Poorly Eurofighter.
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VaderDSL said:
Fatigue won't come into it, microcracks will be a concern due to the damage to the nose although most likely the whole front section will be replaced if not the whole fuselage. [/Aerospace Fatigue Engineer]
Not too bad really, I know stuff about the JSF which would make you cry!
Downsy said:
Such as the fact that the program will collapse if the yank won't give the British MoD what the British MoD wants?
The fact that the MoD has an order for Rafale's ready? Or the fact that the F-35 is so butt-ugly that everyone looking at it goes instantly blind 
Ex-RoNiN said:Such as the fact that the program will collapse if the yank won't give the British MoD what the British MoD wants?
Are you thinking about the Boeing entry into the JSF competition?
There was two JSF competitors...
The Boeing X-32 "Pelican" and the Lockheen X-35 "F-22 in drag"
The X-35 wasn't ugly...wasn't pretty either..
X-32 was just hideous...
Simon/~Flibster
AthlonTom said:
The P-51 was originally designed to a British specification too - we had asked North American (the manufacturer) to build the Curtis P-40 Warhawk/Kittyhawk under licence but they replied that they could build a better fighter & so it proved to be once we'd given them a decent engine to play with
Other projects:
SEPECAT Jaguar - Breguet (France) & BAC (UK) - ok not a fabulous arcraft but pretty decent trainer/light attack aircraft
F-4K (FGR Mk.1) & F-4M (FGR Mk.2) Phantom - A flop, well and truly. Procured after the cancellation of the P.1154 Supersonic V/STOL aircraft (supersonic, air superiority harrier anyone?) the British (Labour) government decided to re-engine the J79-powered Phantom with RR Spey engines to try & save some British aerospace jobs. The only problem was that the Spey was much bigger than the J79 & the Phantom had to be extensively modified to accommodate it. Despite being 16% more powerful than the J79, due to the enlarged air intakes & therefore induced drag, the RAF had the biggest, most powerful and slowest Phantoms in the world!
Tornado - A success (I think anyway). Although originally conceived as the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft), the accent was firmly on the strike variant, a role it is extremely well suited to, due to extremely high speed at low level (the fastest in service iirc?) and high wing loading. Unfortunately this high wing loading means the fighter version suffers for agility but it was never designed to be an air superiority fighter - it was envisaged as a fast interceptor to intercept Russian bombers coming across the North Sea as quickly as possible using its' Sky Flash missiles. Especially after its' mid-life upgrade (now GR Mk.4) it is still a highly capable aircraft - the most capable of its' size in the world according to World Air Power journal.
You've got to love these posts arguing over which aircraft is best. How can you know how good an aircraft is without flying the thing. I get similar things from spotters all the time when I'm climbing out of my PA28,
"The C172 is a much better aircraft"
"Oh really, do you fly a 172?"
"I'm not a pilot"
"Well shut the **** up then"
I'm not having a dig, it just makes me laugh
The pilots did a good job there. They landed and got out safely. A working aircraft after a landing is just a bonus.
"The C172 is a much better aircraft"
"Oh really, do you fly a 172?"
"I'm not a pilot"
"Well shut the **** up then"
I'm not having a dig, it just makes me laugh
The pilots did a good job there. They landed and got out safely. A working aircraft after a landing is just a bonus.
BOWMAN is nearly 20 years old - first started in 87/88 I think. The core tech was not brilliant in its initial testing 2-3 yrs ago hence the alternative moniker.
EF can be summarised by the cannon fiasco - MoD bean counting geniuses decided to remove the cannon to save money (c 25-50m at most) and ended up speccing ballast that cost more the the real gun.
A good example of the forward thought of some the types involved in these projects can come from the following story..
"enterprising industry/MoD chap (pick to suit your prejudice) reports that he's managed to secure a good supply of surplus parts for spares&repairs for Tornado support at a real knockdown price. Unusual individual with commonsense enquires as to the nature of said parts - ejection seats. Usually when a seat is used there isn't much of a main asset to repair, so not that great a bargain."
The more worrying thing being that this was not immediately obvious to the individual who purchased the parts!
BAE did hit a partial target for having the EF in service, although calling part of their Warton site a RAF base might seem to cheating.
Far too many examples to list, but both industry and MoD pull some real howlers regularly.
Heard the one about the canadians who forgot to close the lid on a sub when submerging?
Not just the UK who are occasionally hopeless
EF can be summarised by the cannon fiasco - MoD bean counting geniuses decided to remove the cannon to save money (c 25-50m at most) and ended up speccing ballast that cost more the the real gun.
A good example of the forward thought of some the types involved in these projects can come from the following story..
"enterprising industry/MoD chap (pick to suit your prejudice) reports that he's managed to secure a good supply of surplus parts for spares&repairs for Tornado support at a real knockdown price. Unusual individual with commonsense enquires as to the nature of said parts - ejection seats. Usually when a seat is used there isn't much of a main asset to repair, so not that great a bargain."
The more worrying thing being that this was not immediately obvious to the individual who purchased the parts!
BAE did hit a partial target for having the EF in service, although calling part of their Warton site a RAF base might seem to cheating.
Far too many examples to list, but both industry and MoD pull some real howlers regularly.
Heard the one about the canadians who forgot to close the lid on a sub when submerging?
Not just the UK who are occasionally hopeless
Soldato
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Spud21 said:
Isn't that what is going on with the EF2K ?
The French getting in a strop and deciding that since the EF won't be a carrier craft, they won't take part, and now no one knows what the EF should be?
What was the EF originally designed to be, and today, what have we got in store for it?
Sparky191 said:It was designed to loiter for a long time and for the long range interception of missiles and bombers. It does that well. Why do you say its rubbish?
It was from our point of view supposed to be a high level inteceptor like the Tomcat, except at altitude it was slow and it's manouverability was again poor at altitude. They were finding that the jets we were using at the time were faster and far more manouverable at altitude, which is fine when engaging from range but as soon as anything got close to them they were not good enough, in a time where it was designed to take on a half descent airforce with Migs and backfire bombers it was weak, A Tornado would struggle to deal with Mig 29's, as an interceptor it's abilities were somewhat limited, it couldn't perform in any way as a fighter jet, as it was too slow and cumbersome.
However as a plane that the germans wanted they got someting that was simply stunning, arguably only the F-15e could be considered better.
Is it me or does that plane just look old fashioned now. I haven't seen a picture of one for a while and it just looks tired and of the last century.
We should have saved all the money, time and political wrangling and bought a shed load of F22s instead.
We should have saved all the money, time and political wrangling and bought a shed load of F22s instead.
Don't be silly, then we'd have the best planes in the world, you can't expect the MoD to be that sensible can you? And besides, if we went down the 'just buying F22' route, they're more expensive per unit, and we'd have a similar technology sharing problem we are facing with the F35, perhaps even more so if we didn't go in on the development of it. It'd be no good if every time a major fault developed we had to RMA it to get if fixed.AJUK said: