Eurofighter Typhoon

Don't know if this thread was already started. I just became a member in November, so sorry if it's a repeat.

It seems the Eurofighter is finally in full scale production.
Many European countries have this on order, and export of the fighter seems inevitable.

www.eurofighter.com...

I'm not an aviation expert, and would like to know what our more informed members think about this aircraft. How would in stack against America's, or Russia's best combat aircraft? Will the Eurofighter be major competition for U.S. aeronautical engineering companies, or will it be a flop?

The EF-2000 is a good aircraft. It is one of the next generation such as the F/A-22 and F-35. One more thing, I believe that this thread should be in the aviation forum.

Eurofighter is a very capable aircraft. She is a beautiful aircraft also.
Perhaps this link will help with some of the future discussions relevant to this topic. This link is to the BAE OpEval with comparisons to many of the Western fighters. Based on BVR, the aircraft ranks fairly well:

"Eurofighter Typhoon: OpEval: DERA"
Link:
www.eurofighter.starstreak.net...


Excerpt:
"This system was used to comprehensively evaluate the BVR (Beyond Visual Range) performance of the Eurofighter and other aircraft against an upgraded Su-27 Flanker (comparable to an Su-35 Super Flanker and its equivalents). The studies investigated all aspect best performances from the major systems on each aircraft; avionics, structure (including RCS data), engine performance (including fuel usage), defences and man-machine interfaces. In these tests the French Rafale utilised the Matra-BAe MICA air to air missile (which is the primary AA weapon of the French airforce) while the other aircraft used the Raytheon-Hughes AMRAAM.

These simulations concluded that Eurofighter has a win rating of 82% (100% equals always win, 0% equals always lose, 50% equals parity) against the target aircraft. A more typical way to present this data is as a combat exchange ratio, for the Typhoon this equals 4.5:1. In other words statistically one Eurofighter would be lost for every 4.5 Su-35 fighters shot down. This compares extremely favourably to the other aircraft (see also the BVR Combat Rating table); F-16C Falcon (0.3:1), F-15C Eagle (0.8:1), F-18C Hornet (0.3:1), F-18+ (0.4:1, NB this is not the current F-18E/F which is apparently a downgraded version of the F-18+ used in the studies) and Dassault Rafale (1:1). Only the LM/Boeing F-22 Raptor bettered the Eurofighter's performance with a combat exchange ratio of 10.1:1."



regards
seekerof

This is one good looking aircraft. You just gotta love the delta wing/canard configuration. I'll bet it is really maneuverable. The whole Idea of a Eurofighter is quite appealing in that expenses and production/research responsibilities are shared among several nations. I wait to see when this hits the airshow circuit. I am sure it will be very impressive.

I think the EF-2000 is one of the best aircraft in existance. Remember, at 60million per unit you can buy two of these for every HALF an F-22!

DVI, Direct Voice Input is one of the key cockpit systems in the Typhoon. The module, provided by Smiths Industries of the UK forms part of the aircraft's integrated, CAMU supplied by CDC also of Britain. The first module was delivered by Smiths to CDC in May ready for integration into the first CAMU subsystem now under construction. DVI will be available in the first IPA series due in August 2001.

The speech recognition module allows for connected word voice recognition. Since the system needs to cope with a noisy in-flight environment as well as high-g stresses (effecting the pilots voice and speech) a robust system was required. To this end the unit incorporates various speech recognition algorithms including Markov pattern matching and newer neural-net techniques. The resulting system has a vocabulary of some 200 words, a response time of around 200ms and a recognition capability in excess of 95%. Each aircraft will have to be trained to recognise the voice of its pilot. This task will be achieved via a Ground Support Station (GSS) with the data transferred to the Eurofighter's on-board systems via a Smiths supplied Mission Data Loader.

Speech recognition in a fighter? Never heard of that before.

The speech reconistion is so advance that it can even detect difference accents and dialects. A few draw backs is it isn't a stealthy of the raptor and doesn't have thrust vectoring.

to me that sounds quite stupid ... who is speaking while performing a 8g manoeuvre
and what will the pilot command that he can't do faster with his hands maybe "fire" or "engines to full"...or "Mr. Spok , bring us to where ever those klingone Su-35s are"

There is an obvious conclusion to all of this.

The US cannot in future go it alone with aircraft and other programs if it hopes to still be a player in the military hardware business.

Not that any product is exclusively made in the US anymore anyways but it seems to make less and less sense for the US to take on the primary job of producing all its aircraft.

Hey jet isn't this the aviation forum? Or did I drunkenly step into the terrorism forum again? Anyways the typhoon is a great fighter. It suppose to be 81% efficient against an SU-35...Of course the Russkies here will never admit that. An F/A-22 is superior to anything declassified though.

Trouble with the Typhoon, its too old already, they have had a full scale mock up for nearly 30 years, and it will be about 10 years behind schedule when its finally operational. We should have had them 4 years ago. It has some good points, especially the engines, they are immensely powerfull.

i currently work on Tornado aircraft, which the typhoon will replace, and i must say im not looking forward to it as much as i hate the Tornado! The aircraft construction is so reliant on Composites, it makes maintenance a bit of a nightmare!

Knowsstuff won't you have to re-tool your entire workshop for the Typhon?

im hoping i wont be there when it happens, so i wont have to care!

Found this article earlier today. Very indepth and eye-opening also.

"Air farce one"
Link:
www.portal.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2004/01/04/wfarce04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/04/ixworld.html

Excerpt:

"The Eurofighter is 10 years overdue, has split its design partners and cost the British taxpayer �20bn. David Lomax reports on the project's political dogfighting and costly mishaps

It is 10 years late, �6 billion, if not more, over budget, and the RAF still hasn't got one in squadron service. And next month, the Eurofighter, Britain's biggest defence procurement project, will face a crucial export challenge.

Singapore, which needs to update its air force, will evaluate the Eurofighter's performance against French and American rivals. An overseas sale might offset some of the �20 billion which the aircraft has so far cost the British taxpayer - the equivalent of three Channel Tunnels or Railtrack's costs for the next five years - and would be much-needed encouragement to a four-nation collaboration which has been plagued by cost over-runs and difficulties for two decades.

Apart from a modest purchase by Austria and orders from the countries where the aircraft is being built, the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany, the Eurofighter has not been sold anywhere. At the Dubai Air Show last month, it was only present as a model while its rivals cavorted overhead in spectacular flying displays. The RAF was supposed to be getting 232 of them but there are still problems with the aircraft's electronic systems and it will not be in squadron service until 2006, and then only in the basic form of an air-combat version, which critics claim is a relic of the Cold War and should have been scrapped years ago...."


Any thoughts, comments, or corrections to the above mentioned article?


regards
seekerof

Btw.....here are some impressive Eurofighter videos:

Tranche 4 prototypes"
www.airpower.at...

21st Century Airpower.mpg
Link:
www.eurofighter.com...

Gabriels Oboe.mpg
Link:
www.eurofighter.com...

Staying in Command.mpg
Link:
www.eurofighter.com...

Type Acceptance.mpg
Link:
www.eurofighter.com...

And lower resolutions can be found here:
Media Library--Video--Eurofighter Typhoon
Link:
www.eurofighter.com...




regards
seekerof

SEE!!!!! MY POINT EXACTLY!!!!

**BUMP**

A 2003 thread brough back to the living.

With the announcement coming soon of India's decision to buy either Rafael or Typhoon I thought I would bump this thread for the weeks ahead.

I had a thought about the UK Defence budget and think we should do the following:

1. Get out of F-35 - I dont know if it is possible or what penalties but I see this as a great aircraft we dont need.
2. Upgrade the Typhoon to be able to operate on our new carriers

Now one fleet of basically the same aircraft will have so many synergy savings throughout the life of the aircraft that we could have a larger and more capable fleet at a lower cost, not to mention sharing the upgrade cost and technology within our European consortium.

Use the savings to develop / improve the following

Conformal tanks



and Supercruise and with its DASS, AESA radar it will make a formidable platform, especially when fitted with

24 x Brimstone




All we need then is our UAV Taranis to perform anti radiation and anti runway and our smallish but perfectly formed Royal Airforce fits perfectly within the budget.

The typhoon is probably going to lose out to the Dassault Rafale. It's cheaper and already has a fully developed naval variant.

Aside from that, they are still developing the naval variant of the Hal Tejas.

I dont think its quite so easy to call. As well as the advantage for the Rafale you mentioned, an admittedly major one, there is also the rather off putting fact that nobody else other than France seems to want it.

There is also the matter of local licence production France is not keen on letting other people in on the act and that was one of the reasons they went on alone with Rafale in the first place. India has already had a successful period producing and upgrading the Jaguar, which, despite Jaguar being part French, was actually done entirely in partnership with BAE Systems (BAe as was). In addition to this India has been offered full partner status in the Typhoon, which is quite a prize for HAL.

Regarding the previous post, I think concentrating the whole UK effort on a single type is a terrible idea as, should any future groundings materialise, you have lost your entire front line at a stroke. You absolutely need the backup provided by having unrelated types sharing the load, therefore a UK F-35 purchase (in the absence of anything else) is vital

So we will probably pull out of it then, along with all our other half-arsed decisions

Hey I dont want to start an arguament, but....No seriously like to hear the opinions.

Is the threat of grounding really a reason that the MOD Procurement would source 2 jets, I personally dont believe that arguament at all, we put all our eggs in one attack helicoper, one main battle tank, one of each class of everything, we dont build multi billion pound decisions on redundancy (except in the case of obsolete redundancy).

I think the JSF decision came about because of technology sharing, from what I can tell, BAE built Replica to prove it could make stealth on its own thus allowing access to production stealth technologies from the yanks for workshare in JSF.

My comments on not needing JSF is driven by the fact i dont think we need stealth and its a massive red herring. We are not building a Eastern Bloc deterrent, we need to defend our shores but noone is going to invade us, if we need to project power over our allies and commonwealth and interests (falklands) we dont need stealth.

All we need is a multi role adaptable platform and being as though we have already developed one, why bother with another?

We wont drop JSF and it will be a great aircraft, I just think we dont need it.