EF Typhoon News

[signatory]

Thanks Herman, good stuff.

[Herman the II]

Some pictures covering today's flight activities in Switzerland, both planes were in the air. The Copyright of the pictures is owned by "Werner Stucki", posted here once again with his friendly permission.

IPA3, note the "Sky Buzzer" towed radar-decoy launchers in the Wingtip.



IPA3 with deployed air-brake.



GT15

[Herman the II]

training or exercise ? does somebody have any info ?

Had this picture in mind when reading the latest issue of the German aviation magazine Flug Revue. According to the latest issue Luftwaffe Eurofighters have flown against AdA Rafales this year. The results were pleasing for the Typhoon, they claim that the main advantage of the Eurofighter is its superior engine trust.
No further details have been mentioned, however that could explain the photo above.
(Flug Revue/Dez 2008 p.42f.)

---------------
Switzerland: Both EF Typhoons participating in the evaluation doing a close formation take off. Again shot by "Kriensnet".

[Herman the II]

EUROJET Achieves Twin Milestones - 100,000 Flying Hours and 500 Production Deliveries

HALLBERGMOOS, Germany, November 25 /PRNewswire/ -- EUROJET, the leading military engine consortium has achieved two notable milestones for its EJ200 programme.

The EJ200 engine achieved over 100,000 Engine Flying Hours in the Eurofighter Typhoon fleets of the Air Forces of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Austria at the end of October. The multi-role combat aircraft was introduced into service of the Air Forces in 2003 and is presently operated by 10 units across five nations. With the addition of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the programme's second export customer 707 aircraft are under contract.

EUROJET has also delivered its 500th EJ200 engine. The landmark engine was assembled at MTU Aero Engines in Munich and was delivered to the German Air Force in early November.
The EJ200 and Eurofighter Typhoon programmes involve over 400 companies and sustain about 100,000 direct and indirect jobs across Europe.

http://www.itnews.it/news/2008/11250...eliveries.html

Pre-flight checks on the EJ200 engine nozzles by a Eurofighter Typhoon pilot of Fighter Wing 74 of the German Air Force. (picture from eurofighter.com)

The EJ200 engine ready for inspection at RAF Coningsby, UK. (picture from eurofighter.com)

[Herman the II]

Didn't knew that the diplomatic relations between Iceland and the UK have worsen that much because of the credit crunch.

UK cancels Typhoon's Icelandic air policing duty

An ongoing political spat between the British and Icelandic governments has put paid to the planned first overseas deployment of the Royal Air Force's Eurofighter Typhoon for NATO.

"The deployment of four Typhoons was scheduled to take place in December. Following discussions within NATO, the deployment will not now take place," minister for international defence and security Baroness Taylor said on 24 November.

Typhoons from the RAF's Coningsby-based 3 Sqn had been scheduled to provide quick reaction alert services from Keflavik airport for a period of several weeks, but the decision was reversed "following discussions with NATO, and in agreement with Iceland", the service says. The move follows a recent worsening of bilateral relations that developed when UK financial assets worth several billion pounds were lost during the collapse of Iceland's banking system.

full story:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...cing-duty.html

[Herman the II]

Yesterday saw the official media day for the Eurofighter Typhoon. Most of the articles are in German or French so I will give a short summery of the events.
Armasuisse project leader Jürg Weber gave details for the evaluation criteria for the first time yesterday. The factor operational performance will be weighted 60 %, the in-service aspects 15 % and the industrial cooperation package 25 %.
Those 60% for the operational performance are divided into 50% A2A capabilities, 20% A2G, 20 % RECCE and 10 % growth potential.
All participants had to go through the same evaluation:
Eleven flights were conducted by the Swiss Air Force to assess operational capabilities, while 13 flights were done by armasuisse to evaluate technical issues. Two flights were done for noise measurements.
One of the Air Force test included a intercept mission at M1.5+, a Swizz F18 flew at high level with M1.5 and the participants had to climb to the same height and intercept the F-18 as early as possible.
For now it seems that the number of jets in question is down to 22 aircraft plus equipment.
Switzerland will ask for a second refined bid early next year and as a second request, they will give a budget and leave it to industry to suggest the optimal package.

Aloysius Rauen, CEO Eurofighter GmbH, briefs on the Eurofighter-Partnership. Left to right: Welf Degel, EADS Campaign Director Switzerland, Bernhard Gerwert, CEO Military Air Systems, EADS Defence & Security.(picture from eurofighter.com)

Brigadier General Harald Riedel, Deputy Commander 2 Division, German Air Force, briefs on the operational performance of Eurofighter Typhoon in the German Air Force, Emmen. 25 November 2008. (picture from eurofighter.com)

New details about the Ef Typhoon that emerged during the evaluation:
-All test flights could be completed as planed (until yesterday off course)
-the new Helmet Equipment Assembly (HEA) was demonstrated
-turnaround time after flight is 15 min with a 2 men ground-crew
-45 min for an engine change with a 4 men ground-crew
-Litening and RECCELite were demonstrated
-EJ 200 are the most fuel efficient engines
-Ef Typhoon can take off from every airfield in Switzerland fully loaded without the use of Afterburners.

