Eurofighter Typhoon

[MolliG]

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All photos from the Eurofighter's official website, Eurofighter.com (www.eurofighter.com). :D

[Mo]

Too little, too late! We got the F-22!

[Shadow]

Too little, too late! We got the F-22!
Anyone said that the US should buy it?
Anyone said that Europe made this for the US?

[mustamato]

Too little, too late! We got the F-22!

http://koti.mbnet.fi/enforcer/more****/brio.jpg

:P

[Mo]

no they didn't, you don't understand american english very well do you? It's called sarcasm, and it is too little too late, we still have the best in teh world, now do you get it?? prob not.....

[mustamato]

no they didn't, you don't understand american english very well do you? It's called sarcasm, and it is too little too late, we still have the best in teh world, now do you get it?? prob not.....

:roll:

____________________________________________

http://www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/img/saab/gripen/gall99/gripen_g53-57.jpg

I wonder how the Eurofighter compares to the swedish Gripen? Anyone knowing something about airplanes that can tell me? (And please, no american "fokk you pussy euroweenies that copied our canard-design"-comments, save them for your children)

[MolliG]

Too little, too late! We got the F-22!

But it won't take on the F22... It will smack 'em while their on the ground, then deal with F16s and F15s that have been scrambled on the way back, then just for fun knock out a few Abrams...

;) :hug:

[carpandean]

Yeah, in 2015 after the third Bush becomes President and the US declares war on the EU. Guess we'll have to wait and see who wins then :roll:

[Operation Ivy]

just for fun knock out a few Abrams

Hey! :-*$ :D for that comment

The F-22 is the best fighter plane ever! way better then the Eurofighter :P (just a joke :hug: )

[Mo]

damn pesky redcoats

[UoUo]

Very cool plane indeed....how much it cost per unit ?

[Groove]

Last news i saw it was about 105.000.000 Euro for one jet

[UoUo]

It is very very expensive....if this is so much expensive...why don't you buy the F-22 and that it ?

[mustamato]

It is very very expensive....if this is so much expensive...why don't you buy the F-22 and that it ?

Because it´s american.

[UoUo]

It is very very expensive....if this is so much expensive...why don't you buy the F-22 and that it ?

Because it´s american.

That the real reason ? you play honor games ? this stupaid...don't you Think ?

[Macs.]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.

[mustamato]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.

Yep I agree with Mac, and would also like to add one more thing. One of the cornerstones of EU, and well Euroean co-operation in general can be put in a simple word, "peace". When you are so deeply involved with each other as the europeans are now, then the chances of a war is very small.

[UoUo]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.


but man...the F-22 i much more less good then the eurofigther...no ?

[oldsoak]

forget the honour bit - this is about being able to develop technologies and being able to have a share of those technologies. I believe Israel had the Lavi which although it finally got cancelled, led to some very important technological milestones for the Israelis - they developed expertise in integrating radar and weapon systems as well as stealth technologies that they would not have otherwise had. Yes they ended up buying F16's, F15's etc but the Israeli ones incorporate technology first developed for Lavi.
rgds

[mustamato]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.


but man...the F-22 i much more less good then the eurofigther...no ?

One big thing with F-22 is that is supposed to be "stealth" and much much much of the cost of a single unit is probably due to that. However, I am quite convinced over the fact that stealth-technology used will be made obsolete by future radar-technology. Already today it is possible to detect these "stealth"-planes by using several radar stations and scanning in a special way. The serbs did that when they shot down that "invisible" F-117 a couple of years ago.

The technique is called "passive radar", it is very simple. In the air there are a lot of electronic signals and stuff like that, from cellulars and so forth. A plane makes a "hole" in all this and can thus be detected. I think that future radars will more search for "holes" than actual planes.

[Fioraon]

Hooah to Euros. Euro sounds like a candy bar, you guys should make candy. woot

[oldsoak]

no the f22 has the edge in certain areas. However, europe wont be fighting the yanks. They wont give us access to certain stealth technologies - they did not even release the f16 flight control s/ware to the Europeans so Europe must do it the hard way.

