What you do not know about Eurofighter...

Here is one totaly unknown attempt to overcome the problems of multimode radar by avoiding the sophistication and cost demanded by a single unit. Interesting, isnt it?


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'Interesting' is one word you could use, I can think of another one

Matej are you serious or is that your idea of a joke ? please clarify.

What a funny picture... If they actully planned to make the plane look like that they can't be very smart... And that nose-shape would hardly anyways be stealthy... Nice pic tough... I would have posted it too...

[edit on 12-12-2005 by Figher Master FIN]

It is totaly serious. Design from about 1986-88.

I can confirm that the concept is real enough. Obviously not actually employed, but seriously considered by the Eurofighter consortium in the 1980s-early 90s and much publicized five or so years ago. It isn’t as silly as it looks and no it’s not totally unknown, just little known

Matej... This might not be apart of this thread... but you come from Slovakia right...?? can you tell me about your countrys air-force...??

There was an interesting 'Mk2' version of the Typhoon in the game 'Eurofighter Typhoon' that had a F/A-18/F-22/F-35 style twin canted tail and some other 'improvements'. It was only a game though, I'd post a pic but I cant seem to find any.

twin fins were a feature of the very early EFA proposals, indeed the RAF insisted on having them up until the EAP was modified to used a single Tornado fin in order to save money and its performance was used to persuade the RAF that they could make do with a single fin on the Typhoon.

Ridiculous as it seems, the single fin/twin fin argument was one of the major sticking points between Britain and France in the early days and one of the reasons France went off on its own. This is such a ridiculous point that it tends to get glossed over in retrospective articles on the Eurofighter programme.

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That graphic is of the German MBB TFK-90 concept for the “ACA” which later became the Eurofighter program.

The Eurofighter can be traced back to 1972 when the RAF (UK’s air force) changed their requirements for a short take off vertical landing air superiority fighter in light of Germany and France’s needs – a joint venture, which dropped all the STOVL requirement was born.

The new project was called ECA; European Combat Aircraft. It was complicated because each of the partners wanted different things –and whatever the politics, you can see why they wanted what they did. The ECA project evolved into the ECF (European Combat Fighter) and each of the countries put forward proposals –two of which featured twin fins.

The British proposal was the BAe P110 (also look up P106 if you’re curious). It was a beautiful design which very superficially resembles a twin engine/fin Saab Gripen (It is possibly related BTW, the BAe P.106 was a single engined design very similar to the Gripen and BAe assisted Saab in the design of the Gripen…).
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The German proposal was the MBB (now part of EADS) TFK-90 which also had twin fins:
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The French, who needed a fighter light enough for carrier operations developed the ACX concept and had simultaneously the Mirage 4000 design.
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The ACX eventually became the Rafale.

In 1981 the French left and Britian and Germany brought Italy in and yet again renamed the project: ACA which stood for Agile Combat Aircraft. There was a big fuss about funding and the British Ministry of Defence and to a lesser extent BAe, MBB and Aeritalia ended up picking up the tab… so yet more changes in name: Enter the EAP –Experimental Aircraft program.

The EAP was basically a BAe designed technology demonstrator and set the basic configuration for the Eurofighter. It used a Tornado fin though to reduce costs. Something for the British to brag about: it went supersonic on its maiden flight (!).
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Even as the EAP was being built, the EFA, as the overall program was then called (with the addition of Spain in the consortium) was taking shape.

So, ECA became ECF, became ACA, became EAP, became EFA, became Eurofighter…

Four alternative designs under consideration shortly before the building of the first prototype begin.

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Matej, can you supply any further info or links for this (in english if possible) as I have been following the Typhoon ever since it was merely the AST396 outline and I have never seen these before, also I understood the delta canard layout was firmly selected long before prototype construction began, maybe these layouts were investigated for comparative purposes rather than seriously considered for the EFA itself?

Also a couple of points regarding planemans post above ,

BAe did not assist in the design and development of the Gripen, it was 100% done by SAAB alone, the first design published looked like the F-16XL and the canards and side intakes were added to the design before the P.106 was made public. BAe and SAAB entered into a joint marketing arrangement in which the Gripen was to be offered with the Hawk trainer as a package in some markets, this was borne out of the Gripens similarity to the P.106 but it was already flying when the agreement was reached.

Also the second picture down does not show the TKF-90 but is in fact the mock up of the BAe ACA, this was built and flown under the EAP name with a single Tornado fin useed instead of the twin fin arrangement shown in order to save time and money.

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Everything about Eurofighter I have in printed form (it is a skycraper made of papers :-) But I will scan this and send you by mail soon.

Thank you Matej, that would be excellent