole new plane. Much bigger and with newer and better engines.

"Upgrade" is a misnomer, "enlarged iterative design" would be a more accurate description of the relation between the Hornet and Super Hornet.

This is right, the Super Hornet is a whole new plane based on the Classic Hornet rather than an upgrade of it like F15E or late model F16s.

For a Typhoon to get a 'Super Hornet style' upgrade it would need structural changes like an enlarged fuselage which is extremely rare in the fighter world, but would likley make this highly agile, semi-stealthy fighter into a longer range strike aircraft along the lines of the FB 22 proposals mooted years ago.

On the subject of structural changes, what fighter aircraft have had significant structural changes performed to them? The Mirage III got a 30cm forward fuselage stretch from C to E, the Tornado got a 1.36m fuselage stretch from IDS to ADV and the Harrier family had rear fuselage stretches to maintain the centre of gravity for the engine when fitted with bigger radars up front. Other than that doing major structural changes to existing aircraft is pretty rare I think because of the nee to maintain CoG and things like that of the original design.

 

[AdA]

Wouldn't that be the Tempest?
Even the name is a giveaway.

Team Tempest | Royal Air Force

The Future of Combat Air Tempest is the next-generation combat aircraft, operating at the cutting edge of technological innovation and securing the UK's position as a global leader in combat air.

www.raf.mod.uk

 

[sparky42]

Wouldn't that be the Tempest?
Even the name is a giveaway.

Team Tempest | Royal Air Force

The Future of Combat Air Tempest is the next-generation combat aircraft, operating at the cutting edge of technological innovation and securing the UK's position as a global leader in combat air.

www.raf.mod.uk

Not really I would have thought.

 

[MUC]

Perhaps an enlarged version could be envisioned as a strike platform to allow for an earlier retirement of the Tornadoes?

 

[RamscoopRaider]

The problem with this is that the the British and Italians need a Harrier replacement, arguably the Spanish too, and you aren't getting that with an iterative improvement on the Typhoon. That basically commits them to buying the JSF, and if you have that aircraft in service already anyways, the economics favor buying more of it rather than introducing another type. Functionally you need Britain in the mid to late 90's committing firmly to both going CATOBAR for the QE's and to paying all of the development costs for a Super Typhoon themselves, with no expectation of major export sales to defray the costs, and thinking as a British defense planner I am going to have serious doubts about getting it past the Treasury

This isn't going to take sales from the Super Hornet, rather it would do it from the vanilla Typhoon. The US won't buy it, Australia still has Hornets and wants a similar stopgap so is out, Kuwait still has political reasons for doing a split buy of their new aircraft, ditto Germany

 

[CV12Hornet]

The Super Hornet was prompted by both the need for an interim strike fighter to replace the F-14 fleet and fill the gap between the Legacy Hornet and first the A/F-X and then F-35C. The US fitted a new wing and LERXes to improve bring-back weight; a fuselage plug for more fuel; and more powerful engines to power it all. All of this was only started after the Legacy Hornet had been in service for a number of years.

So let's go to 2008. Tranche 2 is entering service, with the full envisioned air-to-air capabilities and actual ground attack capability. The consortium's Tornado fleets are aging out, and their F-35 deliveries still some years away. So the consortium starts looking into a much more comprehensive Tranche 3 update. The OTL Tranche 3A added the following:

• New processors to deal with parts obsolescence, plus updates for new weapons, such as the Meteor BVRAAM, the Storm Shadow standoff missile, and the SPEAR series of air-to-ground munitions. To what extent the earlier tranches will support the new munitions is unclear. The British are also working on a multiple-ejector rack to allow carriage of up to three Brimstone missiles, or other small stores, on a single pylon; while this is an independent effort, it is of interest to other Eurofighter operators.
  
  
• Provisions for a "Captor-E / E-Scan" AESA (active array) radar, now being developed by EuroRadar. An AESA is really more than a radar, being dynamically configurable to perform a range of functions. Initial trials of a Typhoon with the Captor-E began in the summer of 2014.
  