[UoUo]

forget the honour bit - this is about being able to develop technologies and being able to have a share of those technologies. I believe Israel had the Lavi which although it finally got cancelled, led to some very important technological milestones for the Israelis - they developed expertise in integrating radar and weapon systems as well as stealth technologies that they would not have otherwise had. Yes they ended up buying F16's, F15's etc but the Israeli ones incorporate technology first developed for Lavi.
rgds

Oh...i see...you convincied me. :)

[oldsoak]

mustamoto - the project was called silent sentry. The invisible man can be seen if he walks across water. p-)
rgds
ps those who worked on jindalee in Australia would know what I mean.

[mustamato]

mustamoto - the project was called silent sentry. The invisible man can be seen if he walks across water. p-)
rgds
ps those who worked on jindalee in Australia would know what I mean.

mustamato, finnish for blackworm :)

There are a lot of projects going on worldwide concerning the development of radars that combine the conventional technique and the "passive radar". The british Celldar uses the cellular and 3G nets to search for "holes". The american Silent Sentry uses TV and the FM-net. The swedish militarys research institute (FOI) is developing a version called AASR, "associativ apertursyntesradar", it will simple have a sender and a receivers placed somewhere else. It detects holes between the sender and receivers. It will also have a conventional radar, and combines the both techniques. I am quite sure of that there are a whole bunch of countries that has similar projects going on.

The stealthtechnology of the F-22 will be obsolote soon.

[Marxist203]

no they didn't, you don't understand american english very well do you? It's called sarcasm, and it is too little too late, we still have the best in teh world, now do you get it?? prob not.....

You're an ass :fork:

[UoUo]

Yes...but you must see the whole pic....the radars that exist in the aircrafts of tooday...can't see the F-22 therfore he is the best air superiority plane in the world...but like oldsoak explained me...i can see the need of the Eruopenians to developing they own plane.

:)

[Falco]

The stealthtechnology of the F-22 will be obsolote soon.


If so why do the americans continue to develop the A/F-22 Raptor? If the technologie behind it is obsolete they could do to it what they did to the XB-70.

[Kitsune]

Well. Americans have also screwed things up in the past. I wait until I see the first reports of trainingsfights between Raptor and Typhoon. If they say the Raptor was far superior...well then the Americans were right. But perhaps there will be a surprise...who knows?

Sometimes the underdog comes out on top.

p-)

[Whistler]

Yeah, in 2015 after the third Bush becomes President and the US declares war on the EU. Guess we'll have to wait and see who wins then :roll:

Oooh...

President Jenna?? rofl

http://image.pathfinder.com/time/daily/2001/0105/jenna0531.jpg

[He219]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.

Exactly! Socialized pork-barrel work projects to feed Euro-tax dollars to it's unions. 20 years behind schedule and way over budget.
;)

http://www.imagepark.de/efpublic/html/pic_jpeg/gl-030253-17.jpg
Is this the IAF model?
;)

How do the stealth caracteristics of the Typhoon and F-22 Raptor compare to the new F-35 JSF? The Joint Strike Fighter is the new model in competitive international subcontracting, production and cost efficiency - boasting the latest in aerospace design...[/salespitch]
;)

[OldRecon]

Yes...but you must see the whole pic....the radars that exist in the aircrafts of tooday...can't see the F-22 therfore he is the best air superiority plane in the world...but like oldsoak explained me...i can see the need of the Eruopenians to developing they own plane.

:)

With the integrated databus function of the JAS 39 Gripen it shouldn't be to difficult to modify the onboard software so that one aircraft in a formation can process radar returns transmitted by another aircraft in the formation.
Allready it's possible with the Gripen to share radar information from one aircraft with all other aircraft in a formation.
Thus one aircraft can scan for targets while the rest of the formation have their radars turned off, only employing their own radar at the last minute.
Or 2-4-6-8 aircraft can combine their effort and survey a much larger area for targets than what's possible with fighters with databus of smaller capacity than the one employed on the Gripen or no such technology at all.

Saab aerospace is now a part of the BAe group (who again is part of the Eurofighter consortium). Thus it wouldn't be surprising if some of the Gripen technology finds its way to the Eurofighter.

As for pricing I guess the F-22 have an even bigger price tag than the Eurofighter (?).
I guess one of the reasons behind the JSF is that some customers want something cheaper than the F-22 with some of the Raptors capabilities.

