Bit more background in this article.

 
With the given availability number of those Typhoons, it does not matter if those are threat or not: they are probably out of reach from their future hangar.
 
Austrian defence minister Klaudia Tanner had received a letter from her Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto expressing interest in the aircraft.

Subianto le moment pour l'Indonésie d'acheter des Typhoons... :p
 
Are 3 of those countries even threats though?

Potential. Like They have in my view, considerable power projection potential. Imagine if sometime our politics were happen to be not in the same way. Back then in 1960's UK and Australia considered Indonesia as threat based on our politics and projection capability.

It would be naive to always assume everything will just like as the present.
 
Always been disapointed that Tr3 aircraft weren’t “Tempests” with AESA, CFTs, EJ230 TV engines (not for agility - their main advantage is using them to reduce trim deflections and thus improve efficiency - although I have been told that with them the canards could be eliminated - from the very engineer at the centre of the team that designed Typhoon’s FCS).

One thing to consider is Typhoon was designed for an 8000 service life, Tranche 1s wilnget about 60% of that before scrap. F35 too yet already the first blocks are not worth upgrading.

As we move from hand built to factory built aircraft, I guess it is cheaper to replace than upgrade since that necessarily is still hand build?

8000 service life comes with a lot of weight in the structure and LRU internals, plus a lot of cost for the supporting analysis, design, testing and certficiation.
 
- although I have been told that with them the canards could be eliminated - from the very engineer at the centre of the team that designed Typhoon’s FCS).

Don't think I ever heard anyone make that claim while I was on the team, and while you could just drive them in the opposite sense to the canards to generate a similar control force, my immediate reaction is it introduces a whole new set of failure modes, and will cost you those efficiency gains, while majorly changing the aero qualities. Losing the canards and their actuators would also be non-trivial in terms of what it does to CofG (admittedly so would be adding TVC). The combination would force a huge re-write of the FCS and a complete ab-initio flight test campaign.

It took years just to agree to try the German changes to the running board strakes, so even if the EJ230/TVC combo was flying this wouldn't be arriving any time soon.
 
- although I have been told that with them the canards could be eliminated - from the very engineer at the centre of the team that designed Typhoon’s FCS).

Don't think I ever heard anyone make that claim while I was on the team, and while you could just drive them in the opposite sense to the canards to generate a similar control force, my immediate reaction is it introduces a whole new set of failure modes, and will cost you those efficiency gains, while majorly changing the aero qualities. Losing the canards and their actuators would also be non-trivial in terms of what it does to CofG (admittedly so would be adding TVC). The combination would force a huge re-write of the FCS and a complete ab-initio flight test campaign.

It took years just to agree to try the German changes to the running board strakes, so even if the EJ230/TVC combo was flying this wouldn't be arriving any time soon.
It would very much not be a trivial piece of work. But the canards have a significant impact upon RCS also. TV would require a complete re-write of the FCS anyway.

The amount of work and the relatively modest gains (not transformational) against actually getting the aircraft weapons capability and that (probably correct) sense that it was “good enough” in these areas is why this never went anywhere.

The reason it took years for the German strakes was that the UK saw absolutely no value in them having tested independently and flat out refused to go any fuether for many years. I left years ago but that was the position then so either something changed technically, or politically.
 
The reason it took years for the German strakes was that the UK saw absolutely no value in them having tested independently and flat out refused to go any fuether for many years. I left years ago but that was the position then so either something changed technically, or politically.

I left before the test programme, but my impression was there was a gradual shift in leadership with Ottobrunn/Manching gaining more influence.
 
more news about Indonesia's buy of the Typhoon

and since we are at it.. they still will go ahead with the Su-35 purchase

now we can finally have DACT between the two
 
And they are paying for this by barter as such?
 
Once again, please don't link Sputnik articles here. Sputnik is Putin propaganda machine. Most of their stuff is horseshit.
 

There's more on Radar Two at: View: https://www.facebook.com/aerospaceanalysis/posts/1550084768531009?__tn__=K-R

When you read through the Facebook content you realize ECRS mk 2 has more to do with Raven-05 (Vixen 1000 outside the Gripen) than the Captor heritage. Captor was developed in the 1990ies when AD technology forced the A to D rather far back in the receiver/exciter chain (several IFs down). Raven was developed over the last 10 years and is well-described technology-wise in Stimson's Intro to Airborne Radar. Most examples of modern design radars with AD and DA close to the antenna is from Selex's (now Leonardo's) work with the Raven in Edinburgh.
It all builds on high dynamic range ADs that have bitrates of several GHz. This gives many advantages and ECRS is therefore wisely a further developed Raven rather than bogged down by 25-year-old design decisions from Captor. One example is the antenna. Rather than keeping the double swashplate to keep the integrated IFF polarization vertical, ECRS goes the Raven way with one rotation join (the polarization follows the rotation) and puts IFF separate like the Gripen (a Leonardo phased array design with >200° coverage like the radar/EW).

Gives much higher flexibility with nulling of the antenna vs jammers by both AESA nulling but also polarization mismatch and it's necessary for the ESM and Jammer modes (you can't have a one polarisation EW system). Once you put the ADs closer to the antenna you need a completely redone system downstream because of higher bitrates and compute needs. All angle, puls coding, doppler, and range gate processing is now digital. Same with the exciter (radar modes) and techniques generator (EW modes) going out with D to A just before the TRMs.

Only when you are down to metadata, hits/tracks, etc, and the reception of commands can you interface the legacy tactical computer of the Typhoon.

Regarding the hybrid GaS/GaN TRMs, I would venture GaS output power amps still, mainly for cost reasons, paired with GaN switching out/in (you don't want a circulator in a wideband MFA) followed by limiter free GaN first stage amp setting the NF (you gain the limiter losses in NF in addition to the low NF of GaN amps). You gain more in NF for the receive chain than what a few dBm on the output side buys you. Modern radars are about range through high AESA gain = narrow lobes and low sidelobes and sensitive receive chains, rather than screaming you are there with high output power. It's all about LPI (Low Probability of Intercept) radar modes = throttling your output power down as far as possible sending very long, low peak power, coded pulses.
 
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I have to admit I skipped the F-35 diatribe and concentrated on the AT's reporting on German politics
 
A recent publicity video released by the Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) showed Omani Typhoons practising the air-to-ground role. Perhaps surprisingly, the Omani aircraft were shown dropping what appeared to be 2,000-lb GBU-10 LGBs - a weapon cleared for use on Typhoon back in 2006-7, and part of the P1Eb software release, but not in use by the British Royal Air Force, or indeed by any of the original partner nations.

More at: View: https://www.facebook.com/aerospaceanalysis/posts/1607021312837354



EFT RAFO 218 w PWII Screenshot 2020-11-16 at 20.32.52.png
 
God knows how people coped in the 1950s and 60s when pilots used to do sonic booms for fun.
I certainly remember complaints in the late 70s when an F-111 went supersonic over Weardale, which was a fast jet route, but not a supersonic one.
 

This is a variant of the elephant in a cristal glass shop: the crystallized elephants Walk... But don't worry, sooner or later, in a beautiful early spring day, the ugly chrysalis will transform into a mighty... Hornet!
 
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As I posted elsewhere a BAe rep told me back in the late 90s that they and Saab were confident of a Gripen sale to Austria replacing Drakens. The US were pushing F16 to Austria, Czech and Hungary.
He laughed when I mentioned Eurofighter.
 

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