Talk:Eurofighter Typhoon/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Eurofighter Typhoon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Ground Attack

It's just been upgraded to ground attack. 210.4.101.179 (talk) 11:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's been upgraded for a while, but it's only now that the RAF have announced that it's "combat ready" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7481172.stm. The airforces of the other three partner nations are not so bothered. They don't even have the Laser Designator Pod, and thus don't have to test it, and don't really need it anyway because they haven't been commited by a special partner to a seemingly endless war of ground attrition in Afganistan. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right Wittlessgenstein to point out that it isn't really 'new' news. Try and keep on topic though (i.e. try to avoid editorialising the war in Afghanistan.) Afghanistan or not the UK was always going to be the partner most interested in ground attack given its expeditionary warfare history/commitments.Mark83 (talk) 22:17, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It'd be unwise for a user not to develop some ground attack capability in their Typhoons at some point to get the most out of them. Ground attack capable EFs are bound to take the place of some aging attack aircraft eventually. -Fnlayson (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree, Fnlayson. Mark83, yes "on topic" haha. But sometimes hard to separate Weapons of Mass Destruction from their actual use, I find. Maybe we should have "avoided" Afganistan. I also think my POV is ahared by several million other people in UK and thus deserves a single line on this talk page. By the way, where's the NATO policy on Typhoon and Afganistan? Does NATO actually still exist, anyone? Wittlessgenstein (talk) 08:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The typhoon will have to see the implimentation of some form of multirole capability at some point in the near future espechialy within the RAF as they're ordering 200+ aircraft, with the current financial times i think the goverment is already looking for cutbacks such as the aircraft the eurofighter replaced the jaguar which was retired early. so i wouldn't be suprised to see the orders for the aircraft cut as in the terms of modern warfare a dedicated interceptre is of limited use, (wasn't the typhoon initialy concived when the partner nations still faced the soviet block and their large air forces) so a ground attack will be neccassery to validate the costs of the typhoon in the recession.--82.37.156.36 (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms

To be blunt an sarcastic 'As if it will be anything but a political decision'. How come the Critisim section is absent in this article, it reads like a fan page or sales brochure. I have observed the eurotrash since its introduction at farnborough in 96, and timed its performance... sorry folks its trash.Evadinggrid (talk) 11:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

A dedicated criticism section is not needed to list criticisms. Criticisms section just serve as magnets for biased and often unsourced additions anyway. See the delay sections for some... -Fnlayson (talk) 13:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

As proven by the original post, "sorry folks, its trash" Objective... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.23.99 (talk) 18:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

This entry is laughable. Did a bunch of fan boys put this together. Inconsistencies abound most notably in super cruise speed, and "stealth". I am not going to get involved in an edit war but this entry does not show Wikipeia in a very good light.--173.68.50.195 (talk) 07:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Future operators

In the list of possible future operators aren't mentioned Croatia. However in the page (in wikipedia) of military of Croatia are mentioned the Eurofighter as possible new fighter jet for Croatia. --190.172.231.122 (talk) 15:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

We can only go so far with possibilities. The other customers section in this article should only list nations that have received Eurofighter proposals or are in negotiations to buy it, imo. There needs to be a reliable/solid reference supporting listing a nation there at the least. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Range

The range given is grossly misleading. Here's information from Flug Revue data file, Flug Revue is one of three major German aviation journals (monthly). "Ferry range (Überführungsreichweite): 3700 km (2000 NM) Radius of action (Aktionsradius):

  - Intercept with 10 min on Patrol (Abfangjagd): > 750 NM (1390 km)
  - Air patrol with 3 hrs on station (Luftraumpatrouille): > 100 NM (185 km)
  - Ground attack, hi-lo-hi flight profile (Bodenangriff): > 750 NM (1390 km)
  - Ground attack, lo-lo flight profile (Bodenangriff im Tiefflug): > 350 NM (650 km)

Ferry range (Überführungsreichweite): > 2000 NM (3700 km)" http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/frtypen/FREF2000.htm Somebody should improve the data in the article or I'll come back and do it myself. *threatening voice* ;-) 01:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC) 78.34.106.215 (talk)

This was me. 01:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC) Lastdingo (talk • contribs)

Range and Ferry range are listed in the Specs and are referenced from multiple sources already. Combat radius needs to be added though.. -Fnlayson (talk) 01:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

One and two-seated variants

The article does not seem to mention that the aircraft is produced in these two variants (besides a quick note on British variants), nor does it mention the differences in regards to specifications. Perhaps someone knowledgeable on the subject could put a sentence or two under 'Variants' detailing the differences. Hayden120 (talk) 13:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I quite agree. The whole design concept (as for all military modern fast jets) is based on single seat use - the only purpose of the twin set is as a trainer. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 00:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Really? F-15E, Tornado, F-14, F-4, F-18. All two seaters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.50.195 (talk) 00:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Rafale, F-22, F-35, Gripen, BAE Hawk? Guess it depends on what we mean by "modern". Wittlessgenstein (talk) 14:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

More a matter of what all they are used for. Current fighters that do reconn, SEAD, EW and other non-air combat missions often use the two crew versions. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, for Typhoon the operational concept is wholly single seat, i.e. must support ALL missions. But agree an important distinction from aircraft where crew complement may be mission dependant. But none of the "modern" jets I cite above have this flexibility. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 21:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

For F/A-18 Hornet the types go A-single, B-twin, C-single, D-twin, E-single, F-twin. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Possible exports to Japan

The information on the main article is out of date, Japan already chosen F-15E variant.--Korsentry 05:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

When did Japan order F-15Es and how many are they getting? -Fnlayson (talk) 05:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Japan only has F-15J/DJ; it has not ordered any F-15E variants, although it is considering doing so to replace the F-4E-kai. Perhaps KoreanSentry has confused the South Korean order for F-15E's as one from the Japanese. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Right and thhanks. That question was for KoreanSentry to spur the user to check and correct that. -Fnlayson (talk) 04:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Possible marketing statements?

Maybe i am wrong, but all this emphasis on EF-2000's capabilities are perhaps a bit exaggerated? I mean, this article seems in many ways a sort of spot (the best fighter in the galaxy..) for Eurofighter Consortium. I don't say that the stuff isn't true, but still a bit 'overexposed'. I mean, 'friendly press' is widely available to emphatise the project's success (expecially if it's a 'very costly project' too).--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 21:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

as example, among sources, this one: [1] that is a pure speculation about EF-2000s characteristics. Citable (as advertising), Ok, but cleary a partisan one, not exactly a 'objective' source. Or that: [2]. It's remarkable that the same thing happened years before. Guess: with a Su-27 against F-15 and the Flanker won, herassing USAF guys. So tell me: with a similar result i should consider EF-2000=Su-27. Or?--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 22:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Tranche 3

I think we need a section on the tranche 3 negotiations and for the production table to be updated. I don't think the RAF is getting all the Tranche 2 birds - it's getting more T-3s instead to "compensate" for those given to Saudi Arabia. John Smith's (talk) 07:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Smallest RCS of any fighter aircraft currently in production?

So are we just allowing any "claim" by a manufacturer to pass as notable, sourced FACT on Wikipedia now? Because I didn't get the memo. I suppose if Lockheed Martin decides next week to "claim" that the F-22 is the fastest fighter aircraft in production, that can be added to the Raptor article without complaint by the editors pushing this highly-dubious "assertion" in the Typhoon article? I mean, who can prove such a claim wrong? LM could just state that the top speed of the F-22 is classified while maintaining such a claim, so who could prove them wrong? The facts are that the available numbers on both aircraft indicate that the Raptor has no current equal in the realm of RCS. ViperNerd (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what the F-22 has to do with anything but the statement is correct and sourced, it is what Eurofighter claim in the reference. The claim doesnt have to be true just reliably referenced and is presented in the article correctly as a refeenced claim by the company. So unless you can provide evidence that the claim is dubious then the tag should be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 21:23, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I just removed the text as I couldn't find any text in the reference [3] talking about having the smallest RCS. Did I miss it ? --McSly (talk) 21:30, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Well that page supported that lowest RCS sentence a few months or so ago. Good that you double checked, thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:35, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

No, the sentence is still present in the reference (last sentence, 5th paragraph), but that doesn't make it any more factual or notable to an encyclopedic article. The F-22 has been stated by Pentagon officials to have an radar signature of -40 dBsm, or about the size of a "steel marble" and last I checked, it was still in production, so Eurofighter's claim is more than dubious given the Typhoon's vague estimated RCS of <1m^2. If the unsubstantiated claim gets added back, then the dubious tag certainly applies based on this evidence. And actually, the Typhoon's radar signature will never be the smallest of any fighter in production, as the F-35's signature is -30 dBsm, or about the size of a "steel golfball." Here's the ref.[4] Oh, and the Typhoon's lowest RCS would have to be measured "clean" as it has no internal bays for weapons. A lot of good that aircraft is going to do anyone without missiles and bombs hung under the wings. ViperNerd (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

So I had missed it. Well, I should be more careful. I reinstated the text. As MilborneOne mentioned, it's properly cited, dubious clearly, but properly cited. Please read WP:TRUTH--McSly (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting reading, but so are WP:DUBIOUS, WP:REDFLAG,and WP:SELFPUB. Making an exceptional claim in an article about a product and using a source from the company that builds and sells the product to verify the claim just seems like advertisement to me, especially when the claim being made is a superlative and not supported by any data whatsoever in the source. But I guess we'll wait and see what other editors think as they notice the tag. If consensus is to leave the claim in the article, then I guess I'll just add sourced material on aircraft currently under production that disprove the claim. I guess everyone will be happy then. ViperNerd (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

We only say it is a claim, it doesnt matter if the facts are true or not the article doesnt make that judgement. It not advertising it was added to support the rest of the section which because the real figure is not known was providing the reader with a number of points of view. Unless you have the actual figure for the Typhoon from a reliable source then we have no reason to add other figures. MilborneOne (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree: this is a claim (and a notable one) and we describe it as such. We do not evaluate its truthfulness or represent it as the truth. In the absence of any truly authoritative and impartial figures making a judgement call, simply because it does not fit in with someone's preconceived notions is fundamentally POV. I admit I am very sceptical of this claim myself but that does not alter its validity.

As for the dubious tag, that strikes me as absurd. We state that the manufacturer makes this claim: it is right there in black and white on their web site. In what sense is that fact (the existence of the claim) up for debate? CrispMuncher (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

We should not echo absurd claims by manufacturers. It seems to me that no on *believes* that the RCS of the Typhoon is lower than both the F-22 and F-35. Does anyone actually believe the claim. I say we remove the claim.

I'm the guy who looked up all the references in the RCS paragraphs back when I wrote them, and everything I read estimates the RCS of the Typhoon as "about 1 square meter" or "less than 1 square meter" or some such. So, does anyone here believe that the Typhoon has an RCS "smaller than a steel golf ball" (i.e. 0.001 square meters or so)?

My personal guess is that this is true if you assume the F-35 is not yet in production (possibly true, depending on definitions) and that the F-22's production has ended (not yet true but scheduled for 2011). In this context I would support adding the claim. Kitplane01 (talk) 02:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe people shouldn't believe the hype about F-22 and F-35 either. Those claims aren't really credible as well. I think it's OK to tell a manufacturer's claim if it's clearly marked as claim and wasn't disproved publicly. By the way; RCS < 1m2 doesn't mean that it needs to be close to 1m2. I've read about something like 0.15m2 before and the actual realistic performance can be much worse than such test rig results anyway. That applies especially to the F-22 (which is said to have only 60% readiness rate because maintenance especially of the coating is such a problem). There were and are also lawsuits about asserted defects in the F-2's RAM coating and substandard RCS performance.Lastdingo (talk) 12:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that you ever saw a cite saying 0.15 m^2. I think I've looked at everything taht's available on the net, and in several books, and never seen such a number. Can you please provide a citation for such a number? Kitplane01 (talk) 20:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

With a release of info by Lockheed Martin in Feb. 2009, it was reported that the F-22's RCS is the size of a steel marble, which is below that. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The claim is obviously false as both F-22s and F-35s are being produced and their designs are far more radical than the Eurofighter's. On the other hand the ET's use of RAM gives it an edge on the F-18, which doesn't bother because the effect is washed out the moment external weapons are mounted. Hcobb (talk) 14:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe that we should remove the claim for two reasons. 1) Few if any believe it. 2) In airplane articles, we should avoid controversial statements where reasonable. Kitplane01 (talk) 20:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Few if any believe it? - I think that is just opinion and it doesnt have to be true just properly cited, why is it controversial it was added to a section to balance the POV of other claims and opinions due to lack of any real data. As has been said before provide some actual Typoon figures with reliable sources (not just guesses and original research) and the section could then be looked at again. MilborneOne (talk) 20:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

With steel marbles and steel golfball RCS asumption would I careful. This can mean for a metall golfball a RCS like a strand ball, depending on the wave length. Then is this the optical area of the radiation behavior. At a marbel with circumference equal to wavelength occurs resonance and this incrase the RCS extrem. Therefore are such metall marbles and metall golf ball communiques are nonsense!--HDP (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

"The manufacturers claim the RCS of the Eurofighter to be the smallest of all fighter aircraft currently available for export". I agree that the Typhoon probably does have a lower RCS than any plane available for export (assuming the F-35 is not available since it's in development). But that's not what the manufacturer actually said. It seems to me that we don't have to include every quote or fact, and this one is just too wacko to include.

Finally, I'm also part of the F-22 page authors. Over there, people fight. Over here, people seem typically nicer. Yea! Kitplane01 (talk) 21:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Kitplane, the source reads "of all fighter aircraft currently in production", not "currently available for export" [emphasis added]. The latter claim would have been a much more plausible one for Eurofighter to have made (assuming that the Typhoon’s signature is lower than the Super Hornet’s). The former is implausible and certainly falls within the "exceptional claims require exceptional sources" rule. I tend to shy away from using self-supporting marketing material as sources; whenever I finish typing such claims, I feel like I need to go wash my hands. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually it could be both true and meaningless. Not having internal weapons bays means that it has a sharper nose than the F-22 and so judged from exactly one angle it might return less radar energy. But if it doesn't have as good of LPI for the radar and comm links it could be spotted first anyway and the stealth goes away as soon as you hang a single weapon on it. Not that we mere mortals could ever know for sure. So go ask Jumper, as he's flown both types. Hcobb (talk) 03:21, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

It could well be, and I doubt even Jumper knows for sure. I still doubt though that there is anywhere in the frontal sector where the Typhoon has a better RCS than the F-22 or F-35, which were specifically designed to be as stealthy as possible in that sector. As an aircraft design engineer of some experience, I would point out that the sharpness of the nose is not necessarily driven by whether there is an internal weapons bay. It’s usually driven by the width and relative location of the crew station, the size of the radar antenna to be housed, and the overall fineness ratio. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Where can i add this without it being deleted?

