“We have not been officially notified of a decision on Germany’s future fighter,” Lockheed spokesman Mike Friedman said in an emailed response to a query. This is because modern SAM systems such as the S-400 and HQ-9 are highly mobile and have such long range that a subsonic cruise missile launched from a safe distance would take tens of minutes to arrive. An official from the ministry confirmed that the F-35 is not a finalist in the competition, which seeks a replacement for the 90-jet fleet. For Rafale, Meteor is regularly carried by the F3R standard aircraft on live operational sorties by both the Armee de l’Air and Aeronavale. Both Rafale F3R and P3E standard (Centurion upgraded) Typhoons present pilots with an intuitive combined situational awareness display which integrates data from multiple sensors. For such targets, Typhoon users would employ Paveway II/III/IV series weapons. With heavy loads, however, Rafale performs significantly better than Typhoon across the almost the entire performance envelope, having been designed from the outset to incorporate heavy multirole loads. Typhoon’s flight control software starts to progressively restrict the jet with heavier (or particularly asymmetric) loads. While the Eurofighter … Change ), Eurofighter Typhoon versus Dassault Rafale: A 2020 comparison – luftverteidigung.ch deutsche Version, In the cockpit with real Topgun instructor: Dave ‘Bio’ Baranek takes us for a brief history of fighter cockpits, F-106 to F-35 | Hush-Kit, In the cockpit with real Topgun instructor: Dave ‘Bio’ Baranek takes us for a brief history of fighter cockpits, F-106 to F-35 – My Blog, The US Air Force Secretly Designed and Flew a New Fighter Jet Testbed and I just Feel Depressed, Upgrade gets you Su-34 mug, signed book, RAF blood chit tea towel & WW2 badge, The best made military propaganda film: Wehrhafte Schweiz (1964) features incredible flying footage, I was the first foreign pilot to fly the Mach 2.8 MiG-31 interceptor, here’s my story: By Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd), We don’t need no edgy ejection: Interview with man who ejected from a Harrier and played on a Pink Floyd album, Eurofighter Typhoon versus Dassault Rafale video: Part 1. Competing against the Typhoon is Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Typhoon has had successes in Qatar and Kuwait, and a signature of intent from Saudi Arabia for another 48 aircraft soon. This is all relative, however, as both aircraft perform very similarly in most scenarios compared to other types. Costs like a Raptor, flies like a Tornado. In practice, however, Typhoon users with Sniper or Lightning III can off-board data using the jet’s own datalinks. However, Typhoon also uses a lot more fuel in afterburner so for mission profiles that involve a lot of AB use, Rafale will likely have the edge. There’s a reason (beyond the undoubted inefficiencies and concurrency) why the US have had to put nearly half a trillion dollars into the F-35 programme to date, mostly aimed at getting the nightmarishly ambitious and complex software architecture to work. For export operators, things are much more dependent on fleet size and support contract structures than the differences between each aircraft type. For example, Spanish Typhoons cost a great deal more to fly than British ones since the RAF flies its fleet a lot more and has more streamlined maintenance support arrangements. At low altitudes Rafale’s energy retention is slightly better at best corner speed, whilst at higher altitudes Typhoon has better energy retention. In terms of instantaneous turn rate, Rafale has a slight advantage in air combat configuration and that increases with heavier multirole or strike loads. The Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine, canard–delta wing, multirole fighter. Germany’s parliament has approved a major €5.4 billion ($6.35 billion) contract to purchase heavily modernised Tranche 3 variants of the Eurofighter Typhoon fourth generation combat jet, which will allow it to phase its ageing Cold War era Tornado swept wing fighters out of service. COLOGNE, Germany ― Germany’s Ministry of Defence has officially ruled out the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as a choice to replace its aging Tornado fleet, Defense News has learned. Having ‘flown’ full fidelity Typhoon simulators in Italy and the UK, including the latest Project Centurion multi-role standard now used by the RAF, I was impressed by the intuitive ‘feel’ of the human-machine interface (HMI) across various multi role tasks. Thank you very much. I am surprised the Typhoons new Digital Stealth was not mentioned, it seems to be a world leading capability on Typhoon to counter, if not surpass the lack of static stealth in the air-frame. Money Minute: Sending cash by mobile apps — convenient, but be careful, Money Minute: Getting the Most When buying a Used Car. They have a healthy respect for them. A pilot from either of those two fighters would find little out of place or unfamiliar in terms of cockpit layout, although the internal menus and system logic may be different from what they are used to. Both types have a similar ferry range with a ‘heavy’ three tank fit. He noted that