Eurofighter Typhoon

Spain has put the kibosh on any F-35A OR B purchases....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1953063434758640057
View: https://x.com/Helofresh/status/1953063434758640057


The Halcon and Halcon II purchases are for 45 Typhoon in total to replace the oldest EF-18 Hornets....of which there are 84.

So what now? The remaining EF-18 are not going to last long into the 2030's...and thats a huge gap to the potential arrival of SCAF at c2040 (and remember Trappier has said 2050 is more realistic, and that was before the squabbles...). Plus there are c13 (of a total of 20 purchased) AV-8B+ to replace....even if the Spanish Navy is abandoning fixed wing aviation thats still an additional Sqn of combat aircraft lost...

Sounds like the potential for Halcon III just increased....or....the Spanish are waiting for the current SCAF kerfuffle to die down before going back to F-35...
 
GTX said:
The discussions I have had with Spanish Air Force officers directly involved with the EF-18s have advised that they plan to keep flying EF-18s until ~2037.
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I wish them good luck....minimum age at retirement would be 47-52 years old...

I guess they might be ok with parts availability...
 
Grey Havoc said:
Even that might be a tad optimistic, I fear...
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When the last major user is the USMC...who run their aircraft hard and right to the end I suspect you might be right...Australian, Canadian, USN parts stockpiles and aircraft will be exhausted, Malaysia has picked up the Kuwaiti Hornets and kit already...Swiss and Finland use the C and D variants...think its going to be a Germany and Tornado situation where the reality of trying to keep them going that long bites hard....
 
Grey Havoc said:
Even that might be a tad optimistic, I fear...
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It is a challenge but is one operators are painfully aware of. There are things trying to be put together to address not only spares but also industrial support but they aren't there yet.
 
timmymagic said:
When the last major user is the USMC...who run their aircraft hard and right to the end I suspect you might be right...Australian, Canadian, USN parts stockpiles and aircraft will be exhausted,
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Current plans will see most operators out of the Classic Hornet game by 2030. Canada will be a couple of years later in 2032 I believe. Spain is trying for 2037 and Malaysia 2040+.
timmymagic said:
Malaysia has picked up the Kuwaiti Hornets and kit already...
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No they have not. They are very interested in them and there is a delegation visiting Kuwait shortly but no deal has actually been done yet. Moreover, the support longer term is still going to be challenging.
 
GTX said:
The discussions I have had with Spanish Air Force officers directly involved with the EF-18s have advised that they plan to keep flying EF-18s until ~2037.
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Thats quite insane. Spanish Hornets (not counting the ex-USN airframes) were delivered between 1986 and 1990. They will have seen ~50 years of service at retirement. Spain better gives them some major upgrades if they are serious about keeping them flying for another decade or so. I am thinking about the radar in particular. Spanish F-18s still use the APG-65 which can be considered an obsolete radar now. An upgrade to the APG-79(V)4 like the USMC and Canada did with a portion of their Hornet fleets might not be a bad idea if they want them to remain a minimum credible.
 
helmutkohl said:
Recent reports state that this hasn't gone through because Kuwait is having difficulties with securing aircraft to replace their Hornets
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Why would Kuwait have such difficulties? That country is swimming Petro-dollars after all.
 
GTX said:
I have heard however that there are issues behind the scenes with Boeing though related to subsystems, software plus I believe pilot training is still an issue.
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So basically technical issues are holding up the sale to Kuwait of the Super Hornets.
 
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NMaude said:
So basically technical issues are holding up the sale to Kuwait of the Super Hornets.
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As mentioned above, the sale has been made. The jets just haven’t been delivered. Further to what I wrote above, the items holding up delivery are apparently subsystems to Boeing
 
Eurofighter Typhoons for the Philippine Air Force? That is certainly news to me. What Tranche will they be ordering that is if they select the Typhoon? Tranche 5?
 
Thanks GTX, I would think that the Philippine Air Force should go ahead and buy some Typhoons at least the latest Tranche 5 variant.
 
Generally spoken, the Eurofighter consortium will not sale aircraft at a standard whose development isn't on contract. They did the error once with Austria.
 