On 20 July 2004 General John P. Jumper, Commander-inChief of the US Air Force, said after flying the Eurofighter that he was impressed with it. Right after his flight on the Eurofighter, Jumper said "I have flown all the air force jets. None was as good as the Eurofighter." In particular, Jumper praised the Eurofighter's agility, manoeuvrability, acceleration and precise navigation.,^[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hammond123 (talk • contribs) 15:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to add that as it is already in the article (see Design section). -Fnlayson (talk) 15:56, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This is not the same quote, and its from 2 different dates, March 2005 and 20 July 2004:

In March 2005, United States Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. Jumper, then the only person to have flown both the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Raptor, talked to Air Force Print News about these two aircraft. He said,

“ The Eurofighter is both agile and sophisticated, but is still difficult to compare to the F/A-22 Raptor. They are different kinds of airplanes to start with; it's like asking us to compare a NASCAR car with a Formula One car. They are both exciting in different ways, but they are designed for different levels of performance.[92] ”

Further, "The Eurofighter is certainly, as far as smoothness of controls and the ability to pull (and sustain high g forces), very impressive,"--Hammond123 (talk) 16:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Your EADS link above has a quote from March 2005 along with the one from July 2004. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:31, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

They can be joined, like this:

On 20 July 2004 General John P. Jumper, Commander-inChief of the US Air Force, flew the Eurofighter. Right after his flight Jumper said "I have flown all the air force jets. None was as good as the Eurofighter." Later in March 2005 John P. Jumper talked to Air Force Print News about these two aircraft. He said, “ The Eurofighter is both agile and sophisticated, but is still difficult to compare to the F/A-22 Raptor. They are different kinds of airplanes to start with; it's like asking us to compare a NASCAR car with a Formula One car. They are both exciting in different ways, but they are designed for different levels of performance--Hammond123 (talk) 16:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"Your link above has a quote from March 2005 along with the one from July 2004. -Fnlayson" - so what if there is another quote from 2005 futher down the text, what does that have to do with the quote im posting here? Its a new quote--Hammond123 (talk) 16:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not put it in "Joyrider" Jumper's own page then? He seemed to have a lot of time for flying fighter planes while his service was failing apart so there's plenty of history to dig up and throw at him. Hcobb (talk) 17:02, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

His 2005 quotes are in both sources is all. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

LITENING strikes PIRATE

Reading through the sources it looks like no Eurofighters will fly with both the LITENING and PIRATE systems installed.

It seems like PIRATE is more stealthy, but is a pure IR camera without the low light and laser capabilities of the LITENING.

So a PIRATEd Eurofighter will be as poor a bomber as the F-22 (using radar to figure out GPS coordinates), while the LITENING carrying ones will be able to laser rangerfinder and laser designate like it was 1991 all over again. Hcobb (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

But which wave length, what distance, what resolution, sensitivity? How many target can the Lithing Pod simulatan tracking? No one, it's a FLIR system only. 640x512 = 327680 pixel for the Litning against 24 Megapixel for the Pirate. Litning is a FLIR-disignator-pod for groundtargets only and Pirate is a FLIR and IRST-System for A2A and A2G. A CCD-System (Litning) against a modern QWIP-Sensor (Pirate) no match. Untraceably passiv rangefinding (pirate) against active detectable rangefinding (Litning). A target pod have a different kind of purpose as an IRST. Second: A DAS missle warner is not a IRST-system it's have only 1/1 visibility similar to the human eye resolution! --HDP (talk) 18:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Added Air to Air ref to LITENING article and it has visual and laser in addition to FLIR. Hcobb (talk) 23:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

http://www.airpower.at/news08/0630_eurofighter-cas/Typhoon-ground-ops_Nellis_04_planefocus-lee.jpg

Green Flag : first and third photo Pirate plus Rafael Litening III --HDP (talk) 06:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that part of the problem is that the article does not make clear the different equipment specs of the different partner countries aircraft - i.e. according to [5] German aircraft won't get Pirate, the LITENING pod has been selected for the RAF's Austere air-to ground capability - possibly not for other users, or for later buys, Italians may use Cross-eye jammer instead of towed decoys etc.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:53, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The RAF aircraft in the article clearly have both systems installed. The only remaining question is does each system operate in it's own box with lots of button pushing required to switch between air to air and air to ground modes or can both systems do their jobs at the same time. Either way it's obviously not as smooth as the SAIRST on the HUD-free F-35. Hcobb (talk) 14:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually the aircraft illustated in the Austrian article are RAF Typhoons. It isn't clear just how integrated the two systems are together - they do have notably different roles and the RAF implemenation is an interim one. In the absence of a source that says either way, the article can't really discuss this.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:57, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Structural differences between tranches

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/5951121/Majority-of-advanced-RAF-jets-go-to-Saudi-Arabia.html says "The Tranche 1 aircraft, designed to intercept Soviet fighters, are not even able to carry cruise missiles as their undercarriage is too weak" Is that not nonsense? I thought the aircraft were largely the same structurally. I've seen pictures of BAE tranche 1 aircraft weighed down with Storm Shadows, LGBS and AAMs. If it is true it would make an interesting addition to the article. Mark83 (talk) 18:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like an issue with return weight. That's what allowed the F-14 to take off with six huge missiles, but only return with four. If we have a section on this then mention that while the equipment installed on tranche three is no better than tranche two, they have improved wiring and power systems to make the jump to 4.5 generation someday. Hcobb (talk) 18:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

4.5 Generation Checklist

According to the United States House of Representatives, 4.5 Gen jet fighters are defined as having advanced capabilities, including AESA radar; high capacity data-link; and enhanced avionics; and have the ability to deploy current and reasonably foreseeable advanced armaments. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2647eh.txt.pdf

AESA and advanced weapons are scheduled as upgrades and the Eurofighter comes with fly by wire so that leaves the "high capacity data-link". Does anybody have a reference for the Eurofighter's data link so we can resolve if it is planned to be upgraded to 4.5 Gen? Hcobb (talk) 15:46, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Just shows that the labelling of fighters by generation is meaningless as everbody makes up a definition even US politicians. MilborneOne (talk) 16:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The most of 4.5 and 5 generation have high MAC (moderate instable), lacks a QWIP IRST, lacks HMD, lacks LOAL, lacks supercruise and lacks swing role capability. So what? --HDP (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Hcobb's 14 August edit to the upgrade section: "As of 2009, Eurofighter operators and manufacturers are considering upgrading the current fleet to 4.5th-generation, with the possibility of adding the MBDA Meteor missile and a modern Active Electronically Scanned Array radar" relies on this US HoR definition.

As there is no universally accepted definition of 4.5th generation, to imply that Typhoon is not currently a 4.5 gen fighter, in contradiction to the almost universal opinion that it is almost the defining example of such, is absurd. The HoR citation can be countered by many hundreds which classify Typhoon as a 4.5. Indeed, following the link in this revised text to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_aircraft#4.5th_generation_jet_fighters_.281990s_to_the_present.29 gives us "Prime examples of such aircraft...include the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Saab JAS 39 Gripen NG and the HAL Tejas." None of these aircraft currently have AESA.

This revision puts the Typhoon article in contrast to almost every other source, in classifying Eurofighter (and by extension every aircraft commonly considered 4.5 gen apart from Super Hornet and some upgraded f-15s and f-16s) a 4th gen fighter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 16:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

All the articles that go into any depth on the Eurofighter radar admit that it's a kludge and the fix is in progress. In addition the United States Congress has taken action to define that a 4.5-gen fighter would need that upgraded radar. My current list of 4.5-gen would be a few American types and the Dassault Rafale. Hcobb (talk) 16:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Whether the Eurofighter radar is a kludge or not is of absolutely zero relevance. We know it's not AESA, and the question is whether that precludes the aircraft from being 4.5 gen (according to Dassault Rafale they won't have AESA until 2012 either, leaving just those handful of American types). This is contrary to virtually every other source, including probably every other article on Wikipedia dealing with 4.5 gen aircraft types. US Congress is a national legislative body and doesn't get to unilaterally define broadly-used terminology.

This is veering dangerously close to NPOV or NOR . I don't question your personal conviction that Typhoon is not 4.5 gen, but while the vast majority of sources describe Typhoon as 4.5 gen, and even the defining aircraft of that generation, it is not the place of this article to hold a contrary opinion -- even if you are correct. As per Jimbo Wales, "If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then — whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not — it doesn't belong in Wikipedia..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 02:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Financial Times as Reference are useless!

FT is not a very acurate source! It's not acurate in the past and it's not acurate now! Just Google "FT" and any big GB defense program and you are going to find some pretty unbelivable stories. The 4.43 billion pounds Saudi Deal for 72 Typhoon´s?! Britain's government announced this week that it would supply Saudi Arabia with jets in a massive deal reported to be worth up to $70 billion that primarily benefits defence giant BAE Systems. http://www.metimes.com/Business/2005/12/23/massive_saudi_eurofighter_deal_boosts_aerospace_sector/5359/ At the same time the Guardian newspaper said the deal could be worth 8 billion pounds ($13.9 billion) to BAE Systems, while The Times estimated it could spell a 10-billion-pound deal for the firm and its sub-contractors. Why should FT yet a corect, quotable reference?! Use official sources, the United Kingdom 2008 NAO report, the 2009 German MOD budget and not estimated newspapers values! --HDP (talk) 07:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

What has the Middle East Times got to do with the accuracy of the Financial Times??
You seem to have a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's Verifiability policy: "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers."
The newspaper estimates of value were included specifically because there was no offical source at the time!
The newspaper estimates vary because the eventual total value is dependent on so many things, e.g. weapons purchases for the aircraft, level and nature of support provided etc. Mark83 (talk) 13:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Now that happens what I mean. Meantimes is the price tag 1bn for 16 Eurofigter at FT, a very acurate and reputable Reference! That make after Adam Riese only GB£62.5 and not GB£90.3 million!!! --HDP (talk) 14:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

An another argument against FT is this: "To continue reading this article, please register."--HDP (talk) 14:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Where has the FT claimed that 16 Eurofighters cost "1bn"? The Financial Times meets Wikipedia's standards for verifiability. End of discussion. As for the website requiring registration, that is irrelevant as for as verifiability goes. If you doubt a citation that much go to the trouble of getting the original text, e.g. at your local library. Mark83 (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Current ref. 4 or "UK defies Eurofighter payment calls". The article also mentions €1.6bn for 16 planes further down the page. -Fnlayson (talk) 02:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Then I can't see this paragraph with may be 1.6 bn for may be 16 T3a. Or why should I pay ~4 pound to control this flimsy reference?! But the UK buy not only 16 T3a but 40 T3a. --HDP (talk) 05:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The T2 global contract was "worth €13 Bn" for all 236 T2 aircraft. That’s make €55.08 m each. On 17 December 2004 when the contract was signed the €/£ rate was 0.68545 --> For the T2 make this a price of €55.08 m = £37.76 m. --HDP (talk) 06:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, so instead of the Financial Times "as reference are useless" the issue is over this one article? UK defies Eurofighter payment calls What is the problem with it?

It suggests that the UK is only committed to 16 instead of 88 T3 Typhoons? Yes, but it states further down that this is because the UK has been allowed to count exports to Saudi Arabia (and possible exports to Oman) as part of its T3 purchase.
It is being asked to pay €1.6bn for the remaining 16? That is obviously the price it is paying for the concession from the other governments!?
- This article is therefore obviously not appropriate for an overall unit cost.
Again, The Financial Times fully meets Wikipedia standards as a reliable source. Mark83 (talk) 11:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Here a official source [[6]]Die durchschnittlichen Anschaffungskosten der in Neuburg/Donau stationierten Luftfahrzeuge EUROFIGHTER Tranche 1 betrugen ca. 57 Mio. Euro^*3 pro Stück einschließlich USt. A T1 cost 57 Mio Euro with VAT! Ust is Umsatzsteuer --> VAT (*3den EUROFIGHTER-Beschaffungsverträgen sind nicht die Luftfahrzeug-Stückpreise, sondern die Finanzierungsanteile der einzelnen Partnernationen am Gesamtvorhaben festgelegt. Der hier genannte Stückpreis wurde berechnet als Summe des deutschen Finanzierungsanteiles an den Beschaffungsverträgen Tranche 1 und allen Nebenleistungen. This 57 Mio Euro therefore includes all perks.)--HDP (talk) 19:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think there are a few things you gentlemen need to keep in mind. First, each nation buying Eurofighters pays a different unit procurement price because each has nationally unique equipment configurations; little information has been revealed on these cost differences, but it is known that the UK’s models are more expensive than the Germans’. Second, the payment Mr. Brown is withholding is a progress payment, which cannot be directly translated into a unit procurement price. Depending on how the payments are structured, it might include or exclude an number of costs. Such details have not been publicly released AFAIK. Even the difference between the amounts of €1.1 bn and €1.6 bn are not clearly explained, but it’s obvious they account for different costs. Askari Mark (Talk) 19:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

What should the difference are with the UK and the Germans EF? The only what the Germans EF not has is the PIRATE and LASER-warner, therefore has the Germans a FLIR-Pod and therefore has the UK not the Libelle. MAV and DASS is included in this price too. --HDP (talk) 11:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I was simply stating a fact that is often overlooked – that configurations and unit prices differ between customers. The contracts can also differ in terms of supplies of initial spares and support equipment included, optional equipment sources, different financing arrangements, etc. These can result in differences of tens of thousands to a few million. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The very fact that Wikipedia asserts that a newspaper, any newspaper, is acceptable as a citable source merely demonstrates that this is not a true encyclopaedia in the same sense that Britannica is. It is a faux academic publication whose faux empirical methodology appears to largely consist of unqualified opinions significantly presented by those who try through the use of faux learned argument to prove that their own jingoistic wishfullness is true. It is indeed a damning example of just how unreliable a source of information the Internet is. Nevertheless it’s worth considering within this context the trite and baseless opinions of so called editors here whose integrity and gravitas has been invested in completely offhand assertions regarding the relative quality as a source of qualitative reporting of the Financial Times. As it happens the Financial Times is actually one of the most reliable newspapers on the planet. Contrary to almost every other newspaper the FT has a narrow remit to supply investors and business leaders with accurate information that’s free of both rhetoric and political agendas. The FT’s customers are not interested in having their prejudices stroked. They need hard facts. Ironically, of all the world’s newspapers the FT is an unemotional fact machine in its purpose. Doesn’t mean it can’t get it wrong but at least it tries harder than others.

Whether or not the Euro Fighter is a better air superiority aeroplane than the F22 is not going to be established anywhere in this article or this debate. The truth is likely to be a mixed bag. One thing that has emerged though, and no one who actually knows anything would deny, the Typhoon has turned out to be more effective than early pundits had expected. From a development and production point of view the Typhoon has refuted those who said that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, or ‘the multi nation European methodology will mean endless delays and inefficiencies’. Typhoon has surged ahead of the Raptor programme in terms of efficient and cost effective evolution. Europeans have had operational Typhoon squadrons’ years ahead of Raptor despite a later programme start. Much of what makes an aircraft superior in the so called 5th generation fighter is to do with four profound abilities;

1) Super cruise. Both have it

2) Power to weight ratio that allows thrust alone to be used as a manoeuvring device. Both have it.

3) Stealth. This is perhaps the one thing that separates the two, but not quite as one might expect. The Raptor aspires to achieve all aspect stealth whilst the Typhoon is only interested in frontal aspect stealth. Both types can approach their adversary stealthily; the Raptor makes its exit stealthily too. The trade off is between all aspect stealth or superior combat manoeuvrability. Only battle will tell which is better, though battles with each other are extremely unlikely.

4) The fourth virtue is all about on board technology; avionics, radar, weapons and the ability to counter enemy systems as well as get past their defences. In this vital respect both aircraft have their relative strengths and moreover both aircraft have lots of development capacity yet to be exploited.

One thing that does standout between the two is that Typhoon is cheaper and easier to replace should the attrition of war ever become brutal. Tactically as well as strategically, the jury still has to wait.86.24.5.141 (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Multirole?

Does an austere air to ground capability justify this label? Hcobb (talk) 17:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Austre air to ground capability is T1 Block 2B Software PSP3. Full Multirole is since T1 Block 5 Software PSP4. May be a little bit more acurate recherche recommend! --HDP (talk) 09:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No losses in mock dogfights?

Two sources are given for this claim. The first one, in English, does not discuss that issue. I can't read German. It also seems suspect to mention the F/A-18 first as it appears there were few of those aircraft. Beating F-1, and F-4 aircraft is not exactly difficult 66.75.129.148 (talk) 16:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

What F-4? F-16, F-18, MIRAGE F1 and AV 8b Harrier but no F-4 in Moron. --HDP (talk) 19:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I find it hard to belive that the eurofighter beat the F-16 in 8vs27 dock fights!!

--There was also an article called "TYPHOON TOP GUNS TRIUMPH IN THE SPANISH SUN" by "thisislincolnshire.co.uk". There it was claimed that: "Squadron Leader Mike Baulkwill said that the exercise proved to be a great success, with Coningsby suffering no losses in the combat simulations and defeating the other types of aircraft that were present." Unfortunately the article is down for some reason and google only gives me the link to a discussion board where the article was posted. I dunno..--HTG2000 (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

--Bias?--

I see this article as slightly biased, as the Eurofighter has engaged F-22 raptors and lost every time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.108.73.41 (talk) 20:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Sources please?! Any dact between F-22 and Typhoon? The F-22 lacks an IRST. --HDP (talk) 20:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would not be so quick to state that "the Eurofighter has engaged F-22 raptors and lost every time": International Air Power Review (year 2006, issue 20, page 45: "more recently, there have been repeated reports that two RAF Typhoons deployed to the USA for OEU trails work have been flying against the F-22 at NAS China Lake, and have peformed better than was expected. There was little suprise that Typhoon, with its world-class agility and high off-boresight missile capability was able to dominate "Within Visual Range" flight, but the aircraft did cause a suprise by getting a radar lock on the F22 at a suprisingly long range. The F-22s cried off, claiming that they were "unstealthed" anyway, although the next day´s scheduled two vs. two BWR engagement was canceled, and "the USAF decided they didn´t want to play any more. When this incident was reported on a website frequented by front-line RAF aircrew a senior RAF officer urged an end to the converstaion on security grounds") as well as BBC and other sources stated otherwise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1818077.stm (down at the end) 88.67.176.39 (talk) 21:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This report is right. The Eurofighters picked up the F22's radar tracking in BVR scenarios, jammed them and generated a visual range scenario. And the EF is built to dominate in that field since it's lighter and sacrifices stealthiness for agility in the first place. 88.67.183.205 (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, this report is not right. It has been addressed before ad nauseum across several talk pages. If you'd like to learn why the IAPR is unreliable, please read this. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

--Let me ask you guys this: Who the hell cares which aircraft is better. It's nothing more than an British-American pissing match. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.177.36.19 (talk) 03:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding off-hand assertions, jingoism and baseless opinions about the Financial Times

The very fact that Wikipedia asserts that a newspaper, any newspaper, is acceptable as a citable source merely demonstrates that this is not a true encyclopaedia in the same sense that Britannica is. It is a faux academic publication whose faux empirical methodology appears to largely consist of unqualified opinions significantly presented by those who try through the use of faux learned argument to prove that their own jingoistic wishfullness is true. It is indeed a damning example of just how unreliable a source of information the Internet is. Nevertheless it’s worth considering within this context the trite and baseless opinions of so called editors here whose integrity and gravitas has been invested in completely offhand assertions regarding the relative quality as a source of qualitative reporting of the Financial Times. As it happens the Financial Times is actually one of the most reliable newspapers on the planet. Contrary to almost every other newspaper the FT has a narrow remit to supply investors and business leaders with accurate information that’s free of both rhetoric and political agendas. The FT’s customers are not interested in having their prejudices stroked. They need hard facts. Ironically, of all the world’s newspapers the FT is an unemotional fact machine in its purpose. Doesn’t mean it can’t get it wrong but at least it tries harder than others.

Whether or not the Euro Fighter is a better air superiority aeroplane than the F22 is not going to be established anywhere in this article or this debate. The truth is likely to be a mixed bag. One thing that has emerged though, and no one who actually knows anything would deny, the Typhoon has turned out to be more effective than early pundits had expected. From a development and production point of view the Typhoon has refuted those who said that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, or ‘the multi nation European methodology will mean endless delays and inefficiencies’. Typhoon has surged ahead of the Raptor programme in terms of efficient and cost effective evolution. Europeans have had operational Typhoon squadrons’ years ahead of Raptor despite a later programme start. Much of what makes an aircraft superior in the so called 5th generation fighter is to do with four profound abilities;

1) Super cruise. Both have it

2) Power to weight ratio that allows thrust alone to be used as a manoeuvring device. Both have it.

3) Stealth. This is perhaps the one thing that separates the two, but not quite as one might expect. The Raptor aspires to achieve all aspect stealth whilst the Typhoon is only interested in frontal aspect stealth. Both types can approach their adversary stealthily; the Raptor makes its exit stealthily too. The trade off is between all aspect stealth or superior combat manoeuvrability. Only battle will tell which is better, though battles with each other are extremely unlikely.86.24.5.141 (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

4) The fourth virtue is all about on board technology; avionics, radar, weapons and the ability to counter enemy systems as well as get past their defences. In this vital respect both aircraft have their relative strengths and moreover both aircraft have lots of development capacity yet to be exploited.

One thing that does standout between the two is that Typhoon is cheaper and easier to replace should the attrition of war ever become brutal. Tactically as well as strategically, the jury still has to wait.86.24.5.141 (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would anybody compare the EF with the Raptor? A much better choice would be the Super Hornet, because someday the EF will be updated to a 4.5th Gen fighter, just like the Super Hornet has been for years, at a lower cost. Of Course the Super Hornet flies off of carriers and has the Growler variant, but it's not like Europe needs power projection. Hcobb (talk) 22:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

What a preposterous set of statements from Hcobb. Clearly he's an American patriot. Firstly EF is already considered by the American inventors of the highly debatable term, to be a 4.5th generation fighter. The invention having more to do with F22 propaganda designed to justify its huge and disproportionate expense than as universally accepted imperical evidence of relative fighting ability in a real shooting war scenario; a scenario that has yet to disprove the assertion that EF has performed embarrassingly well against F22 in trials and qualified comparative assessments. The fact that EF base line technology begins where Super Hornets evolution has been tricked out to the limits of its potential; something that any serious aeronautical observer would understand, further discredits Hcobbs provenance as a commentator on the subject. Hcobb then goes on to say in an equally spurious and condescending manner that Europe has no need to project power; what a silly and deeply ignorant assertion; Europe is an expanding super power with global interests and far flung overseas territories. It already has the biggest armed forces in the world in terms of trained standing and reserve personnel outside of the absurd cannon fodder hoards on the Korean Peninsula and is equipped with numerous modern and effective systems that have cost, compared with the USA, only a fraction of its GDP, the largest GDP in the World by an ever increasing and substantial margin. Both UK and France have Large Carrier programmes (currently three 60,000 to 70,000 ton vessels under construction to supplement the eight light carriers the EU already has in service). The real sleeping giant, whose military potential has barely begun to be flexed, is Europe.81.107.64.19 (talk) 04:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages are to dicuss the article, not the subject, and especially not continental politics. WP accepts sources such as the Financial Times, and whether or not that is right is also beyond the scope here. WP reports what has been reported elsewhere, nothing more or less, in theory. If an FT article is wrong, we need a source that says that, or at least one that gives a countering view, and then we report both. If the Britinca model is better, then go edit there! (As if you can ;) Any further off-topic dicsussions of this nature will be removed. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 08:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

CFTs

Perhaps in the Upgrades section we could mention the possibility of Conformal Fuel Tanks, provision for which is apparently being made in Tranche 3 aircraft, whilst the former RAF air chief marshal has expressed his desire for these; also that GKN Engage Australia have done some work on this. 87.194.223.183 (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

CFT ref added. Hcobb (talk) 23:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Unit cost

The unit cost currently listed of GB£69.3 million taken from [7] appears to be the total cost of procurement for to the UK for 232 aircraft (now an incorrect figure anyway), including the UK share of development, upgrades to early models etc., rather than the flyaway cost, as required in the infobox template.

The NAO document cited (above) notes that "The estimated current cost of Typhoon was classified in MPR05 and remains so in MPR08..." which should suggest that this really isn't the right place to look for a flyaway cost. Austria paid €1.121bn for 18 tranche 2 aircraft, giving a flyaway cost of €62.3m. [8], and see [9]reporting a similar €62m flyaway cost more recently. This would appear to be in line with manufacturer's claim [10], which lacks figures but claims the Typhoon flyaway is slightly less than the Rafale, in line with the Rafale's flyaway cost of €64 or €70 depending on model (source: [11])

Can anyone come up with a better figure? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 15:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I can come up with a much better figure. First off the nao number included items such as avionics upgrades and weapon system certification. In fact the additional money that NAO cites was to make the Typhoon combat capable. The numbers you are citing cover the bare aircraft, engines and the very first block of avionics. It does not in any way represent the true flyaway or UPC for today's Typhoon.

Second, your Austria argument is very much flawed because they only wound up with 15 aircraft for the money. So using your Austria example you get 15 for €1.121bn and that comes to €74.7m. Not only does the Flug Revue article have the wrong number of aircraft it is 8 years old. according to DID article published this month the actual Austrian cost was €1.63bn for 15 T2 aircraft or EUR 108.6m per unit. [12].

Lastly, just this past January in [13] "The Ministry of Defence is committed to buying another 88 Eurofighters, which cost more than £60m apiece,".

Clearly the original numbers given are much closer to reality than your old €62m flyaway cost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.50.45 (talk) 00:31, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The NAO figure is a unit production cost, not a flyaway cost. Flyaway is the figure required. The closest we get to a unit figure from the NAO document is "The contract for the first Tranche of 148 aircraft, of which 55 valued at some £2.5bn are for the UK, was signed in September 1998.". This gives a unit price of £45.45m per unit, about €50m at current exchange rate, but a fairly meaningless figure because, as you point out, it represents an early specification that required significant upgrades. As quoted above, the NAO document makes it clear that the actual unit price is not given as it remains classified. In short, this document is of no use in determining the flyaway cost.

The DID page cited clearly states that the €1.63bn is for "15 Tranche 1, Block 5 aircraft and support services". Again, support costs are not part of flyaway. The Flug Revue article does indeed quote the price of the 18 aircraft deal, but differentiates between the total deal price of €1.959bn for 18 aircraft (reduced to €1.63 for 15), which includes training, logistics, simulators and maintenance, and the €1.121bn of that deal which represents the flyaway cost of the aircraft themselves. This gives a unit flyaway of €62.9bn, not the €74.7 you suggest, because as the DID article states, the price was reduced when the order size was reduced.

With current edits, we have cites linking to the irrelevant NAO report and to a FlightGlobal article that gives a different price (€62m rather than €63) than the figure given -- without source. The Flug Revue article referred to a superseded deal, but an actual deal that was agreed on. Whilst we may hope for a more up-to-date figure, as yet this is the only firm, citable figure yet provided -- removing it is not a helpful edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 04:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Setting up the bot would be good. But this page is not busy enough for a 30-day archive time. The sections on this page now are about ~1 year old. So about 6 months would be more like it. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Anybody have an issue with using the bot to auto archive this talk page? Is 6 months (180 days) OK? I suggest the longer time to cut down on issues being rehashed due to posters not thinking to check the archives for prior discussions. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I would support Fnlayson's 180 days. MilborneOne (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Done--Oneiros (talk) 00:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear weapon capable?

