Britain May Consider buying French Fighters, Cancelling Joint Strike Fighter Purchase!

Good point skep : the Viggen was a bad boy fighter for its time, and until the F-16 was dog fight king in a tight turn. I just LOVE the viggen full stop. The Gripen is nice, but for me the double cranked wings of the Vig blow me away.

F-104 was called the flying coffin for a reason.

Madgreebo,
Iam a big fan of SAAB aircraft too i agree with your last post on the SAAB 37 Viggen don't forget also that it deployed the worlds first production multi mode pulse doppler radar The Lm Ericsson UAP 10239(ps-/A) and I also love the double delta, I suppose the only draw back was high fuel consumption especially with burner but a range of about 500 km in the LO-LO-LO mission profile with out tanks was adequete for Sweeden at the time it had useful high altitude patrol endurance too I love this plane!

And dont't get me started on the gripen I'd go on all day..........

Go Gripen go!

Yeah SAAB aircraft float my boat as they say. The viggen with a conformal fuel tank would of been the bees knees! Oh and 500 km is far enough for a lo-lo-lo mission from rough fields and no tanks. But could it carry a huge weapon load? Yep indeedy it could... oh to see saab gripen and Viggen in RAF colours....

Off the top of my head it had 7 pylons one plumbmed for a tank (obviously the centre line one) and a total external load of about 13,200 lbs or about 6000 kilos it carried all the various stores you'd expect.

And of course the bad boy KCA 30mm gun which I think im right in saying in the western world was only bettered at the time by the Gau avenger on the A-10, it certainly bettered the Aden or Deffa 30mm's in terms of muzzle velocity and rate of fire

[edit on 27-2-2006 by buckaroo]

Fact: You will need stealthy aircraft starting next decade if you even want a chance to stay in the fight.

Fact: Rafaels aren't that stealthy, especially with external weapons.

Most countries have no need for stealth. It is very expensive to develope and produce and quite frankly, after the USA lost an F-117A in the former Yugoslavia where it was shot down, it doesn't really work in bad weather!

Originally posted by NWguy83
Fact: You will need stealthy aircraft starting next decade if you even want a chance to stay in the fight.

Fact:Every LO tech can and WILL be countered eventually.

Fact: Rafaels aren't that stealthy, especially with external weapons.

Fact:Rafale´s (supposedly second-to-none) electronic stealth measures and ECM equipment can be upgraded - F-35s physical stealth almost not.

greebo, thanks for the link for that thread on pprune, very interesting reading I know its only a rumour site but there is nothing in that thread about navalising the Typhoon that doesn't make sense.

The thing about the Typhoon taking longer to come on stream though is symptomatic of all committee designed planes, its not peculiar to Typhoon but it is annoying.

For a parallel look at the Hawk vs Alpha Jet. The two nation Alpha Jet was begun in 1968, flew in 1973 and entered service in 1978 - ten years. The Hawk was started in 1970, flew in 1974 and entered service in 1976 - six years. The Alpha was no more complex or advanced than the Hawk but the difference was that Hawker Siddeley, like Dassault with the Rafale, was free to just get on with it rather than having to come to an agreement with a partner over every new development along the way.

Tornado took 14 years from inception to service (1968-82) while the bigger, more complex/ambitious and a decade earlier TSR2 would have begun to reach the squadrons in 1968, a decade after inception (or the very year that MRCA studies began!) if the UK govt had had a bit of backbone. Thats what you get when you go down the collaborative route and there's nothing you can do about it I'm afraid.

Originally posted by waynos
Thats what you get when you go down the collaborative route and there's nothing you can do about it I'm afraid.

- Generally I think you are right on the money there Waynos, but I think there are 2 things to bear in mind with this.

The first is probably the most obvious, for 'middle-ranking' countries like ourselves collaboration is almost certainly the difference between having a project at all or not.

Whilst one might look at the French and ask how come they could do a Rafale alone the fact is that the economics of their 'going it alone' are horrendous, sales are tiny compared to Typhoon (even if this order happens - which I still doubt very much) and as the new carriers show they too are having to accept collaboration.

Secondly Typhoon has been dogged with political interference to a unique degree.

Following the collapse of WARPAC politicians in the various involved countries deliberately slowed the program and repeatedly 're-examined' the need etc etc as they simply couldn't see a threat justifying the expense and it is hardly difficult to understand why.

As said before it got to a level of political and economic expedience rarely seen previously; one might call it Micawber-ian economics, where it was accepted that the total program cost would grossly over-run initial expectations just because a slow down saved a few mill in any particular year during the program.

Naturally this has provided ammunition for those wishing to sell us out entirely to the USA (with umteen ill-informed dreary claims about 'Euro waste/inefficiency/incompetence etc etc) but it has nothing to do with the plane or the program itself.

I rememember an editorial in Flight around 1982 where the prospects for a purely national UK only fighter (the P.110 or P.120) was being discussed and the strapline to the piece was that 'if the industrial and political will does not exist in the UK to see such a project throught to production and service then the reasons spelled out for putting BAe together in the first place are no more than words in a speech'.

Quite.

Anyhow, to settle this argument I called my mate, the Doctor, and he nipped forwards a few years for me in the TARDIS and came back with this photo. Thats that sorted then

I love the picture Waynos,
the Rafale is a beutiful plane ,and looks good in Royal Navy colours,
Whats your opinion on future ucav use for the navy, I know that Dassult are keen to develop the Rafale as a kind of ucav control platform,this could be a big plus for it vs the F-35.

Originally posted by waynos
the strapline to the piece was that 'if the industrial and political will does not exist in the UK to see such a project throught to production and service then the reasons spelled out for putting BAe together in the first place are no more than words in a speech'.

- Ha, the 'defence journalists' .

Never let it be said they ever lacked hubris or let a chance to warn, at length, of the (always) grave consequences of anything they favoured not happening in any particular situation, pass!

BAe was always a sensible idea IMO, the problem isn't with the projects it's all about aims and objectives that come with the form of economics they now engage in.

BAe was great right up until they stopped being focused on the British 'strategic' part of the equation and started concentrating on the stock markets part of the operation.

You could never imagine Dassault or Saab forming the kind of 'partnerships' which effectively 'merge' themselves bit by bit into multinational take-overs and ultimately oblivion.

I called my mate, the Doctor, and he nipped forwards a few years for me in the TARDIS and came back with this photo. Thats that sorted then

- He's an obliging chap isn't he? (much impressed by the x-mas spec and looking forward to the next series.....any news on a start date for that btw?)

It's not a bad looker (bit lightweight next to our beloved Typhoon though )
Please don't tell me they haven't got around to designing a proper retracting in-flight refuelling probe!
....even Tornado's scabbed on monstrosity would be better than that neo-toasting fork stuck on the poor thing!

He told me they found some old Buccaneer probes in a scrap yard and stuck them on

Sminkey; Series 2 (or 28) is due to air 'in April' according to the production grapevine, no firm schedule decided yet Sarah Jane & K9 episode said to be 'amazing'. Can't wait

buckaroo, the Typhoon has also been long mooted as a 'UCAV Leader' dating back to the early FOAS studies. It may be that a common system may be developed for both aircraft IF the UK order for the Rafale came through.

Just imagine the bragging rights for Dassault if that photo came true;

(with apologies to echoblade) 'where ze Typhoons of ze L'armee de l'air? Oh, zat is right, we don't need any!

[edit on 28-2-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
Just imagine the bragging rights for Dassault if that photo came true;

(with apologies to echoblade) 'where ze Typhoons of ze L'armee de l'air? Oh, zat is right, we don't need any!

Actually I envision something more along the lines of the French knights in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

I just want to see a next gen plane in the air, carrying weapons bombing stuff before im 60! At this rate a combat cleared eurofighter will be decades away.....

Waynos, couldn't see the piccie, but I agree with you on the political crap the typhoon has suffered.. I just wish the UK could plan, build and field a weapon system without a HUGE f### up just once in its time....


Oh a note about UCAVs. I posted to a thread about UCAVs when I saw them up in Lancashire near warton test field. Theres a drawing of its configuration and a description... Mike_A is doing some digging because it was SWEET! and we want to know more about it... Oh and before anyone says that I didnt see anything, well I did, and thats how I knew about corax and Raven configuration MONTHS before they were published. Wartons where its at.

Heres the thread scroll down to my piccie link.

www.abovetopsecret.com... Its on page two and was drawn by Mike_A. research about it is on going.

[edit on 28-2-2006 by MadGreebo]

Originally posted by MadGreebo
I just want to see a next gen plane in the air, carrying weapons bombing stuff before im 60! At this rate a combat cleared eurofighter will be decades away.....

Waynos, couldn't see the piccie, but I agree with you on the political crap the typhoon has suffered.. I just wish the UK could plan, build and field a weapon system without a HUGE f### up just once in its time....

Too bloomin right

Personally I dont think we'll see the carriers with a fully functioning air wing for a long, long time yet some thing else will go wrong, we all know it .It always does.

And heres hoping Im wrong.

Waynos,

>>
But thats just it planeman, the RAF will not sanction replacing the Harrier with the Rafale when it is committed to recieving 232 Typhoons , about 60-100 of which it reckons it does not need (ready made Harrier replacement without spending any extra dosh if the F-35B is binned, which I'm still not convinced will happen.
>>

So the Saudi's will get a free ride on the Flubber express. Possibly a wet lease whereby they also get dibs on lots in T3.

>>
Also regarding numbers, the Royal Navy never operated more than 48 Sea Harriers, including shore based and training aircraft. If more F-35's than that are bought it wont be by much and certainly wont be three times as many considering our ever shrinking defence budget.
>>

Sure it could be. The F-35C will go thrice as far /from sea/ as anything you have on land. Welcome to an American Airpower Metric which has, since the days of Ponies and Forts placed a premium upon USEFUL range.

The real question then becomes how much MOD overspending and political ill winds falling out from the Iraq mess-take will effect the future of CVF itself.

Politicians have a way of taking the lowest common denominator and /telling/ their services what to take and what to suck tailpipe on. If they themselves do not pin the poliwogs to the floor and make them cry uncle with an extremely focussed 'this is how it is guv' MISSION STATEMENT.

i.e. An operational doctrine which is just so irrevocably -obvious- that there is no backing away.

JCA is messed up because a Flubber/JSF combo is messed up. STOVL doesn't have the legs or the flight performance. CVTOL has the legs and doesn't need a ruddy disco ball traipsing along behind it.

THIS LACK OF FOCUS is what makes me believe it's all just smoke and mirrors while /both/ parties decide not to dance.

>>
KPI; I really wish you would keep the cynical sniping element out of your posts as it detracts from what good stuff you do write and makes them hard to read objectively.
>>

Snicker.

>>
I must correct you that France never had any interest in a naval Typhoon at all, ever. What they wanted was either 50% of any collaborative fighter (with the other 50% shared 4 ways) or, preferably, 100% of their own aircraft and no rival, this was the root of French disruption in the early days of the ECA studies and carrier ops were never mentioned at this time.
>>

France had no interest in the Jaguar either. The point being that /at one time/ Britain had an aero industry. Now she had first dibs in a consortia which builds a jet that none of the partners wanted, once they saw what they had to face off against. But only so long as she remains fiercely loyal to those 232 jet she 'could not live without'. What's your percentage workshare and actual profit on /that/ program again?

The 'embarrassing part' is that GB practically flogged FRG to 'unify or no' stand up to their responsibilities and now have had to beg off on signing on the dotted line for T2, what, /thrice/ now?

Sure the ink is now drying. But the reality is that GB probably cannot afford all the acquisitions she's made, all the projects she's signed onto. AND the F-35.

And no amount of club-foot stumbling is going to change that as Flubber is at last up to steam on the production end and (Germany's excuse) 'shortage of liquid capital' aside, you MUST follow through.

Schhhhwwing! And a miss.

>>
I agree that the Rafale M now offers a ready made solution, but this is not a reason to denigrate Eurofighter, why would they develop a carrier variant when there was no requirement?
>>

The first time the nose gear goes through the roof of the inlet...

>>
I don't know what you mean by the 'tranch debacle is embarrassing'. I am unaware of any debacle, as far as I know the 'tranches' are going according to plan, aren't they? I know the aircraft are coming on stream later than they should, but that is more political than technical, surely?
>>

See above. Is it ADF, multirole, expeditionary or just bits and pieces of tech that looks closest to ready while the rest dies as a function of T3 being even more unlikely to incorporate the /massive/ improvements needed to make it an all-singing warfighter platform.

Not least of this is the Meteor/JDAM comparison.

You want to pay through the ahem, nose, for the AASM? You go French. You want JDAM and 'someday if you're really-really good!' SDB, you better go American.

So long as we have ERAAM and operative VLO, we don't need Meteor. But places like India and Saudi (and Russia and China) would all /kill/ for a system that could even /marginally/ put a U.S. strike package at risk.

Who pushes and who shoves then becomes a debate point, not of the JSF, but of 'external factors' relative to other-nation diplomacy. And there is NOTHING like threatening technology blackmail and then 'demanding source codes' to get an Ami's hackles up.

>>
The worst aspect about the Typhoon for me is the political stalling by Germany and their totally unnecessary quest for a stripped out cut price version which achieved nothing but delaying the full spec aircraft that was built anyway and upping the price of it in the process. As an aircraft itself I think it is admirable.
>>

Oh please, they had the deal perfectly scoped out, always have had.

A 42 million dollar JAS-39 to sell like Western MiG-21s to the NATO wannabes on a 'glad hand plan' of leases and offsets.

An end to any real threat of long range strike and a peaceful EU-over-NATO shift in politics.

And a gradual weaning away from U.S. Munitions towards Continental ones so that the 'Polish Deal' for the F-16 could never-ever-ever happen again.

>>
It is a pity a carrier version wasn't requested in the first place but is this the fault of Eurofighter or the aircraft? The Typhoon was never going to be operable from the Invincible class ships (neither is any other fighter without a Pegasus engine) and back then this looked like being the only type of carrier we would ever have, you might expect Eurofighter to predict military defence needs, but predicting what the British Govt will actually stump up for is a different matter, our need for full size carriers never went away, only our willingness to pay for them.

No doubt we will agree to differ on this matter.
>>

What you do behind closed doors is none of my business.

Whether you /get/ carriers and of what particular stripe and functional utility is something you might want to consider. A truly long-view type personality would start making some hard trades in terms, not just of industrial base, but in terms of a Post-U.S. 'led' EU geo political position in which owning serious naval airpower might get you on a shortlist of massive deployment schedules.

'While the real money' was in the development of generation-after-next systems. Like a 30 ton MBT that can defeat Abrams and T-90 or Type 95. And UCAV which can steal the world when JSF flops on it's face and American militarism is left fidgeting in a pool of it's own red ink.

There is a reason why presidents always ask first "Where are the carriers...?" Presence. It's cheap, it's dirty and it bleeds the USN of the kinds of funds which the USAF routinely throws at it's programs.

Of course if you intend to name your CV's Littorio and Tirpitz... But that's a tale for another night chilluns.


KPl.

Well that killed that thread. No ones gonna want to read such a boring and long winded post.

As for French wanting Naval Typhoon, its still on their MoD web page as a reason for developing a go it alone program... sorry would post link but you've bored me silly.

Whether you /get/ carriers and of what particular stripe and functional utility is something you might want to consider.

ch1466, whilst I do have to admit that most of what you say goes right over my head (), I do have this to say in reply to the above...