[Ngati Tumatauenga]

One of the cornerstones of EU, and well Euroean co-operation in general can be put in a simple word, "peace". When you are so deeply involved with each other as the europeans are now, then the chances of a war is very small.

rofl

[Seiyuuki]

Active Plasma Stealth Techonology!!! The Russians need to hurry up on their development of that thing.

[Vintendo]

You guys are all wrong. That Ferarri F-1 car is way superior than the F-22 or Typhoon.

[FallenAngel]

What exactly is the deployment schedule for the Typhoon? Have they reached any active squadrons yet? If not...when is it (realistically) projected for?

IFAIK- the USAF is purchasing very few F-22s- they actually cut the order back when the F-35 contract was announced. Seems that the F-22 will "replace" the aging F-15A/C fleet while the F-35 "replaces" the F-16 (and A-10s?) in service. Read in Popular Science a few months ago about a bomber version of the F-22 (a tailless delta, similar to the F16XL project) which would "replace" the F-15E.

*note the " "- in actuality, they would most likely serve along side eachother for years.

Course, me, personally- give me an F-18E any day. ;)

[Seiyuuki]

The consortium also is trying to sell Typhoons to Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. The Netherlands and Norway have signed up as partners on the F-35 JSF and Australia is expected to do so. Unlike the F-35, the Typhoon is not a "stealth" aircraft, but the Eurofighter's radar cross-section is significantly below the F-16.

One disadvantage in the Typhoon's $58 million price. It is more expensive than the $30 million F-16, while the F-35 is expected to cost on average about $50 million when it comes into production. Eurofighter originally planned to bring the Typhoon to the market in the mid-1990s, a decade before the next-generation US fighter would be ready. But budget cuts, technical problems and disagreements among the four Eurofighter partners led to a delay of seven or eight years.

I believe there is already one operational squadron of F-22.

[Shadow]

No, its because Europe has to be independet from USA. That has nothing to do with honor, or pride... Europe needs to develope his own products, and to strong up the economy.

I think America depends much more on Europe than Europe on America.
Guess, why Germany is the 1# in export?

USA:
Exports:
$687 billion f.o.b.

Imports:
$1.165 trillion

Germany:
Imports:
$487.3 billion

Exports:
$608 billion <-- Not up todate

[Groove]

USA have a very "sick" economy. If Russia should change to Euros for paying their oil US will be in big trouble. Their ppl spend more money that they earn since 2 years afaik. Every other state would be bancrupt already. But the Oil payed in Dollars save their ass.

Greeting

Groove

[Mo]

Hey Marxist203, and you're Canadian!!!!!! Need I say more.....frog

[Operation Ivy]

Hey Marxist203, and you're Canadian!!!!!! Need I say more.....frog

:roll:

[DLodge]

Here's a long article from London's Daily Telegraph, but I thought it was interesting.


The government is to abandon plans to buy more Eurofighter warplanes in an attempt to control Britain's spiralling defence budget.

Defence chiefs have accepted that the aircraft, which was intended to be the cornerstone of the country's air defence strategy, will be outdated by the time it enters military service in 2006.

The decision to cut the Eurofighter programme, which is already £5.4 billion over budget, follows heavy pressure from the Treasury and will be made public in a defence White Paper to be published next month. It means that the number of aircraft the RAF will receive, originally set at 232, will by reduced by a third to 143.

As well as easing the financial pressure on the Ministry of Defence's annual £31 billion budget, the cuts have also been prompted by the emergence of new, unmanned aircraft, which are seen as the future of aerial warfare. One such warplane, the Predator, was used by the US Air Force to considerable effect in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

All three service chiefs are said to have agreed to the cuts in the Eurofighter - which is now known as the Typhoon - after being assured that the savings will be used to develop future weapon systems. These include unmanned aircraft and "smart missiles", which can be directed by computer on to targets hundreds of miles away with pinpoint accuracy.

A senior Ministry of Defence official said: "Eurofighter is a dead duck. Unfortunately we are stuck with it, but there is no way this Government is going to buy any more. It's expensive and obsolete."

A close ally of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, also disclosed that the third tranche of Eurofighters, due to be ordered in 2007, would now be shelved. "Undoubtedly the third phase will be cancelled. It is too expensive and we don't need them any more," he said.

Mick McGinty, the editor of World Defence Systems, and a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said that the Eurofighter was a "legacy" aircraft that was already obsolete. "It will be operational 10 years behind schedule and therefore will be 10 years out of date," he said.

The decision to scale back the Eurofighter programme is the latest blow in the aircraft's troubled history. It was originally conceived in the 1970s, although it did not go into production until the mid-1980s. Five countries - Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain and France - were initially involved, but France broke away in the belief that a ground attack aircraft rather than a fighter was more suited to its needs. The British government, by contrast, backed the Eurofighter rather than opting to buy an alternative from the US, as some advocated.

The aircraft was designed to attack the massed formations of Soviet bombers that Cold War tacticians believed would be the prelude to a rapid invasion of western Europe. But with the demise of the Warsaw Pact, however, this threat disappeared and the needs of modern air forces changed radically.

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there was no enemy air force to fight and the only British and US aircraft that saw any action were the ground attack jets used to support troops, not to fight aerial battles.

Embarrassingly for the Government, however, the first tranche of 55 Eurofighters, which were delivered earlier this year, six years late, are equipped for an air defence role. Only the second tranche of 89 will be capable of undertaking a ground attack role.

There have also been severe delays in the production of the aircraft, which was originally due to come into service in 1998. Some of the hold-ups were caused by political in-fighting, including a threat by the Germans to pull out of the project, while others were caused by the complexity of co-ordinating the work of the large number of British and foreign companies involved in the project.

There have also been further problems with engine failures. All Eurofighters are currently grounded because of faults in the braking system.

Even Adml Sir Michael Boyce, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, appeared sceptical of the need for more Eurofighters. Shortly before he retired in April this year, the Admiral said: "Do we need to have 232 fighters in the modern context?" It is now generally accepted by the air industry that unmanned combat jets will begin to replace manned aircraft within 20 years, only a few years after the final batch of Eurofighters are due to enter service.

As well as the cuts to the Eurofighter programme, government funding for several of the military's most expensive procurement projects will also be cancelled or scaled back in the defence White Paper, in what will be one of the biggest overhauls of spending in recent years.

New warships, aircraft carriers and the joint strike fighter programme will be scaled back to direct funding towards new equipment programmes and to help pay for the war in Iraq.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence insisted that the Eurofighter was an effective aircraft but declined to comment on future spending announcements. "We are still committed to Eurofighter," he said.

And by the way, stealth technology won't be compromised completely for a long time. "Passive radar," which is still in its infancy, is just the latest development in the constant battle between the engineers seeking to hide planes and those seeking to find them. I highly doubt that the F/A-22, which has the most sophisticated avionics and ECM suite of any fighter flying or planned, superb maneuvarability, supercruise, and low-observability (note that this is not just stealth but also includes IR shielding and scanned-array radar that is undetectable by current RWRs) will be rendered obsolete any time soon. I certainly hope not, because the DOD currently plans to have 339 of them, and maybe even as many as 381. Even Don Rumsfeld, who is famous for cancelling legacy programs he sees as being insufficiently "transformational" (look at what happened to the Crusader), has signed off on the F/A-22 acquisition figures.

Incidentally, Silent Sentry--a system that uses television and radio broadcast signals to detect aircraft and other airborne objects--was developed by Lockheed Martin, the company that is building the Raptor. Think that they won't incorporate any of the lessons learned into the F/A-22?

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Typhoon is a nifty aircraft, but a bit behind the state of the art at this point. Same for the Rafale.

They're probably ahead or at least match the best of the current generation of stuff that's out there, but not as advanced as the Raptor & JSF which have yet to come online, IMO.

We Americans have thrown an a$$load of money at the F/A-22 & JSF programs - so the resulting aircraft are extremely advanced. They're not all about stealth - the performance envelopes are also better than anything else out there. They'd damn well better be for the money spent. The next generation will be unmanned.

About the various "passive" radar systems using 3G, TV, FM etc. - they will only let operators know that -something- is there. Also the info delivered from the systems is very poor when compared to a "real" radar (target size, altitude, direction, etc. Mabye a decoy, curuise missle, birds, very large airbore rock. Not enough for targeting information. For that you need a fire control radar, which still cannot lock onto a very stealthy aircraft. OR maybe you get a lucky shot (such as with the F-117 that was downed) with a manpad etc. Hey, it happens.