Is the Eurofighter able to deliver nuclear weapons? AFAIK it isn't, but the article doesn't say so. I'm asking because the only nuclear weapons in Germany currently use the Panavia Tornado for delivery, which is to be retired in 2013/2014.--Oneiros (talk) 21:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually the United States is eager to sell the Germans a stealth tactical strike aircraft and provide nuclear weapons that can be carried for covert strikes. http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/10/germany.php Hcobb (talk) 05:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, but it doesn't answer my question. And I see that the F35 is an option, but that doesn't mean that the US are eager for that (and any german government will find it difficult to justify buying nuclear bombers).--Oneiros (talk) 10:10, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

A Lockheed F-35 is a fighter non grata in Germany, a absolut no go. One Lockheed scandal and one Lockheed lawndart is enough. A F-35 is politically unacceptable. ;) --HDP (talk) 20:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Are we really supposed to take these comments seriously? Firstly, virtually all modern combat aircraft are capable of deploying airborne nuclear weapons with relatively minor modifications if their operators are already nuclear capable. Currently the UK and France are the only European countries that have nuclear weapons. All this talk of nuclear sharing is spurious nonsense. The UK and France have small stock piles of tactical nukes deployed from aircraft, artillery and missiles but submarine launched multiple war head strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles are the principle deterrent relied upon by both countries. Germany and other countries may allow allies to deploy from their territories under treaty agreements but these hosts have no physical control of the weapons.62.49.27.221 (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

There are 20 B61 nuclear bombs stored on the German base Büchel for delivery by German PA-200 Tornado IDS bombers of the JaBoG 33 squadron. --HDP (talk) 13:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Spanish Air Force eurofighter - confirmation I think

Our picture is not very clear, so it is a little difficult (at least for me a nonexpert) to identify the roundel. This Spanish roundel: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roundel_of_the_Spanish_Air_Force.svg is not convincing, but current RAF low-visibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RAF_Lowvis_Army_roundel.svg also does not fit very well. A little Searching reveals that the Spanish Air Force did indeed visit the International Air Tattoo 2007 and http://www.airshowaction.com/riat07/riat07_097.jpg by Peter Steehouwer shows a different Spanish roundel which is a much better fit. I'll add a reference to the parent page of that image to provide justification for this caption since the source of our image does not state the nationality of the aircraft, only the event. Mirokado (talk) 19:45, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Checking further, photo http://www.airshowaction.com/riat07/riat07_102.jpg shows that it is in fact the normal Spanish Air Force roundel, but image artifacts blur it at low resolutions.

Before I change the article: is http://www.airshowaction.com/riat07/page3.html used to support information in this way "reliable enough"? It probably counts as self-published and thus not qualifying to support the introduction of new textual material. Mirokado (talk) 20:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe add a note on the image page explaining this with the links. That should be enough. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:11, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, good suggestion as it provides one source for the extra information. I'll do that tomorrow unless there are alternative comments. Mirokado (talk) 21:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Done that now. Mirokado (talk) 17:24, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

"Luftwaffe" stands for Air Force

In this article all participating airforces are addressed by their english translation, for example "Italian Air Force". I'd like to say that there is no organisation known as "German Luftwaffe". The German word "Luftwaffe" contains "Luft" (Air) and "Waffe" (Force). So I would suggest to refer to the German Air Force either under its German name (Luftwaffe) or under its correct english translation "German Air Force". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.243.116 (talk) 19:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Waffe is not translated with force, Waffe is translated with weapon. Luftwaffe can't translated 1/1 with air force. The word Luftwaffe is not only used by the germans, there is 3 Luftwaffe, Austrian, German and Helvetia. Air Force is translated with Luftstreitkraefte.--HDP (talk) 16:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

In common English usage, Luftwaffe refers to the air force of Germany, both modern and historical, but not that of any other German-speaking natiion suchg as Austria. It is a common enough term in that it is used wthout translation in WP. It is one of the few exceptions to the guideline that English titles be used for the non-English organizations. This is a WP-wide convention not limited to just this article, and is better challened elsewhere, such as at the Luftwaffe talk page. - BilCat (talk) 17:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ugly Image of Typhoon, Any better ones?

Has anyone got any other images of a typhoon (that they own copyrights of) that can be displayed? The one that's up not looks crap.Tamarin2010 (talk) 22:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What is wrong with it? --John (talk) 23:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are at least 14 images of the Typhoon in the article? Which one do you mean? The first one? It looks pretty good to me, considering the subject isn't that good looking to begin with. ;) - BilCat (talk) 23:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

ATLC exercice in the UAE

According to an official French Air Force presse conference, Rafale has won 7-1 against the Typhoon in dogfights. So why nobody talks about it in this article? I'm OK to say Typhoon is the best of the best of the best flying thing in the world in the Performance section (that's really obvious), but when you quote: The aviation magazine "Flug Revue" reports that in 2008 German Typhoon were pitted against French Rafales. The results are said to be "extremely gratifying", the main difference being the "much greater thrust of the EJ200 engine", why don't you talk about other sources, very credible, that say the contrary (ATLC exercice for exemple)??

This article is a joke, and is really funny from a non-British point of view. But please, do it for Wiki, be a minimum balanced... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.207.150.199 (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, why are the only *journalistic* reports from 2 French journalists? No American, British, Saudi, UAE, Pakistani reporters allowed to see it or have access to any type results? Personally, I don't think the French are impartial about anything not French. --HDP (talk) 11:58, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

These results were released at an official press conference of the AdlA (1/7 squadron), and were published in several aviation magazines (incuding English speaking ones). Of course the pilots and the journalists are not partial, but they don't necessarly lie. And I guess it's not true only for the French (or you are a racist?).

As I said before, I'm OK to talk about the (very controversial) results of exercices, but isn't it easy to only quote those which are in favor of the Typhoon.

This article, and particulary this section is a fan-boy text and is soo ridiculous from an external point of view. Nothing to do with Wiki spirit, you British fanboys are a shame... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.84.30.21 (talk) 17:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You have a good point; unfortunate that you chose to mar it with a quite unnecessary dose of jingoism. For a start, the Eurofighter Typhoon is not a British aircraft; it's a British / Spanish / German / Italian aircraft -- but really let's not go there. The question is: should the ATLC results be included? My answer is absolutely not. The reporting of that event is uncorroborated, and in some parts specifically denied. At best it counts as rumour. However, I certainly agree that it is odd to include the Flug Revue quote you refer to while omitting the ATLC report. I don't think either should be included. In my opinion, the really significant question that you raise is the use of DACT 'results' of any source in the performance section. DACT is not a representative measure of an aircraft's performance, and including them in this section is misleading. I would suggest that the Flug Revue quote, along with the Typhoon Meet 'results' (and probably the Indra-Danush excercise) have no more place in the section than the ATLC results. Possibly it's worth having a subsection on DACT results, which indeed should include ATLC with the others, but in that case there should be a VERY strongly worded disclaimer that DACT results are dubious at best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

No, I think you're misunderstanding. I don't want ATLC results to be incuded, I just want to denouce the outrageous bias of this section. ATLC was just an example to show that it's really easy to find this kind of report in order to say "myplane is better than yours"

I'm glad you recognise that other results have no more place in the section (I don't think those results have been officially announced at a press conference, like the ATLC results were though).

The purpose of this section is clearly to swhow how good (and better than others) is the Typhoon, so you have 2 possibilites: -You make this section looking a bit less biased by quoting ALL the available results and claims (yes even those not in favour of the Typhoon) -You modify this section so there is no bias anymore (deletion of all those dubious claims and biased interviews) I think it wouldn't be honnest to keep this article in its current shape. Anyway thank you for your reply.

PS: The RCS section is also purely speculative and is ridiculous. This kind of sections has nothing to do with an encyclopedia. And sorry for my English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.207.150.199 (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Attention mon ami, cela deviant dangereusement semblable a la fanboyisme Rafale. ;^) Just joking, but let's not confuse a press conference given for boosting sales with meaningful evidence! I certainly agree that section reads like sales material rather than an encyclopaedia entry, and is badly in need of a major overhaul, if not complete removal. It's unclear what the purpose of that section really is. For example the paragraph about supercruise (which incidentally contains the incorrect claim "However the Eurofighter can only supercruise in a clean configuration...") discusses performance in the abstract, while the paragraph on the combat tests in the Singapore evaluation (possibly the only really meaningful examination of comparative performance that is in the public domain) is about relative performance. The General John P. Jumper comments might have a limited place in such a discussion, but are far too woolly to deserve the weight they are given here.

I would strongly suggest that some kind of consensus be found on what the purpose of this section is. If it is meant to discuss the absolute performance of the aircraft as the section on supercruise implies, it needs to cover a much wider range of performance attributes and remove all the comparative comments. If, on the other hand, it is meant to give some sense of the relative performance of the aircraft sans operational history in a combat environment, it should not have the paragraph of supercruise and the DACT results should be removed as meaningless. In this case, I'd limit it to the first John P. Jumper quote, the F15E mock dogfight and the Singapore evaluation.

In reference to your final comment on the RCS section, while this is somewhat messy, most of it seems like quite reasonable, and properly cited, analysis. Can you clarify your objections? I would say this section could benefit from losing the comparison of guesses to RCS as there's no good reason to include the guesses that are cited here rather than other guesses (I have seen estimates of Typhoon RCS from 0.1 to 2.0 sqm and no strong reason to believe any one over the others). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.112.73 (talk) 01:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure the Eurofighter can only supercruise in a clean configuration. ;) But the Typhoon Block 2 demonstrated supercruise (Mach 1.22) with 4 ARAAMS, two Sidewinders and centertank in the Signapore evulation. The Rafale and the F-15 faild in this point in Signapore anyway. The question is what mean clean? A Typhoon with four AMRAAMs is aerodynamical cleaner as without (Area Rule!). The AMRAAMs are carried regressed vs pylons on the Rafale. --HDP (talk) 07:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

So rumors spreaded from Singapore by a single uncorroborated source are OK, but the words of French pilots, from different newspapers (DSI, A&C, AFM...) who managed to surprise everybody at ATLC is mere "rumor" ? Double standard. I still wait for official denial by UK pilots, with details. You can't win all rounds. If you reject the French' opinion, you have to reject the F-22vsTyphoon stories, and rumors from Singapore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.247.75.237 (talk) 10:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Right, it's a biased behauvoir. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.104.203.183 (talk) 23:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Questionable Loaded Weight

Adding up pilot, weapons and fuel gives more than 10 tons, so which of these is the Eurofighter taking off without? Hcobb (talk) 03:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

A German Luftwaffe Eurofighter flight QRA only with two IRIS-T, an Austrian Eurofighter only with one IRIS-T for example and this make clear not 10 tons! --HDP (talk) 09:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

That's airshow configuration. Redesignate the aircraft as an airshow demonstrator and that'll fly. If you go to the Eurofighter site you'll see three tanks (the internal fuel is pitiful) and 10 missiles for the A2A role. Hcobb (talk) 13:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No, that is Ouick Reaction Alert and not an FAC (fanboy air circus) and again I suggest better recherche. What fuel fraction has a EF?! Austria for example has no drop tanks.--HDP (talk) 17:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Then let's change the combat radius figure to just internal fuel. The calculated stats on the page are bogus so erase them until we can find a reference that lists a T/W figure and has the matching configuration. Hcobb (talk) 18:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[14] the source is a Janes correspondent. --HDP (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Brassey's World Aircraft & Systems 1999/2000 quotes an "estimated" take-off weight of 15,500 kg with full internal fuel and six air-to-air missiles (together with a MTOW of 21,000 kg) if that's of any use -things like loaded weight do tend to be a movable feast with specifications - you are never quite sure what sources mean by them. It would be interesting to see what the current Jane's says for loaded weight (if it says anything at all).Nigel Ish (talk) 23:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure the fighter checklist by Airpower is a little bit outdateted. The F-22 is much heavier, therefor is T/W lower and the fuelfraction lower, sligtly below of a Typhoon. T/W is a static value, classified information is the dynamic T/W and excess thrust. --HDP (talk) 08:48, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

This weight has been uncited for months now. I used current Jane's data for Max TO weight, interceptor config. (16,000 kg, 35,300 lb) and corresponding wing loading. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

If this site is anything to go by http://typhoon.starstreak.net/Eurofighter/structure.html loaded weight (I'm using what by my understanding is a normal air to air load without ext tanks, 6 MRM and 2 SRM) should be around 38,000 lbs. Does the Jane's source provide anything other than weight, like the actual weapons load and internal fuel? Going by the empty weight in the Wiki aritcle and the one of starstreak, it's hard to see the EF carrying any weapons and taking off at 35,000 lbs unless it has less than a full tank (or the ~11,000 lbs fuel estimate on startstreak is way more than the real capacity).

Exorcet (talk) 20:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I have received no reply, so I changed the loaded weight. According to the source I used, the weight would be 24,250 lb (airframe) + 10,991 lb (fuel) + 352 lb * 6 (Meteor) + 193 lb *2 (ASRAAM) + 86 lb * 150 (cannon) = 37,827 lb. I have changed it in an effort to draw attention to this issue. I know that loaded weight is a flexible figure and that my source does not make Jane's wrong, so I understand if the change is undone, however I think the fuel load should be added, as it can be found in other sources as well. Exorcet (talk) 12:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll double check Jane's values and see if I can find what is included in interceptor configuration weight. -fnlayson (talk) 13:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Cases like this make it very difficult to compare aircraft from wiki pages. Some planes have weight calculated with full fuel and high armament (F-35, F-18 E/F) and other like this and some Sukhoi models use much lower fuel and/or armament in weight and performance calculations. For instance: Sukhoi 30mk models calculate their loaded weight as 24,900kg (includes rockets 2xR-27R1 + 2xR-73E, 5270 kg fuel)^[2] This same source also says that the jet has a MAXIMUM INTERNAL FUEL load of 9,640kg. So basically the loaded weight with full fuel is 9,634 lbs higher than listed which would drop the thrust to weight ratio from 1.00 to .85 (yeah a big difference). It is inconsistent and incorrect to use a different template when rating different planes. Aircraft such as the Rafale and Superhornet are made to look inferior while other aircraft use drastically lower armament and fuel in order to look better. All aircraft should be subject to the same rating criteria; it is extremely misleading for specifications to be listed in any other fashion. --Nem1yan (talk) 13:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the answer would be to list empty TWR along with full fuel, weapons, etc for all planes. Exorcet (talk) 12:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

That would take a while and would probably start edit wars on the Sukhoi pages because literally none of their fighters' TWR from at least the 4th gen onwards are calculated with full fuel. (an Su-30 holds around twice as much fuel as a typhoon, so there are legitimate arguments against calculating all that additional weight in it's specifications). The easiest thing to do is list the type of loadout the jet is flying with. A Rafale's TWR with an A2G loadout is around .8, while an A2A loadout would give a ratio of 1.1. But if there is consensus that all jets should be listed with full fuel and optimal loadout for their mission (Superiority fighters with at least 4 A2A missile and Multirole aircraft with 2 missiles and 2 +1000 lb bombs) then I would gladly help you update the pages. --Nem1yan (talk) 17:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really concerned with how it would take to pull this off since I think it's a better way of displaying information. I'd be willing to do it myself, though I also would gladly accept your help and the help of others. As for the suggestion itself, I don't want to actually change the listed TWR's, but make it so that more than one is listed, especially for aircraft with mulitple configurations. I don't think the Sukhoi people would have much to complain about if their accepted TWR numbers remained, and it is clearly stated that the lower numbers are not likely to be seen in combat configurations. Example [using made up configurations and numbers]

EF-2000 air superiority with drop tanks - 45,000, .95

EF-2000 air superiority (full fuel, 6 Meteor, 2 ASRAAM) - 38,000 lbs, 1.05

EF-2000 interceptor (2 Meteor, 2 ASRAAM, 80% fuel) - 35,000 lbs 1.10

EF-2000 fuel only - 33,000 lbs 1.20

EF-2000 empty - 25,000 lbs 1.30

The issues would be finding the actual loaded weight for various load outs and seeing what load outs are actually used. As far as I know, the Russians don't fly with full tanks unless ferrying, for example. Exorcet (talk) 00:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I think there are some in the wiki community that would view that many ratios as clutter. It's also interesting to me how nobody is responding on the talks page but there will immediately be an uproar once the page is changed. Ultimately if you think you can make it look pretty them I'm all for it. The current system isnt very effective. --Nem1yan (talk) 11:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

About RCS

I had edited this part in past, but I get accused of not being constructive etc.

