Eurofighter grounded!

"Mike" wrote in message
...

Another point are the missions;Rafale is very versatile,
Typhoon is an interceptor.
I don't know what you or the partners of Typhoon think about it,
but at the moment,and for now 15 years,it may be more useful to have a
good
multi-purpose aircraft,than an interceptor.


This is nonsense.

Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft. For air-to-surface missions, the Eurofighter can carry
Brimstone and DWS 37 anti-armor weapons-three under
each wing and one under the center fuselage, as well as
laser-guided and GPS guided weapons.

Keith

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:30:54 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...

Another point are the missions;Rafale is very versatile,
Typhoon is an interceptor.
I don't know what you or the partners of Typhoon think about it,
but at the moment,and for now 15 years,it may be more useful to have a
good
multi-purpose aircraft,than an interceptor.


This is nonsense.

Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(My real email address would be if you added 275
to it and reversed the last two letters).

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:30:54 +0100, Keith Willshaw
wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...

Another point are the missions;Rafale is very versatile,
Typhoon is an interceptor.
I don't know what you or the partners of Typhoon think about it,
but at the moment,and for now 15 years,it may be more useful to have a
good
multi-purpose aircraft,than an interceptor.


This is nonsense.

Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.


The A-10 is a CAS aircraft not a bomber and Rafale is optimised as
a fighter too.

Keith

ess (phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:30:54 +0100, Keith Willshaw wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...

Another point are the missions;Rafale is very versatile,
Typhoon is an interceptor.
I don't know what you or the partners of Typhoon think about it,
but at the moment,and for now 15 years,it may be more useful to have a
good
multi-purpose aircraft,than an interceptor.


This is nonsense.

Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.

"Would look like" seems to be rather shaky criteria to me. The F-15E
is most decidedly a muti-role aircraft with a decided strike
orientation--does it "look like a bomber"? Did the F-4? Or the
proabable King of Multi-Role, the F-16? And BTW, that example of
"Tornado" that allegedly epitomizes what a "bomber" should look like?
It too is multi-role--witness the ADF and ECM versions.

Brooks

On 17 Oct 2003 11:37:20 -0700, Kevin Brooks wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.

"Would look like" seems to be rather shaky criteria to me. The F-15E
is most decidedly a muti-role aircraft with a decided strike
orientation--does it "look like a bomber"? Did the F-4? Or the
proabable King of Multi-Role, the F-16? And BTW, that example of
"Tornado" that allegedly epitomizes what a "bomber" should look like?
It too is multi-role--witness the ADF and ECM versions.

It is not a dogfighter. Tornado is optimised for fuel efficiency and
the ability to carry large amounts of munitions a long way.

A-10 is optimised for survivability, carrying a large bombload, and
direct cannon fire at a target.

F-16 is optimised for air-superiority. It has a high-performance
engine, is highly maneouvrable, and has a big radar to track other
aircraft. It can do other stuff, but that's not its primary role.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(My real email address would be if you added 275
to it and reversed the last two letters).

ess (phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On 17 Oct 2003 11:37:20 -0700, Kevin Brooks wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.

"Would look like" seems to be rather shaky criteria to me. The F-15E
is most decidedly a muti-role aircraft with a decided strike
orientation--does it "look like a bomber"? Did the F-4? Or the
proabable King of Multi-Role, the F-16? And BTW, that example of
"Tornado" that allegedly epitomizes what a "bomber" should look like?
It too is multi-role--witness the ADF and ECM versions.

It is not a dogfighter. Tornado is optimised for fuel efficiency and
the ability to carry large amounts of munitions a long way.

Whoah. That "optimized for fuel efficiency" Tornado has legs just a
bit shorter than that F-15E I mentioned. And no, it was designed from
the outset as a multi-role aircraft--there was a reason it had the
nomenclature MRCA when it was originally developed.


A-10 is optimised for survivability, carrying a large bombload, and
direct cannon fire at a target.

That makes it primarily a CAS platform. Now why would you expect other
strike platforms to "look like" the A-10? Does the F-111? Or maybe the
A-7? How does a B-58 meet you "looks like" criteria, versus the old
BUFF?


F-16 is optimised for air-superiority. It has a high-performance
engine, is highly maneouvrable, and has a big radar to track other
aircraft. It can do other stuff, but that's not its primary role.

Care to guess what the "primary role" of the F-16 is, and always has
been, within the USAF (with the sole exception of the ADF variant)?
Yep, that's right, it spends (much, much) more of its time concerned
with BAI/CAS/SEAD than it ever has the air superiority role. At the
very beginning of the development program it was envisioned as
primarily being a lightweight air superiority product, but that
changed while it was still in early development and before it ever
entered into US service--it went multi-role rather early in its
gestation.

Brooks

On 17 Oct 2003 19:53:12 -0700, Kevin Brooks wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote in message ...

F-16 is optimised for air-superiority. It has a high-performance
engine, is highly maneouvrable, and has a big radar to track other
aircraft. It can do other stuff, but that's not its primary role.

Care to guess what the "primary role" of the F-16 is, and always has
been, within the USAF

It was designed as a low-cost airv superiority fighter to counteract
the USSR's large fleet of fighters and fighter bombers.

(with the sole exception of the ADF variant)?
Yep, that's right, it spends (much, much) more of its time concerned
with BAI/CAS/SEAD than it ever has the air superiority role.

That's because the USSR doesn't exist any more, and the USA has
tended to fight enemies with less capable air forces.

At the
very beginning of the development program it was envisioned as
primarily being a lightweight air superiority product, but that
changed while it was still in early development and before it ever
entered into US service--it went multi-role rather early in its
gestation.

Multi-role, but with an emphasis on air superiority. Just as the
A-10 has multi-role capability: you can shoot down other aircraft
with it, but no-one would say it's designed as a fighter.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(My real email address would be if you added 275
to it and reversed the last two letters).

In article ,
wrote:

On 17 Oct 2003 11:37:20 -0700, Kevin Brooks wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote in message
...
Typhoon has been designed from the beginning as a multi-role
aircraft.

Yes, but it is optimised for being a fighter. An optimised bomber
would look like an A-10 or Tornado.

"Would look like" seems to be rather shaky criteria to me. The F-15E
is most decidedly a muti-role aircraft with a decided strike
orientation--does it "look like a bomber"? Did the F-4? Or the
proabable King of Multi-Role, the F-16? And BTW, that example of
"Tornado" that allegedly epitomizes what a "bomber" should look like?
It too is multi-role--witness the ADF and ECM versions.

It is not a dogfighter. Tornado is optimised for fuel efficiency and
the ability to carry large amounts of munitions a long way.

A-10 is optimised for survivability, carrying a large bombload, and
direct cannon fire at a target.

F-16 is optimised for air-superiority. It has a high-performance
engine, is highly maneouvrable, and has a big radar to track other
aircraft. It can do other stuff, but that's not its primary role.

You're right and wrong. The F-16 was designed as an air-superiority
fighter. The "low" side of the "high/low" mix, with the F-15 of
course being the high side. But the F-16 proved so poor at the mission
that it was re-designated as a CAS/A-G/AI/EW/kitchen sink fighter
and the F-15C does primarily all A-A.

Being intimately familiar with the radars on both a/c, one of the reasons
this is so is because the F-16's radar is TOO SMALL and too low performance
to do good A-A (at least on the models I'm familiar with).

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:30:54 +0100, Keith Willshaw
wrote:

An optimised bomber would look like an A-10 or Tornado.

ADV or IDS...