Plasma Stealth? Don't start with that! :bash: Someday, somebody will figure out a truly revolutionary detection system - maybe by detecting changes in subatomic quantum phase jitter - I dunno. We'll have to spend more money to develop an unmanned trans-dimentinal "blinking" strike drone. Oooh let run out and patent one right now...

[SILENT SCOPE]

I believe there is already one operational squadron of F-22.

Correct. Well, sort of. There are actually two 'operational' F/A-22 squadrons. One in Nellis AFB, Nevada and one in Tyndall AFB, Florida.

Nellis AFB:
http://www.af.mil/media/photodb/web/web_031022-F-3356N-007.jpg

Tyndall AFB:
http://www.af.mil/media/photodb/thumbnails/thumb_030926-F-3217C-002.jpg
http://www.af.mil/media/photodb/thumbnails/thumb_030929-F-0000J-002.jpg
(Note the 'TY' on the aircraft's fin.)

There is an F/A-22 training center currently being built in Tyndall as well, or so I've herd.

[Russian Texan]

Plasma Stealth? Don't start with that! Someday, somebody will figure out a truly revolutionary detection system - maybe by detecting changes in subatomic quantum phase jitter - I dunno. We'll have to spend more money to develop an unmanned trans-dimentinal "blinking" strike drone. Oooh let run out and patent one right now...

Russians offer radical stealth device for export

"A Russian scientific research organisation is to offer for export a 'bolt-on' stealth device that it claims renders non-stealthy aircraft practically invisible to radar. The system, which envelops the aircraft in a cloak of ionised gas known as a plasma, is said to be fully developed, with work on a "third-generation visibility-reduction system" under way.

Keldysh NITs (Nauchno-Issledovatelskiy Tsentr or Scientific Research Centre) is making the claims. According to its director, Anatoliy Koroteyev, the system weighs less than 100kg and consumes little more than several dozen kW of power.

Given the state of the Russian economy, analysts consider it unlikely that any of NITs' work has been applied to Russian Air Force aircraft. According to Koroteyev, however, the system will soon be offered for export.

By installing the system, a typical aircraft radar cross-section (RCS) might be cut "by more than 100 times", Keldysh NITs officials said. This would be much the same RCS as dedicated US stealth aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-117 stealth fighter and the Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber.

The claims are given credence by corroborating information on the status of Russian aerospace plasma research acquired by Jane's Defence Weekly last year. Russian work in the use of plasmas that purported to reduce aircraft drag by as much as 30% was collated by British Aerospace (BAe) in the mid-1990s. BAe has since been trying to verify the Russian claims in experiments carried out jointly with the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) and the UK Ministry of Defence (JDW 17 June 1998).

One of the spin-offs of 'plasma aerodynamics', Russian officials told BAe, was that it vastly reduced an aircraft's RCS. The absorption of radio waves by plasmas is well known as the communications black-out that a space vehicle encounters on re-entry is caused by the shielding effects of plasma. This builds naturally in front of the spacecraft as it hits the Earth's atmosphere and shocks the air to high temperature.

The same principle applies to the absorption of radar energy. Although the aircraft would appear to glow like a lightbulb, using plasma generators all around the airframe, it would be almost invisible on a radar screen, Russian officials maintain.

In the opinion of designers at Mikoyan and Sukhoi, the expense of all-embracing low-observable technology as applied in the US Air Force's F-117 and B-2 outweighs its effectiveness. Russians prefer to stress the 'balance' achieved in their latest-generation of fighter designs between aerodynamic efficiency and stealth. The Mikoyan 1-44 and Sukhoi S-37 technology demonstrators, both of which have been rolled out in the past 18 months, are supposed to make use of radar-absorbent paint and materials but are short of inherent stealth features.

Keldysh NITs said that "first- and second-" generation plasma-generators had been tested on the ground and in flight. The centre is working on a third-generation system "based on new physical principles", a possible reference to the use of electrostatic energy around an airframe to reduce RCS. Others believe the Russians could be attempting to duplicate secret work under way in the USA to make aircraft invisible to the human eye by using 'smart skins' that mimic their background."