We ARE getting two new carriers. They will begin construction next year. They even have names already, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Stumason,

>>
ch1466, whilst I do have to admit that most of what you say goes right over my head (), I do have this to say in reply to the above...
>>

Good on 'ya I say!

Now start developing an ops schedule, port of call/basing plans and 'joint' training system for three different classes (Italian, French Brit).

Then you can run the Atlantic and the Med and maybe even take over for the 5th in the Red Sea/IO/PG areas.

That will let us cut back to 8 carriers, all facing West toward China.

Every spring when the equinox comes, we'll meet at high tide at the gates of Hormuz and do a mummer's dance as we blow the crap ouf of Iran for 'Auld Lang Synes' sake.

In point of truth, a two carrier navy is just next to worthless for any but 'show the flag' missions close to home and on the /odd/ occasion, securing sea lanes on major routes (out away from predictable SSK/SSN haunts, now that the latter can send creeping mines or CM into sealed bays).

Such is the reason why 1 out 4 USMC squadrons on both coasts MAW are now 'fully commited' (CARQUAL'd) to keep the USN from suffering another major caught-in-turn moment on their seven ready to sail ships.

And it further supports Dr. North's POV which is namely that not only are 8 Harriers on an LHA worthless as teats on a boar hog /in their own right/.

They are not even marginally supported by the latest classes like the LPD-17 which holds major relevance to the Corps because the F-35B should otherwise outlast both the Wasp and Tarawa classes 'and then what the heck do you do'?

STOVL really screws up a normal carrier's deck cycle.

If you make the Marines by F-35C's, then /by virtue of their submission/ to the eternally subservient roll as Navy RAG, their presence instantly makes a laughable 360nm F/A-18E/F radius around the boat into a more respectable 650-700nm distance.

Which means UCAVs and F-35s can effectively take over from the Super Slowmobile _without_ the requirement for 'air defense' or SEAD/EA type assets.

IMO, Bug Deux is the rough equal of the Flubber. With the latter's superior aeros and payload performance being offset by the former's higher internal fraction and sensor/netcentric links.

Though neither jet will reach out any great distance without a tanker, the Flubber at least doesn't have to lift itself by it's own bootstraps as it suffers less penalty carrying heavy weight tanks and stores while sucking up to a real tanker.

CONCLUSION:
"So what you /really/ wanna do...." is keep a fragment force of Flubbers around to decorate airshows, protect the UK from UFOs, smugglers and hostile airway zombies.

While you proceed to make you 150 plane order a bunch of F-35Cs which really don't give a flying flollop which basing mode they 'JCA' take off from.

Even assuming you only have one boat out to sea and it only has 3/4 or 3/5ths it's normal operational airwing, that should leave you your operational attrition reserve of 50+50+50 as a _land based_ force exponent. Which can only be a 'good thing' when you try to hop into bed with the EU RDF and what not after our precious 'special relationship' sours.

I can just see it now: Tiger Meet 2010, the JSF is blocked off behind a bunch of ropes so that the devious (deviant?) French cannot 'get a wiff' of it's precocious stealth technology or source codes. "But hey, we brought it to do joint ops which is surely the next best thing!"

Of course that will likely never happen through a combination of Eurofighter Consortia politicks (You WILL stick with the program on a jet you insisted you needed when we wanted to cop).

And F-20 syndrome ("What, you mean you're selling us jets YOU don't want?") secondary sales.

Even so, it's amazing that the UK confidence in it's vaunted aerospace technology base is so low that you don't take the obvious alternate route which is to lease elderly F/A-18E Lot I or Rafale F1/2 and then develop the hell out of your UCAVs just to 'show U.S. whose boss'.

One might almost say it was indicative of how little money there really is.

YEAH, THAT'S IT! Show me the money honey! Then we'll talk tech trades vs. budget cuts.


Bwuahahahhahahahha! KPl.