any German government is acutely averse to the publicity surrounding Berlin’s would-be atomic bombers. I’m a bit surprised the RECO-NG pod was not mentioned in the Recce-Equipment section. The biggest source of differences comes from the French requirement that the basic airframe design be suitable for CATOBAR carrier operations, which carries particular requirements in terms of relatively high-alpha, low speed handling especially with external stores still attached. His article provoked a huge response from readers around the world. It seems to hinge on the EW suite being ‘e-programmable’. As for the UK v US crap spouted on here, they are the strongest alleys in the world. For reference the German/Spanish ‘Radar 1’ standard will add further capabilities and the UK’s ECRS2 version will be a different beast entirely with advanced ground mapping, GMTI and EW capabilities in addition to traditional AESA functions. ( Log Out /  MICA has slightly superior range to ASRAAM and significantly superior range to IRIS-T. All are highly agile and lethal missiles in a WVR engagement, with IRIS-T boasting the greatest knife fight agility, ASRAAM the best performance off the rail, and MICA the best reach. US development efforts have emphasised these cooperative engagement capabilities (CEC) far more than French ones over the past two decades, and Typhoon benefits from that weapon heritage. In practice, both types depend to a large degree on tanker support for most operational missions. The Typhoon—despite its superior aerodynamic performance—is slowly being edged out by the stealthy F-35. The GR4 is also equipped with Reconnaissance Airborne Pod for Tornado (Raptor), a sensor that is capable of taking highly detailed images day or night. In terms of load carrying capacity, ECM, subsonic agility, low and medium altitude WVR performance and cost Rafale F3R would also likely still come out ahead of a Tranche 2 or 3 P3E standard Typhoon. Panavia Tornado VS Eurofighter Typhoon airplane Poster Home Decoration Printing Wall High quality Picture Print 20x30Inch by Wall Decor Master. It can also carry other munitions including the US Paveway II and III series of laser-guided bombs, and has been cleared for the AGM-88 HARM and British ALARM anti-radiation missiles although these are not in operational service. English. Unless he has access to the official EM charts for both, he is simply guessing. The fact that Kuwaiti Typhoons are already flying with the export AESA is a welcome but long overdue improvement but Typhoon really continues to lag in terms of exploitation of its huge potential (given the massive nose aperture and power available) in the AESA department. At higher altitudes, Typhoon’s greater specific excess power and decoupled canards give it a slight advantage, which increases as altitude increases above 45,000ft. France’s AASM ‘Hammer’ series of glide and boosted bomb guidance kits gives Rafale a comparable capability to Paveway IV with a greater amount of warhead and range flexibility. Both fighters will pull 9G all day long in air combat configuration at most altitudes. Typhoon has anti-ship munition options but no current operators use them. COLOGNE, Germany — The race between Boeing’s F-18 jet and the Airbus Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to replace Germany’s Tornado fighter-bombers has … In this role, the Typhoon is probably the standout with its superior BVR capabilities in a large scale, open ROE engagement, but up close in a flashpoint around a QRA interception Rafale might have the edge. Typhoon export users employ the Damocles pod (Saudi Arabia) and the Sniper pod (Kuwait). PIRATE is a genuinely exceptional IRST, although for years shortages of spare parts limited its use by various frontline squadrons. Eurofighter Typhoon vs F-35 Lightning IIComments of readers (Feel free to “Leave a Reply” on bottom.)1. Before the German MoD confirmed that the F-35 was officially out of the running, Reuters on Thursday reported that the ministry was considering splitting the buy between the Typhoon and either the F-35 or Super Hornet. I guess it would take a lot of money to upgrade them to the latest version? “If you have any interest in aviation, you’ll be surprised, entertained and fascinated by Hush-Kit – the world’s best aviation blog”. It’s worth noting that despite complaints about the cost of keeping the aging Tornados flying, keeping around a certain number of them has always been under consideration — a painful, but not impossible, proposition among some defense experts. – In Range, the Eurofighter’s LPD takes up a wet point Maintenance/sortie rates/operating costs/cost. - YouTube He is based in Cologne, Germany. The move is not altogether surprising. https://www.defensenews.com © 2020 Sightline Media Group, Money Minute: Student loan repayment and consolidation. We went back to Justin Bronk and asked him to revisit this analysis to include half a decade’s worth of development and weapons integration which has now placed these two aircraft at the top of their game. Neither aircraft sparkles in the high-alpha regime compared to the Hornet family or anything with thrust vectoring, but the Rafale’s aerodynamically coupled canards give it slightly