"This compares with the estimated RCS of the Rafale of 2 square metres,[150] the 0.5 square metres RCS of the Sukhoi PAK FA, the 20 square metres of the Su-30MKI[151] and the American F-117 of 0.025 square metres"

If so, please tell me,

1- How can someone actually know the RCS of PAK FA? The article was there even before the aircraft's pictures were made public, the flown prototype didn't even had RAM cover, and its predecessor Su-47 was in 0.3 sqm class as declared by Sukhoi in 2002. 0.5 sqm is a complete BS. It was discussed, and decided to be removed in PAK FA article. So I removed it.

2- A typical RCS for an AWACS is 3 sqm. This is also mentioned in many articles about radars like "...can detect AWACS-sized/bomber-sized (3 sqm) targets at x range". So, do French engineers live in caves? With RAM, all 4.5 generation (non-stealth shaped) aircraft's RCS are reduced below 1 sqm, as done with F-18E and Su-35BM. So why Rafale has twice the RCS of Eurofighter? Illogical. Considering the fact that RCSs of operational aircraft are mostly classified and I can't read the source myself to check out the author is a neutral expert or a Eurofighter fan, I removed it.

3- About Su-30MKI had 20sqm RCS. The source says "According to a defence ministry official..." which official, does that official knows what RCS means? Even the Su-27 of 1980s with zero RAM didn't have a RCS that big. From a technical point of view, its also impossible. Again, it was discussed in PAK FA editing page, and it was decided that source is not a valid source. So I removed it.

I'm asking people why these RCS values shouldn't be removed.

Andraxxus, 78.161.23.94 (talk) 01:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

So sorry, but the RCS of the B-52 has been noted as being a LOT more than 3 square meters.

For example: http://books.google.com/books?id=R4zUHMZQudoC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=B-52+rcs&source=bl&ots=ZXgfKgrqs5&sig=Gw15AGu4dNo5GSgp1uPpvZ-RFZI&hl=en&ei=qeeBS4TdFdKwrAfV8Ni1Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAgQ6AEwATgU

Which is why the Russians quote their radar ranges against 100m^2 targets. Hcobb (talk) 02:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That is for older radars, like N001. Stealth technologies have developed considerably since 1950s, and newer bombers (while have similar overall size of B-52) have 3 sqm at most. Irbis radar is said to track bomber sized (3 sqm) targets at 400 km, 0.01 sqm targets at 90 km. Surely a radar developed for 2000s should mention bombers developed for 2000s not 1950s. A fighter sized target means 1-2 sqm these days. Older fighters had more than 10 sqm. Anyway, my point still stands. I say these RCS values are not valid and should be removed.78.161.23.94 (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As long the RCS values are referenced remains this in the lemma or bring better referenced information. But please, no hearsay like, Irbis radar is said... When you use Fuhs to examine the IBRIS claims, then appears some problems with bogus low RCS IRBIS distance claims. --HDP (talk) 09:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

An *unnamed Indian official* is not a reference for a *Russian* aircraft that not even Russians exactly know what its RCS will be. Please use your brains people, the first prototype flew less than a month ago. If I make my own site, and write an official said F-22 has 50 sqm RCS, would that make me a source for Wikipedia?

And about Irbis radar. 1-I did not make hearsaying of a rumour. You can check your own wikipedia and read it yourself. 2- RCS is related to distance with factor of 4. According to radar range formulae the claims are perfectly valid. I've never come across to a webside explaning why its invalid. 78.161.23.94 (talk) 16:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You konw that the Radar wave travel this way two times! For Radar range doubling need you not only four times more power. For times more power increase only 50% the Radar range on ideal conditions like 100% target reflection. I think you should first use your brain! --HDP (talk) 07:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

At least the Russians didn't repeat the fatal error of sticking canards on a modern aircraft. (Sure the Americans started the fad at the start of the 20th Century, but we learned better...} Hcobb (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Hcobb continues with his preposterous US supremacist campaign against the Typhoon. There's nothing inherently inferior or wrong about the canard, it's how the overall effectiveness of the design works within the context of the designers purpose that's significant. from the outset Euro Fighter has presumed a tactical combat need that differs from that sought by the F22 Raptor. Raptor utterly depends on all aspect stealth and beyond the horizon engagements. Typhoon also goes for stealth but only on approach; whilst Typhoon also has beyond the horizon capability with world leading avionics and radar with anti stealth capability sufficient to worry F22 pilots, the Typhoon is also designed for fully aerobatic close quarters dog fighting where its canard configured airframe enables it to fly literal rings around the F22. It may be a case of comparing apples with oranges but F22 fans should think before placing their bets.62.49.27.221 (talk) 16:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I dont see how the raptor depends completely on stealth. It is thrust vectored and can outrun any other fighter in the sky. And if the Eurofighter was soo much more maneuverable than the F-22 then why is there so much interest in a thrust-vectored Typhoon? It's ridiculous how the typhoon is touted as being better than the F-22 and yet numerous upgrades are being developed (such as AESA radar, thrust vectoring, lower RCS) that the F-22 already possesses. If stealth was so useless and easily detectable then why are Dassault, Eurofighter, Sukhoi, and Saab all trying to reduce the RCS of their fighters? Nem1yan (talk) 23:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

No, you don't need four times more power. The radar waves do not travel in a single line, they fade spherically, and reflection does that also. If you want to double the range you need ^4 more transciever power to recieve same return power. For all other factors remaining same,

Range = (k*Power transmitted*radar cross section/Power recieved)^0.25

where k is related to transmitter gain effective aperture.. etc.

I dont want to turn this discussion forum to physics lesson you can find the complete formula even here in wikipedia: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar"

IRBIS radar has 20kW power (compared to 8kw of APG-77) and is the most powerful radar on any *fighter*. Its quite possible that 400 km vs 3sqm target claim is true. As for the claimed range for 0.01 sqm targets,

400km / (3 sqm)^.25 = "New Range" / (0.01 sqm)^.25

"New Range" is 96.1 km for 0.01 sqm targets.

Oh by the way, I did a school project about radars a few years ago. Before talking about brains, please do a little research about the topic you are discussing. I didn't say "use your brains people" to you personally, but I understand why you feel offended. Andraxxus (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Wrong formula for a fighter Radar! Range reduction =(reducedRCS /orginal RCS)^0,75 =( 0,01/3)^0,75= 0.01387! 400km x 0.01387 make only a range of 5,54km against a 0,01 sqm target. Then is the APG77 an AESA and IRBIS Is a PESA, loss in the ferit phaseshifter and in the pin diodes lenses in both direction! LD = internal attenuation factors of the radar set on the transmitting and receiving paths, unknow. Lf = fluctuation losses during the reflection, unknown. L Atm = atmospheric losses during propagation of the electromagnetic waves to and from the target, unknown. 20kW is the TWT Power and not the transmitted power and you know not the antenna gain and the real transmitted P (EIRP)and you know not the spreading factor and systemgain and you know not the antenna gain of the APG77. High power is not LPI, Power against bandwitdth! Many IFs In fact know nothing! 2^2 =4 four range doubling and 4^2 = 16 times more power for the quad range (what is valid for a Radar by range doubling) and 100% reflection what never happen. The simplified Radar range equation with many unknowns! Rmax =(Ps x G^2x Lambda^2 x RCS/Pemin(4 x Pi)^3 x Lges)^0,25 In fact you know not Ps, Pemin, Lambda, the real RCS, Pemin, Lges. That is all without of the influence of the earth's surface. You can claim many about IRBIS but it's not a proven fact.--HDP (talk) 01:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, you have made some research at last.. 1- There is no different formula for ground based radars or a fighter based radar. Formula is always same if transmitter and reciever is in same location. The first formula you have written (^0.75) is wrong, second one, Rmax, is true (^0.25). You are contradicting yourself. RCS formula derives from Rmax formula. 2- You are looking too much into details. Assuming 400km for 3 sqm range is true, you already know the radar can detect and process the returning signal. So again assuming only variable is RCS, you can take other values as constants in Rmax formula, and they will cancel out. Simple mathematics. 3- I have no idea why you are talking about APG-77. Being an AESA, it definately has its own advantages in signal processing and LPI, but i didn't compared them anyway. I have said IRBIS has more raw power than any fighter radar. Andraxxus (talk) 09:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

A little hint a I work some year on this fild. The problem with a RADAR is you need not only one hit to trigger your Radar RX. A ground radar is fixed but a fighter Radar changes always it's position. Then is detecting not tracking! Raw power is not really usefull, this trigger RWRs and the fild density on the target is four times higher as four your Radar RX. You switch on your raw power Radar and some millisecondes later is your IRBIS a target. Some seconds later go a rocket Radar in the NET-range in active mode and you are dead before you can react! At LPI the puls disappears in the noise floor and only who know the despreading sequnence can receive this. The crux on your raw power IRBIS, LPI has the same range with lower power. Then who think a F-22 or a B-2 has a RCS of 0,01^m should dream again. A SR-71 out the 60th had a RCS of 0,01m^2. --HDP (talk) 08:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Should we have a section that compares the F-35 with the Typhoon? It'd be an interesting take on the shift between the acrobatic performance of the 4th generation fighters towards the awareness dominance of the 5th generation fighters. Sounds like it fits better in the fighter article than here. Hcobb (talk) 16:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe wait first on the commissioning of the F-35 and not only LM marketing BS. The QWIP PIRATE can easily detect a B2, F-22, F-35 and a PAK FA. --HDP (talk) 13:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that statement? I highly doubt it can 'easily detect a B-2'. Zuranamee (talk) 19:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

What you belive and what IR-detector can detect that two differnt things. Since a B2 burn a hugh amount of kerosin and produce many tons of CO2 and this can an IRST (with blue and red channel) detect and trace. [15]

Then why haven't IRST equipped MiGs and Sukhois been tracking F-117s and B-2s? Zuranamee (talk) 19:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

well playing Devil's Advocate, if the Russians really had a way to see through America's best stealth aircraft easily, do you really think they'd be shouting if from the rooftops? Not only would it tip off their rival and allow them to adapt potentially, it lulls them into a false sense of security when in fact they're vunerable and will be for decades if reliance on this technology continues as it currently seems to be; their opposition would be throwing hundreds of billions at a flawed protection system, would you tell that it's all a waste and they should spend that money on something that might be more effective and thus more of a threat to Russia? Just saying, if they could do, they wouldn't scream about it either way. There is a huge value in letting other nations make false assumptions, it can effectively win or lose a war, you're not going to hand that kind of advantage out for free in the national press, especially in case it turns around and bites you in the butt for it later on. I wouldn't be suprised if a preoccupation with reducing radar cross section meant that an enemy would simply resort to non-radar based detection. Kyteto (talk) 02:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It's really scary to see the sort of extreme rubbish being spouted here. I really wonder whether anyone would read wikipedia if they'd sat and looked at some of the things being said. We really need a bit more down-to-earth moderate discussion instead of always having some agenda. Personally I always err on the side of being more skeptical towards US planes because of the track record of talking themselves up to high heaven, while sometimes delivering, but also sometimes not. That does NOT mean I think "F-22 is rubbish" but at the same time the whole jargon driven, hype-based "invisible plane" thing is nothing short of ridiculous and intellectually derelict too. Let's not forget that several RADARs in different places, using different technology, working together, might well still pick up a plane like F-35... but at the same time, if RADAR could just be dispensed with entirely then the EF/Rafale/whatever wouldn't carry one at all to save weight, so that's also clearly insane.

A bit of maturity might not go amiss here, and I especially like the last post because frankly in the end each of these articles should start with the statement "article to be read with the military sensitivity of data and vested interest in misinformation in mind".

One way or another all this implicit downtalking of the one while elevating the other, and the use of this American generation rubbish, (cos it is one-sided, presumptive rubbish) really has to stop cos it's gonna make anyone who actually knows their stuff run a mile instead of bothering to help out here I kid you not. Princeofdelft (talk) 18:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Typhoon V F-22

BBC news (2006) "reports suggest that RAF's Eurofighters have flown highly successful missions against the F-22 during recent exercises in the US." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1818077.stm

Recon.Army (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

It's easy to show that the Typhoon is better WVR than the F22, which is better WVR than the Rafale, which is better WVR than the Typhoon, which is better... you get the idea. There are no good metrics for this stuff, and the reference above is hearsay and vague at best. Meat for a bulletin board pissing contest, but not for an encyclopaedia. Note the text below every edit box, "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." This article needs less speculative comparison, not more! -- 80.175.112.73 (talk) 21:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"It's easy to show that the Typhoon is better WVR than the F22, which is better WVR than the Rafale, which is better WVR than the Typhoon, which is better... you get the idea."

Please note that the EFA and the Rafale have very similar shape, in fact they hail from the same development program circa 1982 and only separated due to France's (now time-proven) insistance on a ship-borne version.

