France and Germany to develop new European fighter jet

originally posted by: EasyPleaseMe
This is just political point scoring to go along with all the other childish emanations from the EU.

Yes, I agree. The UK is still a part of Europe, so what the French and the Germans mean is that the new fighter will be EU produced. Excluding the UK is because the UK is leaving the EU. Clearly it's physically impossible for the UK to leave Europe.

With the EU becoming increasingly centralised with the evolution of a common defence approach, you can see the market for the new plane may well be the rest of the EU. That would be a disruptive and clever move as the combined air forces of the EU is substantial. The economies of scale might make sense.

originally posted by: paraphi
Well, this was pretty much an inevitability, although the French make complicated and difficult bed fellows when it comes to defence programmes as the Germans will now find out. This probably marks the end of early Anglo - French work on combining UCAV programmes (Taranis and nEUROn) - but only after the French have nicked all the British secrets, eh?

Rueters
Telegrapgh
The Drive

Is this really that bad for Britain? What are the British options - forging closer defence alliances with (say) the Japanese who are in a similar boat. Now that would be a meeting of minds. Or, sticking with the Americans where there is already close ties.

the original eurofighter was mainly designed by italians based on german designs and only later built by britain.
britain who are currently building some aircraft carriers without any planes able to use them showing its growing lack of common sense.

originally posted by: growler
the original eurofighter was mainly designed by italians based on german designs and only later built by britain

I think you are mistaken.

The Eurofighter was based around designs that originated out of the Agile Combat Aircraft (ACA) and these designs were based on the BAe P110 (British). This was combined with designs and concepts from the British Aerospace EAP. I am sure Italians were involved as they were part of the consortium, but they did not design the Eurofighter.

originally posted by: growler


the original eurofighter was mainly designed by italians based on german designs and only later built by britain.
britain who are currently building some aircraft carriers without any planes able to use them showing its growing lack of common sense.

A growing lack of common sense?

You understand that Defence Procurement probably doesn't make sense to many people.

We can argue all day about this but right now the UK is part of one of the largest fighter production projects ever? We stand to get about 15% of the 3000 planned back into the UK.

We are now operating our own F-35B which is a Stealth, Supersonic, 5th Gen aircraft, Germany and France don't even have one on the drawing board. There are over 200 jets flying to accelerate the testing and certification, that will be more than France buy, they are not going to have a 5 Gen FOC until the rest of us are on 6th Gen.

We will have two carriers which will hopefully operate up to 128 F-35 however, budgets are subject to change.

We have a development UAV exploring the capability for what we think will be the next platform.

We have bought into the P-8 for Maritime Patrol.

Typhoon, the UK variant, is by far the most advanced of the other operators and is getting better with Brimstones now added.

We have signed a new contract to update our C-130s, are supplying heavy lift (C-17) in support of France in Africa.

Seems pretty sensible to me and I would rather support our Allies in the US than those greedy EU traitors.

a reply to: Forensick

It's always interesting to hear the point of view from the local people of countries.

I wonder what the French or Germans would say. Pity I don't think there are many on this forum.

a reply to: C0bzz
It is a good new for engineering in Europe , no new plane on the drawing board since 3 decade, and I think this time it may be something amazing

I m French

originally posted by: C0bzz
a reply to: Forensick

It's always interesting to hear the point of view from the local people of countries.

I wonder what the French or Germans would say. Pity I don't think there are many on this forum.

Im an Aussie now but im still a pommie!

www.flightglobal.com...

originally posted by: growler

the original eurofighter was mainly designed by italians based on german designs and only later built by britain.
britain who are currently building some aircraft carriers without any planes able to use them showing its growing lack of common sense.

What utter rubbish, I worked on the typhoon program before it ever flew, I was/am involved in the TSC, MSW and NSC at Coningsby and the TSC at Warton. That aircraft is mainly a British design, with some German influences.

As to the article linked to by Anzha, Chris Boardman is bang on not to be worried. BAE is the third largest defence contractor on the planet and world leaders in electronic warfare, cyber security and C4I....I absolutely guarantee that whatever the French and Germans plan to build....if they ever manage to stop squabbling, it will have BAE parts.

Cheers
Robbie

I just cant see why Taranis went over to the French anyway for nEUROn..Both were promising designs and would have done quite well staying with their own countries..Britain's only downfall of its own Aircraft manufacturing companies has always been political not technical.

the nations have agreed to further develop the Airbus Helicopters Tiger attack rotorcraft

Country that has done the most work on the Tiger so far has been Australia..

originally posted by: Blackfinger
I just cant see why Taranis went over to the French anyway for nEUROn..Both were promising designs and would have done quite well staying with their own countries..Britain's only downfall of its own Aircraft manufacturing companies has always been political not technical.

the nations have agreed to further develop the Airbus Helicopters Tiger attack rotorcraft

Country that has done the most work on the Tiger so far has been Australia..

