The World's Largest Fighter Aircraft Competition

Well, France was in on the very early stages of what became the Eurofighter project (FEFA, in the early eighties) and then decided they'd rather develop their own aircraft to one set of specifications (they wanted a naval version for example, unlike anyone else involved) and without a big multinational project attached to it, which, given the delays the EF had, maybe wasn't that bad an idea.

If of course all major European countries could decide on what they want for their next combat aircraft and decide to actually work together on that, I'm sure they could outdo the Americans. That agreeing could be difficult though, while the Typhoon and Rafale are similar enough, SAAB usually builds rather different fighters.

A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

Are you sure it was only the French who wanted a carrier-capable variant? 'Cause I'm fairly sure I read somewhere that the British were very disappointed when their dream of a carrier-capable Typhoon was set back when Italy, Germany and Spain decided they didn't want to take the project in that direction (and the implication, IIRC, was that the previous agreement had indeed been about co-designing a carrier variant, too.) I also seem to recall that the British are designing / thinking about designing a carrier Typhoon on their own.

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I'm pretty sure that at the time the project split happened (mid-eighties), only France wanted a carrier-capable aircraft. Britain was still full-on about Sea Harriers and didn't have carriers on hand or planned that would have fit a roughly Typhoon-shaped aircraft.

There is talk of a naval Typhoon since the late nineties, as a possible choice for the Royal Navy's future fighters, but since then decision went on the F-35 instead. Last year, a carrier-modified Typhoon was offered to India's naval fighter competition and with the F-35 being as shaky as it is, it could be an option for Britain too.

edited 31st Jan '12 2:41:14 PM by Catfish42

A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

The talk about a naval Typhoon is just that. Talk. That is all it ever will be. Carrier fighters have to be built from the ground up. Designed from the tail hook forward. Rebuilding a land fighter into one that the squids can use means basically building a new airframe and painting the original part numbers on the shell.

Growlers may be older design, true, but there is no reason to suggest that a contract to build new airframes could not be ordered. That is what the Royal Navy will do anyway when the whole F35 farrago is done away with.

edited 31st Jan '12 2:50:15 PM by TamH70

About the Growler, it's really a political decision, but UK could be wary of dropping a U.S. plane to buy another. So buying Rafale or building a naval EFT could serve as a warning to stop seeing UK as a 51st state without senators and congresspeople. There's also the possibility that Brits will inject more money into the nEUROn technology and get themselves a full-fledged stealth, carrier-capable UCAV for the time their CVF get online. That should be the most interesting option, as it would probably allow a larger firepower with less costs involved, as well as creating a whole new capability for their navy. It'd mean reinforcing air defense around their fleets as the UCAV would probably be a striker rather than a fighter, but they already have to plan that, as the F-35 is to air combat what a rock is to space exploration: totally unrelated and useless.

That kind of investment could get the RN back in business, don't you think?

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.

The question is: when are Britain's new carriers going to be needing their planes?

I think they should pursue the idea of a Typhoon-based carrier air wing.

Not only is Typhoon a most excellent plane, it's also a project in which Britain is one of the main participants, so they'll be employing their own people. If they design (or, hopefully, co-design) their own fighter jet, they'll be able to choose what kind of features they want or don't want. Spare parts and upgrades would never be delayed or denied. And so on.

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c.2018, when the second CATOBAR-equipped carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales enters service. As far as I'm aware, the F-35 is not due to enter service until after that date.

Anyway, the Navalised Typhoon is only intended to be STOBAR (Short Take Off But Arrested Recovery), while the carrier(s) will be CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery), and any conversion of the Typoon to CATOBAR specification will require even more work (and it will be a Typhoon In Name Only), at an ever higher cost.

edited 1st Feb '12 4:21:37 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

That seems way too soon for the Typhoon to be re-designed.

The launch and recovery system incompatibility is also a problem.

Oh, well.

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@Rafale winning the contest:

Ah, rats. Oh well, there's always next time!

To be fair, I think that was only down to early teething troubles and/or lack of equipment (which is affecting the British military anyway), so it's not really fair to slam the Typhoon for its' owner's deficiencies. I wouldn't really call Libya indicative of the Typhoon's actual combat capabilities by any means.

edited 1st Feb '12 4:24:20 AM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

So, I looked it up. Only 10 Typhoons were deployed in the operation, all of them by the RAF. So I don't think a whole lot of practical experience was gained. What a wasted opportunity, but I guess most air forces didn't want to commit any of their best aircraft out of fear of losing a unit. Props to the Swedish and the French for realising the PR potential of sending the best they got into the operation.

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Well, that, and it's not like our military budget is bursting at the seams, if you catch my drift, so we probably couldn't send very many anyway...

Locking you up on radar since '09

From the chatter from the boys in light blue over here, the Eurofighter was never designed for the ground attack role. It is strictly an air superiority fighter aircraft. Giving it a rudimentary ground attack role is typical Mo D pennypinching. If you want a ground pounder and want it to be fast, get a Strike Eagle. If you want it to be survivable, get an A10 Thunderbolt II, stretch the airframe, add a second crew position for the weapons systems operator and modify the engines. All of which has already been done. YA-10B Night/Adverse Weather variant. Contracts for the proper series production model fell foul of the USAF's fast jet mafia, which makes up most if not all of the highest ranking generals.

Neither was the F-22 — although that'll probably be fully multi-role in the future. Fighters are too expensive for any Government these days to be used for one role. It's not just penny-pinching in the MoD, it's everywhere.

Keep Rolling On

Probably why India went for the Rafale. For an aircraft thats going to be the mainstay of the IAF for the next decade or so, it can't be too specialized in one way or another. Especially since the competition called for a multi-role aircraft, and of the choices, Rafale filled that role out best (EFT being an A 2 A plane, F-18 a pure striker, Gripen being too light and the Mi G too heavy).

I read in The Telegraph that the stated reason was $5 million less per plane.

It was after all meant to be just a bridge until they get their own plane.

edited 1st Feb '12 10:00:43 AM by SomeSortOfTroper

Right. Something occurred to me then, if India can afford to piss away billions of dollars buying nuclear weapons and the planes to deliver them to Karachi, for example and a godsdamned space programme that seems to be more ambitious than NASA, then they have no right to foreign aid of any sort. Particularly when they have sky high tariff rates on imports and subsidise their exports to an extent that is illegal in Europe, for example.

It is indeed fairly weird how much poverty there is in India and how poor the infrastructure is in some parts of the country when it still is the largest democracy in the world and a potentially huge economy.

edited 1st Feb '12 1:58:58 PM by BestOf

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It's a problem that The British Empire, for all it's faults couldn't solve, even though their Best and Brightest were sent there; the trouble with India is that it is large and complex that it'll have to be some form of trickle-down economics (whether Public or Private). It's the Only Way.

Keep Rolling On

Christopher Hitchens often said that there's one tried and tested way to lift a society out of poverty and ignorance, one that has worked every single time in recorded history that it's been tried: the education and empowerment of women.

So I say that's the key.

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India is fine, guys. It's poor because its overpopulated and all the developmend is West and South rather than East, which is changing now. With over a billion people in a free society, it takes time. They can't China their way out.

As for "India has nukes, therefore no aid". India built (not purchased) those nukes, and have had the capability to do so since soon after independance (and showed the world as much back in 74 and then in 98), and India isn't that big of an aid-dependant country as most of it is for areas where India has lagged in development, not out of absolute necessity to sustain itself like it is with Pakistan or (back in the day) Bangladesh.

So, bets on whether Rafale gets the Naval contract or it goes into a long competition?

edited 1st Feb '12 2:29:45 PM by FFShinra

Built? Bollocks. They got the uranium required to manufacture their nuclear devices the old fashioned way. Lots and lots and lots of bribery. Given the inevitable Taliban victory in Pakistan in, say, 2015, the whole subcontinent is going to get a lot hotter,if you know what I mean. And yep, I said inevitable.

Since we are surrendering the initiative to the Taliban by withdrawing all western troops by the end of 2014, we will have emboldened them to follow up on that by moving on the corrupt establishment of Pakistan, and we will have given them overwhelming popular support in doing so as they will be able to claim that they won the war against the corrupt west. And their bloodstained fingers will be on the proverbial nuclear button.

OOPS.

Please, Tam, don't copy the Daily Mail here, it's kinda far from reality. First of all, please link to some sources to show us how India bribed its way to nuclear weapons (and Brits shouldn't be that self-righteous about nuclear vectors, as they're using U.S.-made ones (Trident), whereas India built its own missiles and warheads...).

And after that, do you really think the West would let Talibans take control over Pakistan's nukes without taking action? The Seals proved they could attack a highly sensitive target less than two miles away from a major military structure right inside Pakistan without them being able to do anything. I'm pretty sure that if it looks like Pak will fall, IAF, USN, USAF, RAF, FAF and probably Russia will bomb the hell out of all the nuclear facilities there.

If a Pakistanese nuke goes off... it's going to be the most wonderful Oppenheimer party ever thrown in Pakistan half an hour later.

Well, they're not in Europe, so what's the problem?

Yep, it's beginning to turn to Misplaced Nationalism... Meh.

Back on-topic: so, now, how do you think this purchase will change the balance of power between IAF (and maybe IN if they take it for their carriers) and PLAAF? Will the duo Su-30 MKI/Rafale will be the winning one?

edited 1st Feb '12 3:37:10 PM by RufusShinra

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.

This is off-topic. Knock it off. (I can't put my Mod Hat on in a thread this old, so you'll have to imagine that this post has a pink background and my avatar is way cooler.)

Look, I told you I was speaking as a mod when I told you to not derail into potential new governments in Pakistan. I'll grant you that Pakistan is probably the main reason that India is getting new jets, but neither the aircraft competition nor this thread was ever about the Taliban.

edited 1st Feb '12 3:59:19 PM by BestOf

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Yes, we better get back on topic before I open my whupass can.

About the competition, what are the chances the deal doesn't go through. How much is France willing to deal considering inflation will force India to either increase the budget or order more planes (unless of course the Euro goes through the floor in the meantime...). India is notoriously slow on procurements (as the length of this competition has shown), and its only gone through military and financial channels so far. The Parliament still has to vote on it.

I imagine if both sides want this enough the deal should be fine, but if negotiations breakdown, Boeing, Eurofighter and Saab are still positioned in India to restart their own bids immediately it seems. I'm sure the Russians wouldn't be far behind either.

Anyone know what the feeling is in Paris about the deal? India is desperate for the new fighters so that they can finally retire the Mi G-21 "flying coffins" and not have their air power deteriorate any further with regards to their enemies.

EDIT -

India IS competing with the Chinese (China might outnumber them, but India has quality over their quantity). The Russians are Indian allies and thus don't need to compete, and Pakistan's military has been a joke since 1971 in terms of conventional capability (which is why Islamabad got nukes). India has aspirations to become a global power, which is why they are pursuing aircraft carriers (they don't need those for Pakistan, which is right next door with a very small coast and their one major port a stone's throw away from Bombay) and a nuclear trifecta.

edited 1st Feb '12 3:56:21 PM by FFShinra