NMaude said:
What do you mean?
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What I mean is that Eurofighter would certainly not sell a "Tranche 5" aircraft to the Phillipines, as there is no Tranche 5 contract and Tranches are not really indicative for capability as such anyway. Austria order Tranche 2 aircraft 18 months before the T2 contract was signed. T2 delta development was paid for by the quadrinational T2 contract and that brought Eurofighter into trouble when the T2 contract signature shifted to the right, as the contractually agreed delivery schedules could no longer be kept. Doubt they would do something like that again and have never done so since.
 

Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets Eyed For Eurofighter Typhoon​

www.twz.com

Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets Eyed For Eurofighter Typhoon

The air-to-air optimized variant of the APKWS rocket is being assessed as an option for the Eurofighter Typhoon as concerns over the drone threat in Europe grow. The air-to-air optimized variant of the APKWS rocket is being assessed as an option for the Eurofighter Typhoon, as concerns over the...
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 
Forest Green said:

Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets Eyed For Eurofighter Typhoon​

www.twz.com

Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets Eyed For Eurofighter Typhoon

The air-to-air optimized variant of the APKWS rocket is being assessed as an option for the Eurofighter Typhoon as concerns over the drone threat in Europe grow. The air-to-air optimized variant of the APKWS rocket is being assessed as an option for the Eurofighter Typhoon, as concerns over the...
www.twz.com www.twz.com
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Interesting. Seems to be the most logical way of providing fast jets with massive air-to-air power; against plentiful and cheap Shahed drones.

My understanding is that each pod contains 7 rockets, imagine if a Rafale was armed to the teeth with a pod on every single hardpoint, 7*13 = 91 rockets. Of course it is a silly, raw calculation BUT against waves of hundred shaheds it is not that unreasonable.
 
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German SEAD upgrade accelerates:

Germany plans to award Saab and US-based Northrop Grumman a contract worth 1.2 billion euros (13.3 billion kronor) to upgrade its Eurofighter fleet with equipment needed to use advanced missiles to detect and destroy ground-based air defense systems.
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According to Bloomberg, the contract covers Saab’s Arexis electronic warfare system and Northrop Grumman’s AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missiles (AARGM). These two capabilities have already been identified by Germany as the core components of its planned Eurofighter Typhoon Elektronischer Kampf (EK, electronic combat) varia
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www.expressen.se

Saab nära miljardorder

Tyskland planerar att uppgradera sin Eurofighter-flotta och svenska Saab är nära att säkra en mångmiljardorder på utrustning till planen.
www.expressen.se www.expressen.se

www.aerotime.aero

Saab, Northrop to get €1.2B Eurofighter EW deal: Bloomberg

Germany plans a €1.2B Eurofighter EW contract for Saab and Northrop, Bloomberg says, with AI firm Helsing also cited in procurement documents.
www.aerotime.aero www.aerotime.aero
 
Luftwaffe Eurofighters Poised for Major Upgrades
An extensive article on the upgrades coming to the Eurofighter:

- ECRS Mk1 with additonal information on the meaning behind the new APSC
- Litening V with relay function for Crewed-Uncrewed Teaming (MUM-T ?) operations with CCAs
- Improvements to the HMI with Striker II and Large Area Display
- Brimestone 3, Taurus (Neo), GBU-54, AGM-88E, IRIS-T Block 2, AIM-120C-8 and D3 integration, upgraded Meteor
- Aerodynamic Modification Kit (AMK) for higher turn rates, tighter turn radius, improved nose-pointing at low speed, further increased MTOW and payload compared to P3Ec and stores flexibility
- EuroDASS Praetorian eVo, Helsing Cirra AI
- System and Teaming Advanced Research (STAR) demonstrator test platform for MUM-T.
 
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As a reminder, from here.

Eurofighter Project Pilot Germany Raffaele Beltrame said: “This programme has been a tremendous success with very impressive results – in some areas even better than we expected.

“We saw angle of attack values around 45% greater than on the standard aircraft, and roll rates up to 100% higher, all leading to increased agility. The handling qualities appeared to be markedly improved, providing more manoeuvrability, agility and precision while performing tasks representative of in-service operations. And it is extremely interesting to consider the potential benefits in the air-to-surface configuration thanks to the increased variety and flexibility of stores that can be carried.
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(probably slightly over stated as not the standard way to define AoA)

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TomcatViP said:
As a reminder, from here.



(probably slightly over stated as not the standard way to define AoA)
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In which way? All it states is that with the AMK the AoA limit is increased by 45% compared to the standard aircraft. The 100% roll rate increase is related to roll authorities at high AoA.

To put that into the perspective, the basic airframe is capable of more than what production aircraft show today. This is owed to safety related restrictions on FCS limits. In the Eurofighter programme they have always been very conservative, even if risks are very low, or essentially not really existant. The airshow performance of the prototypes are a testimony of this, they had higher AoA authorities, closer to their max. lift and higher roll authorities at alpha. This was reduced for the production aircraft.

AMK addresses the safety concerns and pushes the AoA limit, increasing roll authority and the up to 25% increase in lift is primarily owed to exploit the lift potential of the airframe. The current AoA limit is less than CLmax.
 
European manufacturer usually states AoA performance in pitch where US Research programs attacking the Angle of Attack problem for fighter jets state that angle all around the speed vector. That makes a huge difference in flight envelope.

What does it implies tactically? For example the now infamous Pedal turn where an aircraft is departed in yaw to complete a tighter turn at low G. Or point the nose left to right during a tight turn at high pitch angle (old gen fighter like non-updated classic Hornet or Rafale have severe restrictions in yaw or roll there*).
That´s why it is important to make the difference as it restricts the way an aircraft can fight.

*Be attentive to B* Betty screaming <Release stick... Release stick> in your favorite Dogfight video (not a carnal call)
 
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TomcatViP said:
European manufacturer usually states AoA performance in pitch where US Research programs attacking the Angle of Attack problem for fighter jets state that angle all around the speed vector. That makes a huge difference in flight envelope.

What does it implies tactically? For example the now infamous Pedal turn where an aircraft is departed in yaw to complete a tighter turn at low G. Or point the nose left to right during a tight turn at high pitch angle (old gen fighter like non-updated classic Hornet or Rafale have severe restrictions in yaw or roll there*).
That´s why it is important to make the difference as it restricts the way an aircraft can fight.

*Be attentive to B* Betty screaming <Release stick... Release stick> in your favorite Dogfight video (not a carnal call)
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Essentially you are talking about the AoA authorities between symetric "nose up" and asymetric "turn/roll". Agree that it makes a difference in how you can utilise such an aircraft. What's meant here is indeed max AoA in symetric flight conditions, but ofcourse there will be implications on AoA authorities in asymetric conditions. The Typhoon could originally roll around the VV at max. AoA, but AoA max and roll authorities have been reduced on production aircraft due to beta (side slip) exceedance in such conditions. Avoiding the problem area was the solution at the expense of max lift, nose pointing capability and asymetrix maneuver performance.
 
Richelieu said:
Luftwaffe Eurofighters Poised for Major Upgrades
An extensive article on the upgrades coming to the Eurofighter:

- ECRS Mk1 with additonal information on the meaning behind the new APSC
- Litening V with relay function for Crewed-Uncrewed Teaming (MUM-T ?) operations with CCAs
- Improvements to the HMI with Striker II and Large Area Display
- Brimestone 3, Taurus (Neo), GBU-54, AGM-88E, IRIS-T Block 2, AIM-120C-8 and D3 integration, upgraded Meteor
- Aerodynamic Modification Kit (AMK) for higher turn rates, tighter turn radius, improved nose-pointing at low speed, further increased MTOW and payload compared to P3Ec and stores flexibility
- EuroDASS Praetorian eVo, Helsing Cirra AI
- System and Teaming Advanced Research (STAR) demonstrator test platform for MUM-T.
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Jesus Christ, they finally do AMK after talking about it for 20 unholy years.
Took them long for damn straps, enough to discuss every bolt it would take, for every aircraft, one committee meeting and Bundestag hearing each.
Also, interesting how Hensoldt updated ECRS mk.1 - British mk.2 claims clearly hurt!
Separation between AREXIS and Praetorian DASS smells byzantine deals.

But irony aside, that's a very comprehensive and complete MLU, for a platform that was criminally let down by its creators.
 

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