The currently existing Rafale is inferior to the Eurofighter mostly due to her poorer engines, only 75kN per pipe, compared with 90kN per pipe for the EFA's RJ-200 jets. The EFA easily outclimbs and outruns the Rafale as has been shown in several mock combats. A project to boost Rafale's engines to 85kN+ is underway, but problemful due to already short engine life compared to the rivals (GE-404/414 and RJ-200 mostly). 91.83.20.181 (talk) 21:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The Rate of climb on the Rafale and EF are practically identical. The eurofighter weighs more so it needs larger engines. They have similar top speeds, similar claimed supercruise speeds, similar design, similar radar.. the only thing significantly different is the range (but i'll probably check and change that later and I bet the results will be similar). If you think the EF is better then you can argue about it on youtube or something, but this really isnt the place. -Nem1yan (talk) 11:58, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The EFA is a dedicated interceptor-fighter, which was designed in the 1980s for a domesday scenario of whole herds of soviet bombers and their fighter escorts descending on Blighty and the Rhine. The sole purpose of the EFA-2000, as designed, was to eat Su-27 for breakfast and Tu-160 for dinner. Its aerodynamics are unhindered by stealth limitations and it can carry a lot of missiles underwing, unlike the limited interior space F-22. Also, the EFA has a wider sortiment of short-range air-to-air missiles available, not just the AIM-9x Sidewinder, which lowers the change of successful jamming by the opposing force F-22. BTW, the EFA pilot's liquid anti-G suit is very special, designed for highest intensity aerial duels.

In close ranges, where stealth tech does not matter, the EFA will turn inside the F-22's radius, she spins faster and can do very large AoA manoeuvers with the engine flap. At greater ranges, where opponents can't see each other by the naked eye, the F-22 should enjoy the upper hand with its electronic beam steering radar and his unique stealth technology. 91.83.20.181 (talk) 21:35, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Again... there is no official statements on the true turning radius of either fighter, so discussing that is pointless. Also the F-22 can cobra and the Typhoon cant; which means the F-22 can reach higher AoA (as with all thrust vectored fighters). At BVR the F-22 has every advantage. Point is, Typhoon's and Raptors are never going to fight (actually they might if the US decides to not like Saudi Arabia) but until then this discussion is pointless and contributes nothing to the article. -Nem1yan (talk) 11:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Commenting externally on the foregoing comments, I think calling the EF a pure interceptor is incorrect, I can easily explain, but it says this isn't a "forum" so I hesitate. Rather I think observations on content might help people to make good decisions and avoid arguments! :)

I feel the following observations might be of use:

It would be 'encyclopaedic' to note that a great deal of politicking has existed around the EF, Rafale, JSF, Gripen and F-22 with people appearing to split into camps, talking the other(s) down.

One objective subject to discuss would be the difficulty in making direct comparisons between unlike aircraft for hypothetical missions with a high degree of generality. It may be better to summarise a few performance claims, and suggest the "direction" in which the aircraft have been designed, and the most obvious differences between this and other aircraft. WITHOUT pointing to "superior or inferior". As for the Rafale, illustrating the slightly different design pressures and common origins is enough.

It may be as well to mention the "complementary" aspects as well as encouraging readers to think it terms of whose plane is better. Like it or not the Americans have an extremely expensive aeroplane, with probably blistering performance, designed to a high specification! For the price, and technical background (Lockheed Martin, and the wealth of American military research etc) it is almost certain to be the "greatest" fighting plane ever made. We cannot know "how great" and we cannot know what the "weaknesses" are, because it will be kept secret. We also cannot gauge the "military cost" of the loss of an aircraft. Making "military judgements" might then be of more use if comments were made on ways in which the hardware could work together.

A more cohesive "characterisation" of the plane might make the whole article less messy, and look less like a codification of disparate claims about the EF. It is doubtlessly a great achievement of value, and a characterisation of how the features are intended to work together (if some substantiated information can be found) would help give a better idea as to "what is this thing and what is it for".

Does anyone have thoughts on this? User:princeofdelft 20:49, 12 October 2010 (CEST)

Loss of ST008

Website [16] now mention Spanish Operational Occurrence Report and suggest front seat did not eject. Also problematic longitude oscillations and violent 45 degree down pitch close to ground, So seem FCS problem. But this not source usable - is blog site and this information likely confidentially owned by Ejército del Aire? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.13 (talk) 13:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Also this from [17]:

“According the following article (in German) [18] the crash could have been caused by bird strike. It's not officially confirmed and the incident is still being investigated. It's said that possibly one or more birds hit the aircraft and may have destroyed its for sensor probes, the FCS was subsequently not able to gather data and became uncontrollable. It's the first crash of a production Eurofighter, the ~230 aircraft have amassed more than 90000 flight hours. The expected crash rate was 1 aircraft in 10000 fh” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.13 (talk) 13:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Could someone provide a verbatim English translation of this German sentence: “Angeblich aktivierte auch er den Schleudersitz, der sich aber vom Fallschirm trennte, so dass er den Sturz des Piloten nicht abfangen konnte.“ from [19] which is currently given as a ref in the article? The English ref says simply: "The groundings are a flight-safety issue because the functioning of the ejector seat during an emergency can't be guaranteed in certain circumstances, the spokesman said, without elaborating." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.141.109 (talk) 18:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

From the BBC ref now given it seems it is the harness that is being investigated, rather than the parachute or the seat itself. This makes much more sense. It would be very difficult for the parachute to be detached from seat, much easier for the harness to be detached (perhaps accidentally) from the occupant. The grounding fo flights certainly is significant, especialy so long after the incident itself. Any re-design of the seat/harness might take a long time and this will affect the entire fleets of all four partner nations, as well as all Austrian and Saudi aircraft. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 18:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

EF-2000 brochure article?

This article seems greatly understime the amount of problem that EF-2000 had and still has. Especially about costs, an enourmous problem in UK. British press is not so careful about EF-2000. I'd suggest more sources like Lewis Page's stuff in The Register, instead of brochure and fan sites. More, recently it seems that EF-2000 will be reduced at only 107 in RAF units, another step down (250, then 232, then 184, then 160..). The unit cost is even estimed near to 200 mln £!! And more, the cost for every hour of flight is even valued about 95.000 £, really painful. EF-2000 is pratically collapsing now. Danmark has choose F-18E, Japan perhaps F-35, Romania F-16, so there is a lot of problem for Thypoon. UK is moving to stop the production after Tranche 3A, this implies almost straighfully, that there will be never a Tranche 3B, who can soustain such costs if UK is not involved? And if there are reports about Typhoon winning vs Rafale, it's silly not report exercises in which the Rafale wins. Yes, Typhoon has better p/w ratio, but also MiG-21 has a better p/w if compared to Mirage.

But more, the SAUDI SCANDAL is only superficially described, when it is a really shamefully thing for UK and taxpayers, with Bandar-Bush, BAE, Tony Blair etc. etc implied, to not talk about Jonathan Aitken. All by all, the EF-2000 article here could be almost as good, but as brochure. Eurofighter GmBh surely approve it, but this not means that is a right article. Some stuff to read about: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/15/eurofighter_tranche_3/----http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/08/eurofighter_e_petition/-----http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/10/courts_rule_sfo_bae_probe_shutdown_unlawful/----http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/mod_planning_round_analysis/page2.html

While you folks are discussing about technology questions, turn rate, RCS, IRST, in fact Eurofighter poses a lot different problems. This should be mentioned much more in the article as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.104.203.193 (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

While I don't mean to attack Lewis Page's credentials, his articles (and I've been reading them for years) seem quite repetative in terms of their mindset and conclusions. It appears he has an answer which he likes, and simply adds the event of the hour to that conclusion over and over, which isn't a good practice for analytical work, which should be about approaching issues outside the context of an ongoing agenda or answer. Page pays attention to what happens to the Eurofighter, but takes every opportunity to knock it without anything from the other side, it isn't balanced, and I would be concerned that a pessimistic source would be very eager to strain and emphasis problems even beyond their real scope. He should be used, along with other sources, and I'd caution against overreliance. As a final word, the lateness and cost issues are extensive, and the delayed development is well covered in the article as it currently stands. Kyteto (talk) 17:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

RAF jets grounded?

Can someone clarify this http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/19/defence-eurofighter-typhoon-safety-concerns and the ref in the article. Is the RAF saying that Typhoons are grounded (ie none are flying) but they will fly if required to operationally? Or is the RAF saying that operational flying is actually taking place? Regards, Springnuts (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Answering my own question - QRF flew on through; seems a quick fix and spares available - from http://www.e-goat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=34232. Springnuts (talk) 17:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

See the BBC ref in the article - [20] they are grounded for training missions but still available for operational flights - i.e. QRA flights. I think that this may be getting close to WP:NOTNEWS here - certainly this section will probably need to be trimmed fairly soon.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) It says they were grounded except for an emergency. What does QRA mean and what all does it cover? -fnlayson (talk) 18:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Quick Reaction Alert - i.e. Air defence scrambles in the UK and Falklands.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I figured it was some type of alert status. -fnlayson (talk) 21:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

RAF resumes Eurofighter operations after ejection seat fix --HDP (talk) 06:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Comparable Aircraft List

Please explain how the Typhoon is the only fighter missing this list, especially when it appears in the list of several other aircraft. If the list is truly "unencyclopedic" then it should be removed from all pages, and if consensus cant be reached on just this particular aircraft (which would be completely immature and ridiculous) then the aircraft shouldn't be listed on any other pages as comparable. There are no excuses that can make this acceptable. Either add a list for this aircraft or remove it from the list of all other aircraft; there is no favoritism. -Nem1yan (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The list was removed here, as it has been on a few other fighter articles such the Tejas and the JF-17, because there are immature users who won't accept a consensus, and continually edit war to put their preferred aircraft in the list, and remove other arcraft they disapprove of. This has been done on a case-by-case basis on individual articles because, for the most part, it's not an issue on the majority of aircraft articles. It has nothing to do with favoritism, but rather removing a contentious list from articles where it's become a problem, and it has worked fairly effectivley to this point. If you want to remove the "Comparable" lists from all aircraft articles, the the place to raise that issue is at WT:AIR, as we can't decide the fate of other articles here, only this one, but it's been rejected in the past, and I don't see that changing. - BilCat (talk) 15:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Bill, that list has generated a lot of problems due to the immature behaviour of several nations' IP/user (correct me if I got it wrong, they're namely from India, Italy, Pakistan and Spain) who had conducted such problematic edits. So the logical thing to do for the time being is best to leave the list out to avoid running into such problem. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 15:19, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Check the archives for plenty of discussions on what is/what is not comparable to the Typhoon. A consensus was developed to leave off the comparable list here; that can be found on Archive 3 page. -fnlayson (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologies in advance, given that the discussion seems to be over on this issue, but in the event that such a section is eventually re-included I think maybe before discussing what to include, a "foundation consensus" might better be reached on what the intention is. Do we believe that we are making a statement that two aeroplanes are "equal" or "interchangeable" with such a list? I think not, namely, but sadly people keep (for example) removing the F-22 from the EF2000 list, because they can't bear the implication that the one would even have a chance in combat against the other.

In my view, we really should be "serving the interests of the reader". They should be able to make their own decisions by reading the other articles as to in what way the planes are comparable. After all, all modern fighter jets are comparable in that they are modern fighter-jets, right? Are we making this a hobby-horse, or providing interesting links for high-school kids that want to read more about jets?

The F-15 article has Panavia Tornado on its list. I feel it's pretty much reasonable to assume that this didn't come as a result of someone shouting that the Tornado ADV was "the same" as the F-15... they're just contemporaries of sorts, not "difficult to tell apart" like I dunno, the Mig-15 and North American Sabre!

This isn't meant as a dig, rather an invitation to agree what discussion ought to be had, so that maybe the next result will be better. Immediately slating the article is pointless. I also would like to hear people's comments on what they think the section would be for, and why they believe people can't agree on it.-User:princeofdelft 21:21 12 Oct 2010 (CEST) —Preceding undated comment added 19:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC).

The comparable aircraft was just to give the reader some quick links to similar aircraft in age and use the reason it is has been removed in some articles and constantly abused in others is that editors like to add their pet aircraft to every list either because they are a big fans and want to see it mentioned everywhere or more normally nationalistic reasons. If the Ugandan Zoom fighter is on the list then we should have the Tanzania Superjet. So what was a simple link with the best intentions just doesnt add any value to the article and only constant abuse. Most comparable aircraft can be found in the category system. As it has been removed from this article I would suggest that any discussion on use of the field should really be at WP:AIRCRAFT MilborneOne (talk) 19:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content#See also:

Comparable aircraft: are those of similar role, era, and capability to this one. This will always be somewhat subjective, of course, but try to keep this as tight as possible. Again, some aircraft will be one-of-a-kind and this line will be inappropriate.

