Heaviest ever Eurofighter Typhoon test configuration flying

I don't know if you can put external weapons on The Raptor, but I do know that it can be equipped with external fuselage...

The Raptor can be equipped with external weapons mounts if the USAF so chooses. Even if they haven't authorized such a configuration if need be they can put external weapons on it with very little effort. By the way good find with the picture.

Originally posted by Nacnud
I have heard of something simmilar for external stores on the F-22

There is talk about this. But the literature I have seen is discussing the possibility of hanging "stealthy" munitions after air superiority is established which would have some effect on the RCS of the a/c but not as much as conventional munitions.

LM is also looking at a smaller version of the JAASM for internal carriage as well:

Stealth

So tell me Harlequin, why is it that the Eurofighter, whose /original/ AST403 requirement was for a _Jaguar_ replacement, cannot 'fight the good fight' as a purely air superiority jet?

AST403 was for a pure air superiority aircraft NOT a ground attack aircraft replacement -

www.tgarden.demon.co.uk...

Why is it that you are still playing footsie games with the U.S. on the F-35/JCA if you think you've got the cats whiskers? THAT is the kind of question this PRBS express effort tends to beg you know.

They are not - the F-35 was to replace the Harrier GR7 - NOT the Tornado.

That programme was FOAS - which has now finished.

Comparitively, the Rafale has always been announced as an 'attack fighter', with the intention of replacing legacy roles in the Mirage F-1, III, Jag and Etendard force. And as such is going to have available for it:

1. Damocles 3rd generation targeting pod.
2. U.S. licensed Paveway compatibility.
3. AASM IAMs.
4. SCALP CMs.
5. AM.40.

When it /does/ 'finally arrive'. With Armiger, NSM/ANF and whole hordes of dumb/rocket weapons only slightly further out.

Rafale has been in service for 4 years now and yet have 0 ground attack capability - not till the uodates NEXT year at the very earliest. It is an air superiority fighter.

Indeed, you know as well as anyone that nobody is less than a year away from owning a jet from the time the contract is signed.[/

All 4 partner countries have the type in service - the your comment is null and void.

The raf currently field 2 squadrons of typhoon aircraft.

But the Rafale is what the Flubber never attempted to be honest about.

And _that_ is where you Team Typhooey ends up in trouble.

Because every one of the latest Gen-4 jets is /late/. By upwards of ten years. And every one is _overpriced_ as a single-role anything. And yet the Rafale, is at least a weapons platform that acknowledges, to some small extent, the realities of it's signature limitations with high rez targeting and standoff PGM.

Indeed, the real irony is that the Rafale, as an RBE2+MICA, sub-50km, 'fighter', is a piece of crap. And so it's penetrating AAW capability is riding on UK shares of AMSAR and Meteor /while it carries/ the A2G loadouts which otherwise compromise it yet further.

Again incorrect - Rafale is marketed as `multirole` ,when in 4 years of operational service it is NOT A2G capable.

You also show bias in anything that flies once again - the RBE2 radar has a range of 100 km`s and MICA is the fire control system.

And what A2G stores - it has 0 A2G capability.

And what's Flubber's excuse? They saw how the F-22 was taken apart based on the NAPFAG communities refusal to put _strike_ ahead of their precious 'Air Dominance' in a jet that never needed to confront the threat directly.

They have had /years/ to start their own IAM program, their own followon to TIALD, their own TTNT setup. To develop a brilliant ARM to replace the compromised ALARM.

Yet they did _nothing_.

Indeed, even as a purely A2A asset, on how many jets is PIRATE/EuroFIRST installed? How many have Meteor?

The typhoon has qualified A2G stores - just because it hasn`t dropped them `in anger` doesn`t mean squat - and goes to prove that you are biased against any aircraft type.

ALARM compromised? don`t make me laugh - and don`t reply with `techno BS` - in the SEAD role , even the F-3 Tornado carrying ALARM does better than the F-15E carrying HARM.

Yes of course you can quote this or that system that is being developed , but thats just in a lab and not on the stores racks of fighting aircraft .

I admit that /some/ capability, as what we would call a QRC and what the Brits define as UOR, is better than nothing. But that's still a German jet with foreign LGB (service specific, not likely to be exported) and NO organic targeting agency and so frankly, they are doing little more than advertising a vaporware promise

heres a task for you.

please write in 100 words or less , what IN YOUR OPINION QRC or UOR actually mean.

All that this demo does is prove that the crate is worthless as a tinfoil tyro until it has operational systems in that reflect more than a 'carriage test photo'.

again you just post your highly opinionated bias of anything with wings or an engine.

Flubber needs to get up to speed by buying into some serious munitions upgrades to fulfill the promise offered by a system that was never stated to out-LO the Americans. And which thus relies on _better bullets_ to get the job done.

'Even if it fits' (and IMO, it's not likely given the side-by-side breadth of the munitions on the rack), I doubt seriously if the French will be as forthcoming with their AASM/TER combo as the UK has been pound-foolish in /giving away/ Meteor/AMSAR keys to the Rafale. And you can sure as heck bet that GBU-3x series weapons will never be offered, free for export, if the F-35 is dumped

serious munitions upgrades - i highly dount it needs any at all , its using ASRAAM (which IS better than AIM-9X but you will argue that point) and the latest AMRAAM with datalink

`pound foolish in giving away meteor`


METEOR is euro missile that involves the french - please get up to speed on the information that you need to know.

F-22 operating on its own or in small numbers is still vulnerable to counter battery fire - they HAVE to stay on target for the 2 mid course updates for AMRAAM until the shot is within 10 miles for its own seeker to take over.

[edit on 5/3/06 by Harlequin]

To be absolutely accurate Harlequin (and to head off any comback from KPI) ast 403, issued on the 8th July 1975 called for an offensive aircraft to replace the Harrier and Jaguar but with air superiority as a primary element

also, the ground attack capability of the Typhoon is being introduceed incrementally, as was planned right from the start and as is also planned with the F-35 (see a previous post of mine detailing this - UK considers fighter buy, or similar title), so KPI was getting agitated about nothing, once again (cue avalanche of acronyms and name calling to cloud the argument). You would think that Rafale was doing things differently from KPI's post, in fact they are doing it almost exactly the same way.

So the upshot of all that is that Typhoon fully meets the requirement that led to it's manufacture and entering service.

Typhoon is still almost beyond any doubt whatsoever the No.2 air to air fighter available (after the F22 - a plane that in the hands of the countries that initiated it's design it will never meet in combat).

Typhoon also manages to fully meet these requirements with a huge price differential in it's favour vis the F22 - and the ability to expand and update this capability is mainly limited by software issues (ie barely).

It also, unlike Rafale, right now, has an excellent and huge air to ground ability - and the ability to expand and update this further is mainly limited by software issues (ie once again, barely).

All this whilst maintaining the vital strategic technological base in umteen 'fields' in umteen European countries for decades.

I just can't help wondering where 'we' all went so wrong?

(bearing in mind that almost without exception all the "late" and "cost over-run" jibes are all about the various political input(s) during the life of the program to date and absolutely nothing to do with the plane or it's design)



[edit on 5-3-2006 by sminkeypinkey]