The French were in BAe Warton for years working on FOAS, Future Offensive Air System, I seem to remember some issues with the Offensive being an issue. The French team were located in a few portable buildings out near the Tower because they werent trusted (as was the rumour).

I am pretty sure FOAS went away as I never heard of it again during my 15 years there. I had mates working on Taranis but they were very conscientious and told me nothing, the bits I picked up were because they were re-using kit I needed for some production aircraft so we rescheduled our line.

Last I heard was that BAE were still developing Taranis, it is a industry partnership with Quinetic, Rolls Royce, BAE and what I remember as Smiths Industries in Yeovil, I cannot imagine all those would sell out to the French, it was/is part industry funded tech demonstrator for the UK to make decisions.

I dont know anything about European stealth, but BAES proved their ability to produce stealthy designs with Replica, they would not give that to the French already, we may have stupid politicos, but like I said, Taranis was part industry funded and they are not stupid.

a reply to: Forensick

The collaboration between the UK and the French is/was the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) which combined the European nEUROn and the British Taranis. Both the French and the British pledged a cool £1.5bn, with prototypes due in 2017. At least that was the original plan.

With Brexit, one wonders how much collaboration happened and how much cash was spent. With the French now running into Germany's arms one can assume that FCAS is dead.

FCAS - article May 2016

The problem with UCAVs is not the design per se, but the ability to design autonomy. The French and Germans have demonstrated they can build a snappy flying machines, but only the UK has demonstrated autonomy to the extent shown in the Taranis programme.

The problem with these programs are not rally the hows and the whys but rather the wheres....

Both countries have robust aviation production capacity and know how but sharing production and what is produced where etc is almost always the sticking point.

Its actually a smart move if you can carry it off as no one country shouldered the development risk for a product that may or may not have a life beyond the initial purchase.

Also there is alot to be said for preserving the technical know how, training a new generation of people with the skills needed to produce complicated machines, etc and all of this eventually works its way into the civilian sector.

originally posted by: growler

originally posted by: paraphi
Well, this was pretty much an inevitability, although the French make complicated and difficult bed fellows when it comes to defence programmes as the Germans will now find out. This probably marks the end of early Anglo - French work on combining UCAV programmes (Taranis and nEUROn) - but only after the French have nicked all the British secrets, eh?

Rueters
Telegrapgh
The Drive

Is this really that bad for Britain? What are the British options - forging closer defence alliances with (say) the Japanese who are in a similar boat. Now that would be a meeting of minds. Or, sticking with the Americans where there is already close ties.

the original eurofighter was mainly designed by italians based on german designs and only later built by britain.
britain who are currently building some aircraft carriers without any planes able to use them showing its growing lack of common sense.

Utterly wrong. The Eurofighter Typhoon is a modestly altered BAe P.120 incorporating elements of the German MBB TKF90. BAe was preparing to go it alone with P.120 at a time when agreement with Germany and Italy was looking unlikely, but things worked out in the end.

For all intents and purposes this means France is designing a new fighter jet that might be used by the Luftwaffe.

France is reassuring the Brits (?) that the new fighter is not a threat to the UCAV effort the French are doing with the Brits.

www.flightglobal.com...

Did BAE continue testing on Taranis on its own?From what Ive found nEUROn has completed over 100 test flights..

but only the UK has demonstrated autonomy to the extent shown in the Taranis programme.

Cough - maybe not all of it is the UKs autonomy ;-)

a reply to: Blackfinger

Unfortunately the UCAV market just wasn't as forthcoming as BAE originally thought, although that is changing. A hell of a lot was learned from the Taranis program, and BAE surprised a lot of people with the performance and LO characteristics but without a customer that's all it is....a demonstrator.

With Taranis and Replica, BAE are a global player in LO combat air platforms. Turkey could well be the benefactor!

Cheers
Robbie

originally posted by: stratsys-sws
a reply to: Blackfinger

Unfortunately the UCAV market just wasn't as forthcoming as BAE originally thought, although that is changing. A hell of a lot was learned from the Taranis program, and BAE surprised a lot of people with the performance and LO characteristics but without a customer that's all it is....a demonstrator.

With Taranis and Replica, BAE are a global player in LO combat air platforms. Turkey could well be the benefactor!

Cheers
Robbie

I thought the idea wasn't the market but to assist the UK MOD on future capabilities to give them options?

With no country seemingly pushing UCAVs (us dropping their carrier UCAV) makes you wonder if they found out some major tech was not available yet?

Now with this Franco German hype looks like once again the next gen aircraft will wear the badge, probably the last manned fighter ever!