(source: Jane's Defence Wekly, March 17, 1999)




Explanation of what is Plasma Stealth Technology and how it works

Couple of things to keep in mind: plasma is ionized gas particles. Therefore, plasma flow is a flow of ionized gas particles. Ion is an electrically charged particle or group of atoms. Plasma cloud is a quasineutral (total electrical charge is zero) collection of free charged particles. The vast majority of matter in the universe exists in plasma state. Near the Earth plasma can be found in the form of solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere. The main property of plasma (for our purposes) is its frequency, which is equal to a square root of a ratio of 4 * Pi * square of ion charge * concentration of ions to the mass of ion:

SQRT ( (4 * Pi * n * e^2) / m ),

where e is electron or ion charge, n is concentration of ions per volume of plasma and m is mass of ion.

There are several types of oscillations in plasma: low frequency (ion-sound waves), high frequency (oscillations of electrons relative to ions), spiral waves (in the presence of a magnetic field - "magnetosound"), and cross waves propagating along a magnetic field. A device for generating plasma is called plasmatron. This device generates the so-called low-temperature plasma. A brief guide to plasmas (recommended before you proceed with this page.)

Jane's: Russians offer radical stealth device for export





Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences recently revealed information about a novel "stealth" technology, that incorporates plasma fields. Russian ITAR/TASS news agency recently interviewed the director of the Keldysh Research Center (FKA Scientific Research Institute for Thermal Processes), Academician Anatoliy Koroteyev, who briefly summarized capabilities of plasma stealth system developed by his research center and the current status of the project. You can read the entire ITAR/TASS article in Russian or in English (external link.) An interesting fact: Keldysh Research Center operates a unique plasma wind tunnel for analyzing propagation of electromagnetic waves in the vicinity of a spacecraft as well as for testing of antenna inserts and ion thrusters. Detailed info about Keldysh Research Center here.



Laser plasma laboratory
First, I would like to assure people with high school physics background that, at least in theory, the system, described by Academician Koroteyev, is perfectly valid. Interactions between various types of electromagnetic radiation and plasma fields were studied for many years in Russia, the United States and around the world. Among recent achievement in this area is a "plasma stealth" antenna developed by the US Navy for use on LO aircraft. The system employs a U-shaped glass tube filled with low-pressure gas (something like a fluorescent tube). This antenna is energized and acts as a highly-directional, electronically steered transmitter/receiver. When de-energized, the antenna is virtually transparent to hostile electromagnetic signals. One of the problems with such a system is its vulnerability to resonant signals. For more information click here.




Microwave plasma discharge

The system developed by the Russians is also based on electromagnetic wave-plasma interactions, but in a very different way. Russian stealth plasma device creates a plasma field around an aircraft. This field partially consumes electromagnetic energy of a hostile radar or causes it to bend around the aircraft, reducing the aircraft RCS by up to 100 times. Sounds fantastic? Not really: effects of dissipation and bending of electromagnetic signals in presence of plasma field have been observed for decades. If there is anything new about the system developed by the Russians it certainly is not the theoretical part but technical aspects of the plasma generator. Keldysh Research Center claims to have developed, built and tested a plasma shield generator that weighs only 100 kg.




Microwave-induced plasma "air spike"
The idea of creating a plasma field around an aircraft is not a new one either. Such a possibility was thoroughly studied by both Russians and Americans. This was done for very different reasons, however. Aircraft designers want to use a plasma shield generator on hypersonic aircraft. In this application, plasma may be generated by a powerful plasma laser and will act as a heat shield for an aircraft. There are plans to use such a system in conjunction with a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion to achieve velocities up to Mach 50. For more information click here or here. This is truly unbelievable, but even this theoretically and technologically is perfectly possible. It is not known whether the plasma stealth system developed by the Russians employs a plasma laser or some other method for creating a plasma field. My personal opinion is that it has nothing to do with a plasma laser (which is a very large and very power-hungry device.)




Deep Space 1 satellite


Plasma physics was given priority in Russia many years ago, which resulted in a number of breakthroughs in theory as well as practical applications of plasma. Perhaps one of the most interesting and promising applications of plasma is the so-called ion thruster, used to propel spacecraft. This technology was first developed in Russia (mainly by Keldysh Research Center) and recently successfully used on an American satellite Deep Space 1. The system uses xenon gas as fuel and can achieve exhaust velocities of up to 30 km/sec (ten times that of an average rocket engine.) Wouldn't you like to understand how this ion drive really works? You go back to college or follow this link to MSNBC excellent interactive "Ion Drive" guide. Interesting to note that first such "ion thrusters" were developed in USSR and used on Soviet spacecraft almost 30 years ago.

[Kitsune]

Well, I remain sceptical. One should never overestimate Russian technology...too often I have heard about some superfighter aircraft, indestructible tank, ultra sonic mass destruction device or secret russian psi teams...all highly sercret and safely tugged away in sibiria. So far all of these miracle stories have been wrong.

And by the way...this formula about the plasma frequency...something is wrong with it I think. If this is a frequency it should have the unit "per second"...but it has charge squared divided by kilogram times meter to the power of 3 as unit...which is definitly no frequency or wavelenght. Not even close.

Well I for my part wait until the Russians sell it (if they do it at all) because it should raise quite some eyebrowes in the west. And then somebody will surely write about it...and we will know for sure wether this works.

Pirate: p-)

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Plasma Stealth. Again :bash: . It's proof that there's a sucker born every minute.
Sounds like "the Philidelphia Experiment" nonsense.

[DLodge]

(source: Jane's Defence Wekly, March 17, 1999)

That article is from quite awhile ago. Obviously that technology panned out, as evidenced by all the countries who now have fleets of stealthy aircraft while the U.S. wastes its time worrying about silly things like reducing radar cross-sections. Who needs an F-22 when you can just bolt this thing onto an F-15?

Yeah right, just more BS being spewed by the failing Russian aerospace industry.

[oldsoak]

Funny article from the Telegraph - doesnt mention cancellation fees which equal the cost of buying the aircraft or the fact the brake related problem been sorted as of late November . Must be old news.

[DLodge]

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a terrible idea to slash so much of ther Eurofighter buy. That article makes it seem like the RAF is putting all its eggs in the UCAV basket, which strikes me as a little premature given the huge drawbacks of unmanned aircraft.

I also disagree that the Eurofighter is obsolete. The chief argument presented by the Telegraph seems to be that the Typhoon has to be out-of-date because it was conceived in the '70s. F-22 development began as early as 1981, does that mean that by IOC in 2006 it will be a "dead duck?" The Eurofighter is coming into service late and over budget, but then so did the B-1, the F-111 and plenty of other highly succesful combat aircraft.

Regardless, the article is interesting.

[Falco]

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a terrible idea to slash so much of ther Eurofighter buy. That article makes it seem like the RAF is putting all its eggs in the UCAV basket, which strikes me as a little premature given the huge drawbacks of unmanned aircraft.

I also disagree that the Eurofighter is obsolete. The chief argument presented by the Telegraph seems to be that the Typhoon has to be out-of-date because it was conceived in the '70s. F-22 development began as early as 1981, does that mean that by IOC in 2006 it will be a "dead duck?" The Eurofighter is coming into service late and over budget, but then so did the B-1, the F-111 and plenty of other highly succesful combat aircraft.

Regardless, the article is interesting.

It seems that most military projects are over budget. :|

[Midav]

Some say plasma stealth even exists on the B-2, hence its blended wing body shape.

Well, I'll believe it when I see it.

[Macs.]

Plasma Stealth at work:
http://www.eaa231.org/miscellaneous/what/stealth.jpg

[Kitsune]

rofl

Yeah...I was wrong. The Photo clearly proves that it works.

[Kurt Plummer]

Hey Mo,

>>
I wonder how the Eurofighter compares to the swedish Gripen? Anyone knowing something about airplanes that can tell me?
>>

Generally the Gripen is a fine jet for the Swedish environment but in a recent DRA/RAND analysis it ranked /waaaay/ down there in the F-18E/F leagues in terms of air combat performance. Something like .25 or .26 on the 'total effectiveness scale' and well below 1:1 in combat exchange rates (1:3 I think).

Now, that said, System-39 does all that it's supposed to in being:

1. Relatively inexpensive (42 million per last I read which was early in Batch-1 before the line stabilized).
2. Very Reliable. Low MMH:FH and Flight Hours costs (about $2,500.00 per).
3. An emphasis on 'netcentric' (electronic) performance rather than absolutes of physical 'power projection' as a function of either aerodynamics or stealth.

The Swedes operate in a dense signals and very short reaction time environment with iffy weather for a fair amount of the year and so within their original STRIL and now TIDLS/CDL-39 systems have (quite wisely) gone for the 'total system of systems' approach to exploit offboard datalink sources for quiet vector and passive handing.

This alone gives them an /immense/ advantage in the snapup and 'hello just off your elbow' passive formating intercepts.

And especially compared to a pre-AMSAR, pre-BVRAAM Eurofighter, that should be enough. Vs. the F-22, ainhhh, things get tricky. Without IR-OTIS to capture an optical track and a LOT of burner time to match Mach point and WEZ aspects for cutoff at range, the Gripen may be pushing it. And frankly the reliance on AMRAAM and Sidewinder or even IRIS-T was and remains a poor choice compared to what a slightly larger, RB-73 or similar (Skyflash ++) might have achieved (IMO, the JA-37 remains a more effective radar intercept machine because it can handle a heavier radar round than the Gripen can anchors-away on).

All Eurocanard clones are very 'deft' in their agility factoring and being low-inertia'd with a tight-to-centerline spread of mass displacement and fairly low drag, the Gripen should be quite able to turn up it's own tail.

That said, the machine is underpowered (it is sub-1:1 T/Wr'd on takeoff) and the location and CG/CofL displacement of the canards can put it into some bad flutter modes and nose-reversal problems if you take the machine to high up into the alphas at slow speed (which is were the SweAF fights best).

The rating I'm familiar with on the Gripen is 33` after flight testing over the Northern ranges discovered some 'problems' (just not enough directional control with the rudder and pitch only canards at the current wing couple and dihedral settings) with the initially rated 45`. Lately I've seen ratings as low as 26 units which seems insulting.

Again, if you fight the conventional fight, MUCH of your success is going to be based on your training and the suitability of the system to the given operational environment (strategy and tactics as well as technology). If you want to take the fight over somebody else' ADGE, then things get more difficult.

Offensively, in general, even the (IFR probe equipped) JAS-39C is going to be roughly equal to the F-18C for radius (190nm unrefueled with only a centerline) and available weapons pylons (all of 2 unfortunately with the more likely pairing of wing tanks) and it is now lagging Eurofighter a little for integration of GBU-12/16/2x series LGBs and the LITENING pod as it's primary precision munition option. As well as being short an effective DEAD suite to exploit the new EWS-30 ELS/RHAWS capabilities.

As such, I would accept the Gripen for the SAAF 'home defense mission' and would use it to loft Raptors and MUPSOW or whatever their longrange KEPD-350 equivalent is now called over-border. But I would not want it, even in numbers advantaged (sortie rates by inventory count) 'discount' when compared to the Eurofighter for the OCA or continuing ironware INT missions. That single RM-12 and the 5,000lbs of internal fraction just cripples you.

One possible exception to this opinion being the late Batch-3 two seater which, as the 'JAS-39D' is supposed to allow the combat configured rear cockpit to act as a combat controller for an operational equivalent to the SHARC UCAV. If you can remain stood off, and USE your datalink superiorities (the PS-05a is also pretty good) to maximimize whatever 'supporting fire' shots you take while the robot carries the major weight of munitions, then you can move to some interesting 'persistent loiter for radius' decisions on loadouts and absolute aero's performance.

2 of the large wing tanks, two outboard intelligent ARM of some sort (Armiger for a preference over ALARM) and either tip-qualified AMRAAM or perhaps the belly dual rail system for BVRAAM as an option to a third centerline jug.


KP


LINKS-
Gray Threat Evals
http://www.afa.org/magazine/Feb1996/0296grayt.asp

Gripen Pages
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/gripen/
http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avgrpn.html

IRST Data
http://www.sistemasdearmas.hpg.ig.com.br/irst2.htm

[DID]

so were the pics?

[Steak-Sauce]

DID, you know the last one posted here 6 years ago?

[Hazard1024]

So what would a combat loaded Typhoon's rcs be like?