  
• Improvements to the EJ.200 engine, focusing on weight reduction with thrust and reliability improvements, as well as thrust-vectoring. The thrust-vectoring system is in evaluation, and offers thrust deflection angles of up to 23.5 degrees. It is seen as useful for combat agility and for reducing takeoff run in "hot and high" conditions.
  
  
• Provision for conformal fuel tanks (CFTs). The idea goes back to the late 1990s; in principle, any machine of Tranche 2 or above could carry CFTs, but though wind tunnels tests have been performed of Typhoon models with CFTs, there wasn't much interest until recently. However, the introduction of "draggy" external stores like the Storm Shadow missile has given more life to the CFT concept.

In addition, to go with the full Super Hornet analogy, this would also include integration of the Aerodynamic Modification Kit:

Also in 2015, Airbus flight tested a package of aerodynamic upgrades for the Eurofighter known as the Aerodynamic Modification Kit (AMK) consisting of reshaped (delta) fuselage strakes, extended trailing-edge flaperons and leading-edge root extensions. This increases wing lift by 25% resulting in an increased turn rate, tighter turning radius, and improved nose-pointing ability at low speed with angle of attack values around 45% greater and roll rates up to 100% higher.[68][69][70] Eurofighter's Laurie Hilditch said these improvements should increase subsonic turn rate by 15% and give the Eurofighter the sort of "knife-fight in a phone box" turning capability enjoyed by rivals such as Boeing's F/A-18E/F or the Lockheed Martin F-16, without sacrificing the transonic and supersonic high-energy agility inherent to its delta wing-canard configuration.[71] Eurofighter Project Pilot Germany Raffaele Beltrame said: "The handling qualities appeared to be markedly improved, providing more manoeuvrability, agility and precision while performing tasks representative of in-service operations. And it is extremely interesting to consider the potential benefits in the air-to-surface configuration thanks to the increased variety and flexibility of stores that can be carried."[72]

Essentially, the full Tranche 4 package several years early.

Now, how you get the cheap-ass RAF and Italian Air Force and the pacifistic Germans on board with this is a whole other question. But the military incentive is there and the capability increases have all been proposed at one point or another.

As far as foreign sales, this would cut into Strike Eagle sales more than Super Hornet sales. You might be able to get the 36 F-15QA, the 84 F-15SA, and 28 Kuwaiti Super Hornets, as all three also operate earlier models of Typhoon. All other Strike Eagle and Super Hornet foreign sales are too early.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Now, how you get the cheap-ass RAF and Italian Air Force and the pacifistic Germans on board with this is a whole other question.

Russia invades the Ukraine and makes other aggressive moves to get its empire back starting in 1997 so they need to replace the aging Tornados RIGHT F***ING NOW. Even then they're likely to just order Super Hornets and save the development costs.

 

[MUC]

Russia invades the Ukraine and makes other aggressive moves to get its empire back starting in 1997 so they need to replace the aging Tornados RIGHT F***ING NOW. Even then they're likely to just order Super Hornets and save the development costs.

Or perhaps we have more Transatlantic trouble with the US following a more isolationist position and thus the Europeans finding out they need to get their programme up and ready earlier. Money will be an issue and 2007 means the beginning of the financial crisis.

 

[Simon]

The problem with this is that the the British and Italians need a Harrier replacement…

What the US should have done with the F-35 was drop the V/STOL requirement and design it was a standard joint Navy-Air Force aircraft like the F-4. A separate replacement for the Harrier can then be developed.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

What the US should have done with the F-35 was drop the V/STOL requirement and design it was a standard joint Navy-Air Force aircraft like the F-4. A separate replacement for the Harrier can then be developed.

That goes against how the JSF project started, it started as a Marine Harrier replacement program, the USAF thought that a version without the VTOL gear would be useful as an F-16 replacement so it became CALF, then Congress made the Navy cancel their attack aircraft replacement and join the program so it became the JSF and the Navy's requirements complicated it immensely compared to the original spec. Considering the Navy had the Super Hornet on the way and the numerous issues of the Harrier, if Congress would shell out for another airframe would be to split off the Navy's requirement into its own thing and leave CALF as a USMC/USAF joint venture

 

[Orcbuster]

Super hornet isn't an upgrade to the hornet. Its a whole new aircraft. There is virtually no parts commonality between the two.