Informations from(all german unfortunatly):
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schwei...1.1314109.html
http://tagesschau.sf.tv/nachrichten/...mit_den_kosten
http://www.eurofighter.ch/1024/de/Homepage.html

The new Helmet Assembly for Eurofighter Typhoon pilots in test by a Swiss evaluation pilot while EADS Testpilot Chris Worning watches from the back, IPA3, Emmen , 25 November 2008. (picture from eurofighter.com)

IPA3 taxies back to the shelter after landing on a cold winter day in Emmen, 25 November 2008. (picture from eurofighter.com)

IPA3 taxies out of Shelter 1 at Emmen, 25 November 2008. (picture from eurofighter.com)

[Herman the II]

(Flug Revue/Dez 2008 p.42f.)

That article is now available online, the extract I mentioned above:

Informally, the pilots from Neuburg recently pitted their skills against their French Rafale colleagues in aerial combat. The results were extremely gratifying, the main difference being the much greater thrust of the EJ200 engine.

http://www.flugrevue.de/index.php?id=4187

[Herman the II]

Today both EFs arrived in Meiringen for the noise measurement and the hangar tests. IPA 3 in the "heavy configuration" was able to take off without the use of the afterburner, and also did the Hangar test. (the competition was forced to use the afterburner, so far everything was excellent)
Unfortunately GT15 in the "light configuration" encountered a (supposedly electrical) problem and wasn't ready. Due to the early darkness the test couldn't be done and will probably be done tomorrow. GT15 stayed in Meiringen and IPA3 went back to Emmen.
Meiringen seems to be a bad place for the evaluation, the Gripen had a punctured tire on the same occasion. Bad luck....

[signatory]

I'll put the articles with videos from the noise tests of all 3 jets here.... it's all subjective of course.

Videos on links:

Eurofighter

Rafale

Gripen

BTW, is a layer of snow good or bad for noise pollution ? Does it even matter?

[Herman the II]

The officials from Switzerland said that the difference from snow is only "marginal". Whatever that means, I could imagine that the snow may reduce the echo from the surrounding cliffs/mountains. Its unfair from the start, two jets with and one jet without afterburner. Stupid test, I doubt anybody can hear a difference and those that don't like military jets will say its loud anyway..

[signatory]

The officials from Switzerland said that the difference from snow is only "marginal". Whatever that means, I could imagine that the snow may reduce the echo from the surrounding cliffs/mountains. Its unfair from the start, two jets with and one jet without afterburner. Stupid test, I doubt anybody can hear a difference and those that don't like military jets will say its loud anyway..

And humans don't have any "noise memory"... the only tests I can see as valuable is from when running the apu... the take-off is over in a few seconds anyway so why focus on that anyway.

These videos annoy me too as there's some dumbarse talking over the speaker system actually trying to speak over the noise

[TGIF]

BTW, is a layer of snow good or bad for noise pollution ? Does it even matter?

Thanks for the videos! It gives you some idea, but it's rather subjective as you said.

The test conditions are very important when doing sound measurements. Temperature and humidity are some climatic factors that matters and that obviously differed between the three test occasions. The surrounding surface is also very important. I'd say snow would be a better absorber than tarmac or grass.

A company I worked with doing sound measurements were very picky about the above factors and wanted the different tests done as fast as possible so that the conditions would not change. They checked temp and humidity every 15min and made remarks in their final report about the surface being slightly damp on this occasion.

I'm sure that the Swiss take these things into considerations. And I guess all three manufacturers have done measurements before so I'm sure they will be complaining if the results are misleading (in a negative way of course )

[Herman the II]

I dont have high hopes for this one, but the offical Eurofighter blog reports this morning that:

28 November 2008 - Australia to change its mind about JSF?

We were aware of the Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon touring Europe and visiting Spain, getting briefed on Eurofighter by our friends of EADS CASA in Getafe. But now Australian media start to report about it, while the official press release of the Australian MoD does not mention that part of the visit. The Australian Government has not finally decided yet, if they want to buy the export version of the F-35. It is being said that also the Australian Strategic Policy Institute looks at Eurofighter Typhoon “at the head of the pack of current-generation fighters”.

[oldsoak]

As much as I like the idea of the RAAF flying EF's, it wont happen for several reasons, and heres just two

1 - Timescales - we cant deliver them in the timeframe they want.

2 - They need an aircraft that offers them commonality with the US for the simple reason of getting parts in time of war - unless they get a assembly line or are prepared for a substantial spares holding.

Also the f35 offers a walk on the wild side of stealth for Aus industry - something which will be important to build on for the future.

[signatory]

Question:

Did the Eurofighter fly with a full fuel load of 3 droptanks in the Swiss trials ?

I know one of the jets arrived like that but I'm asking since am not sure if they ever used that loadout in the trials (not sure about the other candidates either).