Note that there is no mention made here of the fighter "generations" propoganda, which is often a contentious area of dispute beyond the nationalty issues. - BilCat (talk) 19:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Good thing too. Propaganda it is, and worse. Princeofdelft (talk) 18:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of generations, shouldn't 4th rather than 4.5th be used here as the Eurofighter still comes nowhere near to passing the Super Hornet inspired 4.5th gen US Congress mandated checklist? ;-) Hcobb (talk) 20:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point we should remove the generation link as it is not really relevant. MilborneOne (talk) 21:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

More to the point, it would be incorrect to imply that this US mandated checklist is any more valid a classification of an aircraft than any other fairly well informed view, and should be seen in the America-centric context in which it necessarily comes. Constant sidelong, sarcastic snipes at anything not American should be seen here for what they actually are. Princeofdelft (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

HCobb is an equal-oppurtunity sniper, so don't take his comments as being typical of a pro-US bent, but rather being pro-figher generations. There are few concrete sources that actually define the concept. - BilCat (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

War games pits Eurofighter against Su-30, & others

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/10/13/War-games-pits-Eurofighter-against-Su-30/UPI-49151286991973/

I don't think it's going to be notable when the Indians blow the Brits out of the sky yet again. Hcobb (talk) 15:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Especially since no one is actually being blown out of any real sky. And I don't see the Brits trying to reesstablish the British Raj anytime soon, so we're not likely to find out either. - BilCat (talk) 21:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

And the point of that idiotic snipe was?Princeofdelft (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Please mind WP:WPA: comment on the content, not the contributors or their comments, no matter which sniper you were referring to. - BilCat (talk) 03:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Another user has been adding more wargames info, primarily sourced from the company. Wargames happen fairly frequently, compared to real air-to-air combat at least. We can't list them all, and nothing makes these engagements especially noteworthy. Please remember that these are not actual combat engagements, and ave restrictions that wouldn't be present in real combat, or are designed to test specific scenarios or operations. They aren't necessarily a good evaluation of what actual combat would be like. - BilCat (talk) 18:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, just wargames. Can you show us the report of one single real Eurofighter Typhoon air-to-air combat engagement. And then explain to us how this has come into the public domain, how the operational data was recorded/downloaded, how the pilos on both sides were de-briefed, etc., etc.,etc Thanks, buddy. 86.134.62.218 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

Hopefully there won't ever be a real combat engagement, but until/if there ever is one, we won't know the anserw to which aircraft is better in air-to-air combat agaisnt the typhoon. History is replete with examples of pilots who flew lesser fighters and defeated better fighters, even those flown by equal or better pilots, but especcly those flown by lesser pilots. Again, I hope we never have to find out, but wargame sare a poor substitute for the real thing, and are not reality. - BilCat (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You may hope all you want. But that is the reason it was built. And until it does have a real air-to-air battle, any report of wargame/exercise outcomes, provided they are reported as such, seem perfectly valid. Otherwise? - let's have a completeiy BLANK section until we get a real engagement, yeah? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.62.218 (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with reporting the aircraft's performance capabilities, as that is a valid aspect of the aircraft. The questions come in when artificial wargames are used as "proof" of an aircraft's superioirty or inferiority to other aircraft. For the most part, these are biased reports pushed in some my by manufacturers to support their aircraft in acquisition competitions. - BilCat (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

NATO Exercise Canary Islands

Hi, I´m getting my contribution:

The Eurofighter official website published at the beginning of 2010 that a two-ship formation of Spanish Eurofighters were able to shot down 7 out of an eight-ship formation of American F-15s during a NATO dogfight simulation in the Canary Islands. According to a Spanish Air Force Commander the Spanish pilots were using the Eurofighter to full capacity during that exercices.[138][139]

deleted for no reason by an user who says that this is "company propaganda". In the first place, it is said that The Eurofighter official website first published the news, so the users know what they have. In the second place, a second reference [139] is not related to the manufacturer in any way, so that news can't be deleted for being "manufacturer propaganda".Avieso (talk) 19:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The point is that Wikipedia's job is NOT to report the news - it is an encyclopedia - individual excercises, which are as stated above often deliberalty skewed for some reason, are not necessarily notable in the long term - Eurofighter has been in service for seven years now. These non-notablke events really need to be trimmed right down. In addition, many of the possibly one-sided reports coming out in the press (both pro- and anti- Eurfighter) are likely to be leaked by sales teams for competitors in the Indian MRCA contest, so caution is needed in blindly adding these sorts of claims.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the reports are all coming to the press via company or military sources, as there is no way the press could collect this exercise result information first hand. Exercise outcomes are really "theoretical" to the point of trivia and don't really belong in an encyclopedia article. If we had actual combat (not exercise) loss ratios than that would be worth adding. - Ahunt (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

OK. Then, this can be applyed to many other contributions in the section of "Performance" and not only to my contribution. This is my point, because I don´t see any difference between my contribution and this one, for instance:

In July 2007, the Indian Air Force fielded the Su-30MKI during the Indra-Dhanush exercise with Royal Air Force's Typhoon. This was the first time that the two jets had taken part in such an exercise.[119][120] The IAF did not allow their pilots to use the MKI's radar during the exercise to protect the highly-classified N011M Bars.[121] During the exercise, the RAF pilots candidly admitted that the Su-30MKI displayed maneuvering superior to that of the Typhoon but they had studied, prepared and anticipated this. The IAF pilots on their part were also visibly impressed by the Typhoon's agility in the air.[122]

Or this one:

In the 2005 Singapore evaluation, the Typhoon won all three combat tests, including one in which a single Typhoon defeated three RSAF F-16s, and reliably completed all planned flight tests.[132][133][verification needed] Singapore still went on to buy the F-15 due to uncertainty over Typhoon tranche 2 delivery dates.

Or this one:

During the exercise "Typhoon Meet" held in 2008, Eurofighters flew against F/A-18 Hornets, Mirage F1s, Harriers and F-16s in a mock combat exercise. It is claimed that the Eurofighters won all engagements (even outnumbered 8 vs 27) without suffering losses.[134][135]

My point is that I don´t understand why it was my contribution and not the previous ones the one that came to be wrong. Avieso (talk) 20:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with you - all of those are of equally dubious value to the encyclopedia and should all be removed, or perhaps all the refs can be used, but to reference one short statement summarizing overall exercise performance. - Ahunt (talk) 20:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like while I was writing the above exactly that happened. - Ahunt (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wrong. I did remove "Typhoon Meet" at the same time I removed your additions, but you restored it when you reverted nmy deletions. The Singapore mention is in regards to an evaluation towards a purchase, though they selected the F-15SG. The India referense appeared to be a similar evaluation at first read-through, but I think I confused it with an evaluation. It should be removed along with the others I removed, but keep the Singapore entry. - BilCat (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

There have been attempts to keep this sort of thing under control before - recent additions have puished the article towards a tipping point where the article is becoming unbalanced . Personally, I think that most of the exercise type news reports should be removed from the article.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

LOL I don´t think so. What happened is that somebody else reverted the article to the one previous to my contribution. Actually my impression is that it is not the suitability of my countribution what matters here, but rather what it describes. OK, its your language wiki, I hand over. CheersAvieso (talk) 20:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Perhaps the newbie is not getting this loud and clear, there was a breach of WP:NPOV and WP:SYNTHESIS in your previous edit. Both of which are uncompromisable editing guidelines/policies of Wikipedia. In the final analysis, all these could have been avoided had you started to discuss things with us instead of edit warring, something which I have placed a stern warning on the newbie's discussion page. Since you're a newbie, I'd suggest you listen to what the regular editors are telling you, we have nothing against you but your edit is not up to standard, that's all. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 21:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I just told you I did remove one of the items you listed when I deleted your additions. I also removed an evaluation from a pilot that had no supporting context. And I sad the Indian wargame meet should also be removed. So, no, I wasn't just removing your contributions only, nor was I supporting removing only those favorable to the Typhoon. - BilCat (talk) 20:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

LOL now I got another guy in my talk warning me for doing "original research" in the Typhoon article. Is getting bigger the snowball of the excuses? OK BilCat, you know you didn´t treat me that well when I tried to discuss it with you in a polite manner, you and me know it. And you and me know you wrote a comment in the talk of the user I was discussing with, so it seems that your primary target was my contribution. Look, as I have said I hand over, it is OK for me, most of the editors don´t agree with me and I accept it. But now blaming me for "original research"...LOL Avieso (talk) 21:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Look Dave, perhaps you haven´t got a clue about what are we discussing for. The fact that you come to me with the "original research" in my talk is enought to see that I am being now the target of a snowball of editors who don´t know why all this mess started buy anyway are encouraging each other to "show to the newbie" something that nobody knows what is about. Avieso (talk) 21:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Avieso, I removed your comemnt with the edit summary "take to article talk page, as you've aleady been asked to do." Perhaps you didn't know about editsummaries, but Fnlayson had already asked you at least twice at that point to go to this page, yet you refused. I wasn't intentionally trying to be rude, but your refusal to listen, or to simply ask if you didn't know what "take to article talk page" meant, didn't help the situation. Now you're refusing to accept good faith that you're not the issue here. My removal was not about you, as I did remove 2 other entiries that I don't think you added. - BilCat (talk) 21:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok BilCat I knew what the talk page is, but my discussion with Fnlayson was too fast to just stop it. On the other hand, when I tried to talk with you, my comments were just deleted. I don´t remember you told me anything about the talk page. Basically, you didn´t tell me anything. It´s OK I always assume Good Faith but in that case I think I rather assumed Bad Faith, it was the heat of discussion. Anyway it doesn´t matter, most of the editors don´t agree with me and that´s all. Cheers & bye Avieso (talk) 22:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's in the edit summary. Since you acted like you know what you were doing here, I believed you, and thought you'd know how to check the summaries first. A bad assumption on my part. However, it still took you awhile to post here, even when I did resond on my talk page. - BilCat (talk) 22:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, OK, it´s enough. It doesnt make sense to keep arguing about I thought, you thought, I assumed you assumed. I was half angry half surprised for reasons I have already explained.Avieso (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, and I do understand why. The inmprotant thing is for all of us to use the lessons learned here to help avoid such situations in the future, whether on English WP or somewhere else. - BilCat (talk) 22:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

You look here, if you're really an engineer like you said you were (as some of us are actually here), you wouldn't be arguing against us. If there is a problem, engineers will fix it, period. You wouldn't want to become a part of the problem if indeed you're having that engineer mentality or train of thoughts, and that's the fundamental basics of an engineer. That much I can tell. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 21:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, I mentioned WP:SYNTHESIS, which states that "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research.[5] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article." Hope this clear things up for the newbie before he gets into more trouble with other regular editors here, which as far as I can see right now is indeed moving in that direction. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 21:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I see the news run fastert than fire here. I am an enginner and as a engineer, let me tell you that always, before you try to solve a problem, the first step, always, is to find the real cause. A free advice for you. Avieso (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Click & read → WP:Don't assume ←, because you've made a fool of yourself and us right now. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 21:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Look mate, you are the one who keeps blaming me for "original research", or "manipulating my sources" or "combining sources". Following the advice I have given to you right now, you should check what I wrote and check the two sources I provided in order to know what you are discussing about. You are the only one who blames me for such things. The other guys, deleted my contribution because they thought that since mi contribution was supported by "news" that news could be biased by different unbalanced interests. Not MY PARTICULAR interests, but the manufacturer's interests. Do you understand? So read what I wrote and check my sources or shut up, but please, stop "fleeing forward" as we use to say in Spain (another basic rule of the engineering).Avieso (talk) 21:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

However, WP:Assume Good Faith is a valid assumption. :) - BilCat (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay everyone, this is getting far too unnecessarily hot and personal here. I suggest everyone take a break from this article for tonight and come back and look at it again tomorrow in the light of day. - Ahunt (talk) 23:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Combat Radius

Comes from a source that was last updated 4 years before the plane entered service. The page also references sites that are no longer active (http://www.eurofighter.org/ for example).. It seems rather unreliable. -Nem1yan (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

@Nem1yan: Per WP:BRD, please stop edit warring, the burden is on you to prove that the cited reference source is incorrect, not us. (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/eurofighter.htm) Btw, "http://www.eurofighter.org/" is not operational but "http://www.eurofighter.com/" is up and running. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Dave, I couldn't care less about the combat radius question, it's just that I couldn't find contrary references for a different figure, so it didn't make sense to question the specifications based on a "It seems rather unreliable" claim. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

I understand, that's why the move to ask you two to stop this nonsense and hence my question posted above. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 14:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Got it, didn't even see the other revert, so I wasn't even aware there was an ongoing issue. FWiW, entering into a revert war is the least of my interests... Bzuk (talk) 15:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

Exactly the same combat radius figures are quoted in the 2003–2004 edition of Jane's All The World's Aircraft - is that good enough for everybody, or do we need a later edition (i.e. one post service entry)?Nigel Ish (talk) 16:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No. It's performance was well explored by 2003. Mark83 (talk) 17:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

A 2010 subscription entry for Jane's is already used in the specifications, so it would be better if that was used if someone has access - note that some of the information sourced to the 2010 online version is different to that in the 2003 paper copy - including wing area (whch I would't expect to vary).Nigel Ish (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The radus values are the same in the current online Jane's article. There was a unit conversion/labeling error with the air defense radius (1389 km/853 mi/750 nmi) that I fixed. -fnlayson (talk) 18:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Last I checked me altering the page twice does not constitute an edit war. The original source provided was flawed and cites other pages that had been closed down. No attempt was made to clarify and my edits were simply meant to draw attention since everyone so conveniently overlooked the talks page. If another source is needed for verification and "the burden is on me" to find one then thats fine, but dont get annoyed because I tagged it as a problem. -Nem1yan (talk) 22:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Read the above, unless you have a credible, verifiable source, the original source seems to satisfy the criteria for reliability. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 22:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

Empty Weight

A recent edit revised the empty weight to 12000kg citing a EF-world mag that quoted a Zero Fuel Weight or ZFW. It is my understanding that this is not only by definition not the same as "empty weight" or "operational empty weight" or "Manufacturer's empty weight" but dependent on the configuration being considered.

My guess is that 12t is rounded down from the weight with some AAMs (what... 6+2 say, as quoted in the article). That's the best I can think of for now but the most important thing is that the 12000kg doesn't even claim to be the "empty weight" that we're trying to quote. Adding a "Air-Air Typical ZFW" figure would be fine by me of course, it's all very interesting. I have made it 11150 because that's what Janes says.

Elsewhere on the Eurofighter.com site it says 11000kg, so I (for my own benefit) make the assumption, until a better one arrives, that 11000 is the MEW and 11150 is the OEW that is, plus pilot, various oil and hydraulic fluid and so on. If someone knows better that's great please enlighten me, but the 12000kg figure isn't right.

I also changed the conversion to pounds, which ironically made the pounds number go UP from where it had been, and not DOWN... this is just silly. I have used the formula 1 lb = 0.454kg so thats good to the nearest gram. Again, if someone wants to look up better, that's awesome but this is from (my reasonably effective memory. I haven't (yet) checked the other conversions. Princeofdelft (talk) 14:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Official sources from eurofighter gmbh 2010 http://www.eurofighter.com/fileadmin/web_data/downloads/efworld/ef_world_3-2010web.pdf

"Significant to note however is the fact that where the Raptor needs 70,000-lb of thrust and has an empty weight of about 20t, Typhoon requires only 40,000-lb of thrust and weighs less than 12t. The extra weight means that more fuel (9t vs 5t) is required to achieve similar fuel fractions (and similar mission performance results). This adds to the overall weight and feeds the vicious circle, where more weight in turn requires more thrust to achieve the desired thrust-to-weight ratio!"

They talk about a empty weight "zero fuel" of eurofighter of 12t comparing it to 20t of the F22 Raptor!

can't understand why they would compare a zero fuel "equiped" typhoon to a F22 raptor non equiped empty weigth? do you? fanboyo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.162.75 (talk) 11:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The Eurofighter World source only gives round numbers. Note it says "less than 12t", which 11,150 kg is. -fnlayson (talk) 11:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Round numbers sources for typhoon and exact weight of f22 raptor ? what's this kind of chalenge? 3t is "less than 12t too" so when they get sources 12t its empty weight non equiped , talking about "less" means close to "upper 12t" not 11t! kind of 11.900kgs , but you fanboyos from the internet just are wishers filling "no confirmated specifications" with dreams, not realities! as most of the specifications in this eurofighter topic farce! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.162.75 (talk) 10:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey why Austrian Air force datas about Max Speed are rated Good, and what the tested datas about Climbing rates are "no good"? 292 m/s Initial "manufacturer claimed"; Climb to 9146 m: 86 seconds= 106m/s (official austrian AF work stated) at [21] are the over joinistic and tabloids journalists from telegraph are more accurate than Austrian Ingenering specialists? unsigned comment added by 86.67.162.75 (talk) 11:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Where on earth did you get this number from? There's nothing like this on the website you referenced. --Denniss (talk) 16:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe with somes good glasses it would get back your feet on the planet earth, rather than fanboying your wishes throughout this farce, period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.162.75 (talk) 11:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

A littler hint. Initial climbrate and averange climbrate are two total different things!--HDP (talk) 08:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Greece section bogus

The article meantions Greece as a potential buyer. However, it is now very much stated that the partially british-made EFA 2000 fighter jet will not even be considered seriously for the Hellenic Air Force, unless the infamous "Elgin marble loot" is returned from London to the Parthenon sanctuary. 91.83.20.181 (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that the Greece section should be revised or deleted. Greece is bankrupt, they won't be buying Typhoons any time soon.Mztourist (talk) 07:55, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Eurofighter 2020

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=eurofighter-seeks-to-sell-40-jets-to-turkey-2010-11-11

'We are offering Turkey the opportunity to jointly develop the Eurofighter 2020, the next version of the Eurofighter,' says Marco Valerio Bonelli, head of public relations and communications at Eurofighter.

Good to see that we haven't added a section for this pipe dream. Everybody is shutting down their orders for more EFs and switching to 4.5th or 5th generation fighters. Hcobb (talk) 22:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the "Eurofighter 2020" is just a typo. MilborneOne (talk) 23:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Hcobb, again, keep your talk page comments limited to improving the article. I'm going to start removing your forum-ish contributions soon (as per talk page rules). Mark83 (talk) 10:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Got a personal response back that indicates that their "Eurofighter 2020" label will be for a slight upgrade and not a redesign as a fifth generation fighter. Still no update on their website. Hcobb (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Bribery investigation ?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/03/14/wikileaks-reveals-how-the-british-lied-to-allies-about-bae-bribery/

Do we have an article about the investigation, as this seems a bit distant from this topic. Hcobb (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

SFO investigation info is covered at Al-Yamamah arms deal and BAE Systems#Corruption investigations. Might be something at Wikinews also. That article does not actually mention Typhoon or Eurofighter, btw. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

rewrite/removal of statement using article from Lewis Page as source

I highly distrust this source. The author does not specify the employed "american technology" which falls under ITAR and also seems to be dead against the Typhoon, regarding the rest of his Eurofighter related articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.150.208 (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's some meat.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/05/someone_should_fix_itar.asp?page=2 Already in Europe there is a strong sentiment to go "ITAR-free," even if this means spending more money to get slightly less capability. In some cases, this is already happening: when the U.S. denied European companies a license to purchase high-end transmitter-receiver (T/R) modules for active electronic array radars, several European companies developed their own substitutes. And while American industry reps will tell you that these do not compare with their U.S. counterparts in either performance or cost, to Europeans, they are "good enough," and well worth the price if it means getting out from under U.S. export controls.

http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/reports/congnotices/109/CN046_05.pdf

Yeah, I know. Ever since the Powell speech on WMD state.gov can surely never be considered a reliable source. Hcobb (talk)

from your .gov pdf: "[...]approved to receive exports consisting of electronic power generating systems in support of the Eurofighter program." Is this a joke? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.150.206 (talk) 04:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

My two links above are talking about EXACTLY the same issue. Hcobb (talk) 04:42, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

So, what do you propose?

That the disputed statement in the article is well founded, but we can toss in these two links as well if you like. Hcobb (talk) 00:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Can't we just delete the original source and use yours and perhaps others instead? Like I stated before, the used article from Lewis Page is not even remotely neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.150.54 (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Because to the general public state department docs are clear as mud. It's like pointing to a raw data dump from CERN to ref the mass of an electron. Hcobb (talk) 15:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thats your argument for keeping that "source"? With this attitude we could shut Wikipedia down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.151.118 (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps someone else has an opinion on this topic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.151.118 (talk) 17:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Personally I am very dubious as to any Lewis Page as a source. As noted, his writing on The Register is more whenever he has an axe to grind (typically a strongly pro-American stance) rather than balanced pieces of journalism. Accuracy often suffers as a result.

Regardless of that, there does not seem to be much in favour of relying on him when the other available sources are more authoritative. Dumbing down source selection because of perceived limitations of the readership is not policy. Going for good quality citations is. Crispmuncher (talk) 18:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional references can be added without removing the Page ref. But it can can be replaced with the other refs as far as I'm concerned. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I just found some better sources which specify the incorporated "american technology", the MIDS, that is in fact a multinational design by US, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. I hope with these sources the disputed passage can be improved. Interestingly the MIDS for the Saudi Typhoon was built by Data Link Solutions LLC in the US and not at EuroMIDS, the actual production site of the Typhoon MIDS.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/125564.pdf p.43

http://www.deagel.com/news/FMS-Saudia-Arabia-Requests-MIDSLVT-1-for-Typhoon-Aircraft_n000005049.aspx

ft.com alternative for Lewis Page

http://www.euromids.com/product_techspecs.aspx EuroMIDS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.150.178 (talk) 00:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone has any opinions on my sources? Should we change the respective passage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.150.118 (talk) 00:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

RAF Aircraft number

I have a question: today's BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13081691 says the RAF only has 48 Typhoon pilots. But the wikipedia article states they have 62 typhoons... Is it normal that they have more planes than pilots? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.178.240.49 (talk) 06:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

We have 48 pilots who are trained for the tasks that we require them to do doesnt include instructors and pilots undergoing conversion and operational training etc. MilborneOne (talk) 07:04, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

It is entirely normal for there to be more planes than pilots; how else do you take planes into maintainence without leaving pilots without anything to fly? Or keep a reserve for when aircraft are destroyed in accidents, or battle? The USAF has more F-15s than pilots, for the same reasons, natural wastage, maintainence rotation, and once the production line is gone, you cannot get any more. If we operated on a one plane-one pilot basis, we'd have to fire an pilot every time we lost an aircraft else he'd be sitting around doing nothing for the next 25 years, as a replacement Eurofighter would be impossible to produce,(You cannot just reactivate a closed production line at the cost of billions to yank out one or two planes when you lose some, hence you have to have spares ready to be introduced, mass production is cheaper) and there's no schedualed new fighter aircraft procurement until 2035(That's a long time to wait for any replacements!). Simply put, it'd be silly not to operate with a reserve. Kyteto (talk) 14:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The Eurofighter is stealthy

The airframe surface area is made of 70% Carbon Fibre Composites (CFCs), 15% lightweight alloys and titanium, 12% Glass Reinforced Plastics (GRP) and 3% other materials. In other words, metals make up only 15% of the materials used in building a Eurofighter Typhoon.

In tandem with the aerodynamically unstable design, these strong but lightweight materials mean that the weight and size of the airframe and engine are 10 - 20% smaller and 30% lighter, than they would otherwise have been. This not only means that the aircraft has a reduced radar signature but is also stealthy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.226.64.67 (talk) 19:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Checklist of things to do to get a stealthy Eurofighter:

Coat the windshield with radar blocking material like F-22 or F-35.
Edge align and reduce external hatches like F-22 or F-35.
Carry fuel and weapons internally like F-22 or F-35.
Have a stealthy afterburner like F-22 or F-35.

etc. Hcobb (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

High wing sweep reflect the radar waves away from the front quarter. RAM coating on the leading edges, strakes etc. Supercruise, the after burner plume is a great Radar reflector, in this point failed the F35 total. Low Observability • CFK suppresses travelling waves. • Sweeped hinge lines • Airframe shaping absorbent materials and coatings • Hidden engine compressor faces • Supercruise capability (lacks the F-35) • Semi-conformal carriage of BVRAAM missiles • Passive electro-optic sensors (lacks the F-22) • Secure communications (F-22 is not NATO and AIRFORCE compatible) • Canopy coating http://www.sae.org/aeromag/techupdate_6-00/04.htm • RAS ; What next?--HDP (talk) 07:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That would be V-shaped tail fins, stealthy weapons carriage, and an AESA radar. The F-35's radar has been reportedly able to jam even other AESA's (which are by design far more difficult to jam). This argument has been made before, but the Eurofighter wasn't designed to have all aspect stealth. It's really good, but it still lacks certain elements to make it a true stealth fighter. Can we end this? -Nem1yan (talk) 15:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed talk pages are for discussing improvements to the article. So unless there is a reliable source that says Typhoon is stealthy, that should be an end to it.Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

A Delta need no V-shaped Vertical Stabilizer. A little hint a Delta is tailless! A V-shaped vertical stabilizer avoid the cat eye effect on a conventional tail. But no tail no V-shaped Vertical Stabilizer are needed*. Then is the V-Shape really not the best shape its only a halfway house. For RADAR stealth is a roof stablizer on a conventional tail the better choice but its a IR nightmare. A fixed AESA is not synonymous with stealth. Then neither F-35 nor the Hangar Queen F-22 are combat-proven. *Lampyridae. --HDP (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Eurofighter no match for F-16

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Wikipedia is NOT a forum!

http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2011/06/12/raf-eurofighter-typhoons-pilots-beaten-by-paf-f-16viper-pilots/

RS or not? Hcobb (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

An anon source saying how our old fighters are better than the formidable fighters India may be buying what do you think.Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Also see pprune http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/453905-pakistan-f16-vs-typhoon-reality-tall-tales-merged.html MilborneOne (talk) 20:12, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd also point out that a single exercise is not necessarily indicative of how aircraft will perform overall in combat. In particularly, an exercise that, as the interviewed pilot noted, was "close-in air combat" (visual range), as opposed to the BVR ranges that most 4.5th and 5th generation aircraft are designed to excel at, and a result that the interviewed pilot feels may have been the result of lack of training on the RAF part, these are not good indicators of aircraft capability. There are also questions as to the veracity of the reports. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 05:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with the above caution. I haven't been through the article fully but it seems light on detail - where and when, and only unammed Pakistani sources. It also makes no reference to loadout - a tanked up plane with a few bombs on board in never going to be much good in a dogfight. Crispmuncher (talk) 20:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC).

It should be kept in mind that the training and conditions available to RAF pilots on the Eurofighter is currently ridiculous. If I had less than 12 flying hours per year in an aircraft, and being told to do as little as possible to stress the aircraft by the penny-pinchers, I wouldn't expect to be pretty good at it either. We sold too much time to the Saudis and left a dangerously low amount for our own. I wouldn't be suprised if the Typhoon didn't bother maneouvering because the pilot was told he'd get the sack for actually using the aicraft, thus costing more to the ground crews. One wonders why we even have these giganticly expensive aicraft with superior capabilities, if we can't afford to train + use them properly. But, the above comments are suspitiously well reasoned that the Pakistani account is more than a little dodgy, such as the incident being claimed to be at an event than RAF Eurofighters and PAF F-16s haven't been together at simontanously yet, if the commentator's words are taken as truth. Kyteto (talk) 23:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This whole "article" is a fairy tale, akin to all those EF vs. XY (most likely Rafale or F-35) comparisons, where XY beats the **** out of the Typhoon. The "submission" of this article here tears Wikipedia down to the same level as some dubious aviation-fora. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.149.206 (talk) 03:52, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Then feel free to put your money where your mouth is, and find reliable sources. It's easy to rip on something you put no work into creating, and then put no work into fixing. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Appearance at RIAT 2011

BAES Chief Test Pilot (Combat Aircraft) Mark Bowman was presented with the RIAT Steedman Display Sword for Best Flying Demonstration by a UK participant. His display was a first - minus 2.0 G manoeuvres in a heavy configuration carrying four AMRAAM and two ASRAAM, air to air missiles, four 1000lb Paveway II laser guided bombs and two drop tanks! It included sharp banking immediately after unstick, an inverted pass, velocity vector rolls (not possible in former generation fighters) and high thrust-to-weight ratio reheated climbs and turns to demonstrate combat agility. The 8 minute routine was mostly flown around the 350 to 400kt mark and involved +5.5 to –2.0 G and up to 20 degree alpha. See [22]. Wittlessgenstein (talk) 17:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

'British Typhoons Whacked India's Sukhois in Joint Exercises'

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Wikipedia is NOT a forum!

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=109428 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.7.77.31 (talk) 10:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting article which has been going round for some time. What is not covered are the exercise limits, which could favour one side or the other, or neither. I would treat it as a good read but not definitive. Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orders

It is stated that there are "three separate contracts (named "tranches")". This is wrong. Before defining tranche as contract, the editor should have checked a dictionary, if he or she does not know what a tranche is. Please rewrite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Do it yerself, ya lazy get. We're not taking your orders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.165.189.20 (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Tranche is what the contract batches are named. Tranche 3 was split into A and B parts. Check the sources provided in the article to verify this. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Why revert a ref that shows that because nobody is buying the EFing aircraft, production is shutting down? Hcobb (talk) 14:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

For one, your source doesn't say that. It in no way says that "nobody is buying" the Eurofighter. Your addition to the article was worded as a "collapse in orders." This is quite simply NOT supported in your reference, not at all. Your reference states that orders have "declined" and that production is "slowing" as a result. There is no production shutdown. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/battle_to_support_staff_facing_bae_jobs_axe_1_3809695 On Monday, company has confirmed government’s in the four partner nations of the Typhoon’s jet-building consortium, made up of the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, are to buy aircraft over a longer period of time, slowing production.

Can we at least add that part in? Hcobb (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

[1] The Eurofighter programme: data and facts

[2] ttp://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/military/su30mk/lth/

[1]

[2]