better high-alpha authority at slow speeds than Typhoon. However, as a rule Rafale is probably slightly cheaper in real terms to acquire than Typhoon. As far as I’m aware the Rafale has so far only been cleared for Meteor carriage on the two side-fuselage hardpoints although I could be wrong on that. The RBE2 radar has continued to mature and is now a standout feature of the jet, whilst the French government has committed to a major upgrade of the jet’s internal systems and sensors in the upcoming F4 standard programme. All information comes from wikipedia.org, cia.gov, icanw.org, government websites and press releases. Berlin for some time has officially favored an upgraded version of the fourth-generation Eurofighter Typhoon — built by a consortium of Airbus, Leonardo and BAE Systems — as the Tornado replacement. Rafale is designed to excel at subsonic speeds and at lower altitudes. – In Recce, Rafale has the dedicated Reco NG pod. How has Typhoon improved since your 2015 assessment?The multirole capabilities of the jet have matured drastically since 2015, especially as a result of the RAF’s Project Centurion programme which integrated Brimstone, full Paveway IV functionality and Storm Shadow, in addition to full Striker HMD exploitation and a number of other multirole enabling capabilities. The Rafale was also designed from the outset as a nuclear delivery system, which was not a major consideration for the Eurofighter nations. Between 15,000 and around 30,000ft the relative merits will depend on speed range, as if the Typhoon might start with an advantage in a supersonic merge but Rafale would improve relatively as speeds drop during a long engagement. The ongoing flight trials of the SPEAR 3 multirole light standoff munition (which includes an EW variant for stand-in jamming) on UK Typhoons give the type access to another highly potent option, although at present the UK is only paying to actually use SPEAR 3 on F-35B. As such, both Typhoon and Rafale could make a very valuable contribution to a SEAD/DEAD operation in support of more stealthy penetrating ISTAR/strike assets such as F-35 or advanced UAVs, but if hypothetically forced to fight alone neither is particularly well suited at present – Rafale having a slight edge due to the SPECTRA suite. However, even within the RAF, the older Tranche 1s are much more costly to fly and difficult to maintain than the new Tranche 3s. Bearing in mind that the Gripen can take off AND land in 600m, be refueled and rearmed in ten minutes by 1 technician and 5 conscripts, and can operate f In fact, the Eurofighter is the only modern Western fighter that still has such a radar, because older fighters like the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 have already been refitted with AESAs. Typhoon’s habit of fighting at very high speeds and altitude for BVR engagements will result in a longer effective range on Meteor shots, but in practice there are almost no scenarios short of a full scale war with Russia where the rules of engagement would allow shots at such a range where that difference would tell. Brimstone is more accurate with a much smaller ultra-low collateral warhead. The UK’s much more ambitious (and now funded) ECRS2 promises a massive leap in AESA capability with areas of advantage even over the latest US AESAs, but is so far only likely to be integrated onto the 40 Tranche 3s, with the fate of the 67 Tranche 2s less certain in that regard. The leaked Swiss evaluation rated Rafale superior in almost every category- would this still be the case?The Swiss competition was horrendously mismanaged by the Eurofighter consortium with a buggy Tranche 1 jet sent to compete with the best that Saab and Dassault could bring to the table. With 707 aircraft ordered by six nations (Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), and in service with all nations, the aircraft is Europe’s largest military collaborative program. As the foundation of NATO’s next generation of air power, the F-35 is the most advanced aircraft in the world today, and includes Electronic Attack capabilities well beyond any specialized fourth generation aircraft.”. However, the decision leaves open the question of certification for nuclear weapons. This doesn’t really count as an export success though. I will add an estimate in brackets for the Kuwaiti/Qatari standard Typhoon with the ‘Radar 0’ version of the CAPTOR-E AESA which is flying and enters service this year in Kuwait. Based on the physical properties of the two aircraft I’d suspect the Rafale has a higher instantaneous rate, but at the same time the Typhoon should have a superior sustained turn rate irrespective of altitude thanks to signifantly higher thrust and a lower induced drag. The main argument is to keep European companies involved in building combat aircraft and, perhaps even more importantly, staying clear of disturbing Franco-German momentum in armaments cooperation. Finland will be an interesting result to watch, but I’m not sure either aircraft could be considered a favourite. Air-to-air engagements at long ranges The RBE2 (has the advantage) against targets with a low radar cross section due to the greater performance of AESA types against these threats. This site needs a small donation from you to continue. Money Minute — When Should You Close a Credit Card? As revolver cannons, both reach their maximum fire rate almost immediately. The integration of the Meteor missile for the F3R standard Rafales has plugged a major weakness of the type in my 2015 assessments – the lack of a serious BVR stick. Related to (l). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Etymology 1 From (etyl) storm, from (etyl) . Noun Any disturbed state of the atmosphere, especially as affecting the earth's surface, and strongly implying destructive or unpleasant weather. Air-to-groundRBE2 as a multifunction AESA radar gives far more air-to-ground functionality than CAPTOR-M. (Radar 0 is optimised for air-to-air and is unlikely to challenge RBE2 in this arena). The lack of a helmet mounted sight for Rafale until the Qatari standard has meant that in practice Typhoon users may be able to get more out of IRIS-T or ASRAAM in a dynamic WVR engagement. Price: $11.99 + $6.99 shipping: This fits your . “With common DNA in terms of initial development and requirements setting work before France spilt away from what became the Eurofighter consortium to develop the Rafale, it is unsurprising that both aircraft have relatively similar design philosophies compared to their competitors globally. At time of writing the following comparisons would be for the latest F3R Standard Rafale with the RBE2 AESA radar vs a Typhoon FGR.4 in UK service with the CAPTOR-M. Ordering both the Typhoon and an American aircraft would make it easier to continue carrying out the NATO nuclear mission, while also lending support to the European industrial base. However, it could complicate logistics, adding more expense and forcing the German Air Force to maintain two supply chains. Cockpit layout/man-machine interfaceBoth aircraft have similar cockpit layouts in most respects, with three large main multifunction colour displays capable of significant customisation to suit individual pilot preferences in the latest versions. Both Typhoon and Rafale lack a commonly carried anti-radiation missile, although modern AAM such as AMRAAM and Meteor can be assumed to have a certain degree of ARM capability in extremis. Europe's two middle-weight fighter aircraft, the Typhoon and Rafale, have fought tooth and nail for multi-billion Euro sales across the world. By dint of being complex multi role single seat (in most cases) fighters, the HOTAS controls are fairly intimidating to someone used to a US teen series (or my DCS A-10C/F-16 HOTAS), but once mastered are extremely comprehensive. Our interviews with Typhoon pilot here , here and here. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. Unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to do the same with the French Air Force (hint hint mes amis!). The Tornado still is a kickass aircraft, and many of the technologies now present in the Eurofighter Typhoon were first deployed in the Tornado. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The German/Spanish Radar 1 order will, however, mean that there are a large number of AESA equipped Typhoons in service by the mid-2020s with all the Quadriga and Tornado replacement Typhoons to feature the capability. In practice, there is little to choose between them, I pity the enemy shot at by either. The BK27 has slightly better muzzle velocity and ballistic properties whilst the GIAT has slightly better destructive effect due to its larger shell. eurofighter ; Derived terms * typhoon fifth Related terms * tycoon See also * cyclone * hurricane * tornado storm . The actual cost will depend on the govt-govt relationship and how many of the bells and whistles each customer wants to pay for. Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH is made up of the major aerospace companies from the four Eurofighter Typhoon partner nations. Expert analysis of weapons, tactics and technology. Typhoon comes with one or two TRDs mounted in a wingtip pod as standard, with specific version dependent on operator choices. Both Typhoon and Rafale can launch capable standoff cruise missiles in the shape of the Storm Shadow/SCALP and Taurus KEPD 350. Typhoon has to make do with a less than fully optimised TAC-R pod as the RAPTOR pod fitted to Tornado GR.4 was not integrated when the latter was retired – in part because of centreline store size limitations on Typhoon due to the front landing gear leg placement. The military is scrambling to understand the aviation crash risk from a new 5G sale, Biden picks Lloyd Austin, retired Army general, to lead Pentagon, Acting SecDef, service secretaries exposed to COVID-19 after top civilian tests positive, Head of nuclear weapons agency unexpectedly resigns. At the lower end, the Rafale can also carry and deliver the US made Paveway II and III series and like Typhoon is cleared to carry but does not currently use a range of other US munitions. The RAF’s Tranche 3 jets. Typhoon is happiest at 50,000ft and above. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images. Range: 3,700 km: 2,900 km: Max speed: Mach 1.8 (1,912 km/h) Mach 2.0 (2,120 km/h, 1,320 mph) Service ceiling: 15,235 m: 19,812 m: Weight empty: 10.3 t: 11 t: Weight max: