Eurofighter gets an upgrade..

.. from air superiority only to air to ground capability..

www.theregister.co.uk...

I guess everything these days will need to perform multi-role duties to earn it's keep..

Pricey bit of kit though at £125-140 million..

That is a terrible article with a barely contained agenda against the Typhoon. Indeed it is not the first hatchet job on this aircraft from that site.

Either the author is deliberately lying in that piece, or he genuinely does not know his subject at all, in which case why is he getting paid to write this tripe?

Examples? Here's a few;

The Eurofighter Typhoon combat jet is to receive a major update, gaining the ability to effectively attack ground targets – a thing it currently cannot do. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced today that the governments of Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany have agreed to pay the Eurofighter consortium £830m to sort out the controversial wonder-plane.

A clear bias is displayed to reader here, with the amateurish 'sort out' comment obviously intended to portray the subject as a defect to be fixed, rather than just being the next stage in the Typhoons introduction to service as planned from the start of the programme, which is what it is.

"The MoD has taken another significant step to equip the Royal Air Force with the capability it requires by signing a contract to transform RAF Typhoon fighters,” says the MoD, tacitly admitting that the Eurofighter is not what the RAF requires.

Now he is leading the reader by implying a meaning to the quote that is not there. 'another significant step' is what was quoted, and thats what it is, the next step in a pre planned programme of gradual capability upgrades following Initial Operational Capability (IOC) which is the normal way that all new fighters are introduced to service.

Current Eurofighters – when they finally go operational later this year – will be pure air-superiority platforms, good only for fighting other aircraft using advanced missiles such as AMRAAM.

Again, as was always planned to be the case. Like a dog with a bone, he wont let it go.

This enhancement will certainly make the Eurofighter more useful, but it’s questionable if anything can make it cost-effective. As a comparison, the UK plans to buy US-made F-35 Lightning II strike planes as well. These planes aren’t as manoeuvrable as a Eurofighter, but they can carry AMRAAMs perfectly well. In many ways they’re much better than the European super-jet: they’ll have stealth, for instance, and probably vertical-landing jump-jet capability too.

And the agenda is revealed!

In fact the RAF Lightnings will not get full weapons clearance until at least 2024, according to the RAF, BAE and Lockheed, who all ought to know. The reason? Because the Lightning will be introduced into service with basic capability and will than have its full capabilities gradually introduced over the next few years in stages. Sound familiar? Yes, its exactly the same thing that he is bitching over with the Typhoon, only this time its apparently a 'good thing'.

The article is clearly trying to paint a picture of the Typhoon as an A2A fighter that the RAF is desperately trying to justify by finding it a new role, however anyone with any sort of interest in the programme can tell you that ground attack, and replacing the Jaguar, was in there among the list of requirements right from the very beginning.

The price of a Lightning II? Currently estimated below £55m per plane, less than half the likely price of a Eurofighter. Against competition like this, it'll take more than an upgrade to make the Typhoon look like a good deal.

The final lie, to try and estimate the cost of the F-35 to half that of the Typhoon is laughable. Does all that stealth tech he is so fond of come free as a gift? Of course not. He isn't even sure if its the STOVL version or not we are having. What an expert!

Stoo

Pricey bit of kit though at £125-140 million..

The quoted price for the Austrian Typhoons is only £61m, and they have only bought 24 of them. Like the rest of the piece, take his figures with a pinch of salt.

[edit on 31-3-2007 by waynos]

I did try to look at the linked MOD page, but I kept getting database errors

It wasn't so much that write-up I was interested in (in fact I ignored all the obvious BS, just got caught on the price), more the upgrade news

Sounds familiar doesn't it waynos? Idiot journalist gets fed lies and manipulated to give a desired outcome. In fact although I didn't bother with the article it sounds very similar to the hatchet jobs done on the F-22.

And I DO believe the agenda was revealed when you quote the article saying the RAF, BAE and.. "LOCKHEED", claim it wont get full weapons clearance till 2024. I mean take this quote you highlighted for instance.

This enhancement will certainly make the Eurofighter more useful, but it’s questionable if anything can make it cost-effective. As a comparison, the UK plans to buy US-made F-35 Lightning II strike planes as well. These planes aren’t as manoeuvrable as a Eurofighter, but they can carry AMRAAMs perfectly well. In many ways they’re much better than the European super-jet: they’ll have stealth, for instance, and probably vertical-landing jump-jet capability too.

Is this guy on LM's payroll or what?
My oh my! those dirty gutter spin doctors from Ft Worth seem to be pulling tricks everywhere dont they?

Seems to prove what I and others have said all along about the true rationale behind the F-35 program afterall. Screw your allies inhouse design and production abillity, then flog them your own jets.

LEE.

aha, found the original report:

www.gnn.gov.uk...

That's more like it!

that reads quite differently doesn't it stoo, without the injection of bile

Honestly the first report is utter BS spread over little bits of truths. What was it that hitler said? "they will only believe the lie if there is some truth to it" or something along those lines. I was unaware of the lack of capablities for the F-35 until 2024. With even just that info you know why the USAF is making the 22 A2G capable and same with the many F-18 updgrade programes in the countries who are partisipating in the 35's development.

To be fair Canada EH, I don't expect the USAF will wait anywhere near as long as the RAF for full capability in the F-35. I did a post about this particular issue sometime last year. it was titled something like 'RAF faces bomber gap' or similar.

tbh I just left my BS filter on high (from reading some of the other subforums around here ), and skimmed through it:

"ooh, Eurofighter's getting an upgrade.."
"Air-Ground capability.."
"Planes aren't cheap.."
"Upgrade price isn't too bad.."
"Cool, off to ATS with this then.."

I saw the Eurofighter here at an airshow a couple of years ago.. damn can that thing climb! Lovely looking plane too

Originally posted by Canada_EH
I was unaware of the lack of capablities for the F-35 until 2024.

It should not take the US 11 years after declaring IOC with the F-35 to reach full weapons configuration. Look at the F-22, when it went IOC it had just the basics, in two short years it got a new radar more suitable to A2G and it was configured with other A2G munitions. The "full" F-22 (Block 40) is not here yet (2010-2011) but that does not mean it cant be used in A2A and A2G missions, now.

Same with the F-35, it will enter IOC with just a basic weapons package then over perhaps 5 years it will get close to it's full load. That does not mean however that your F-35 will be useless during those other four years though...