Talk:Eurofighter Typhoon/Archive 1

I rewrote the section on the comparison between the Typhoon and the new American fighters. Any actual assessment of their relative combat potential requires access to classified information.

In any case, the point is largely moot. Given the expected customers and delivery schedules of both fighters it seems unlikely they will face each other in combat, or indeed will ever go up against comparable planes. --Robert Merkel 14:15 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've added section headings for the Typhoon, based loosely on the headings for the F-16. Robert, regarding the Typhoon's combat potential, perhaps it'd be good to include information about the DERA study. --User:Cabalamat 23:50 26 Aug 2003

Is the DERA a disinterested party here, given that Britain is a partner in the Eurofighter? --Robert Merkel 09:42, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No, they are not; OTOH, there is no other comparable study I know of. Is there any reason the DERA study wouold be biased? That is, was there political pressure to bias the study in some way? I don't know the answer to that question. I suppose one could measure the performance factors of the aircraft (such as thrust:weight ratio, wing loading, accelerations at various speeds, turn rates, etc) - if you do, my understanding is the Eurofighter comes out better than all except the F-22 - anyway I think it would be useful to try to collect these figures for all modern fighters, and write a page comparing them - one would also have to consider avionics, missiles, etc. -- Cabalamat 14:07, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think the point I'm trying to make out of all this is that the Typhoon, even in the opinion of one of the nations that created it, is superior in combat to anything that has come before it, but inferior to the F-22. But then, we don't have a comparable opinion from either the Americans, or perhaps Russia (what the Russians think of the two aircraft would be *extremely* interesting to know). I think the article should state this.

From an Australian perspective, I would be really interested in a comparison between the JSF and the Eurofighter, seeing that our government seems to have committed to the JSF despite some fairly compelling arguments that a longer-range aircraft with supercruise capabilities might be rather handy in the Australian operating environment. --Robert Merkel 00:23, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Robert, have a look at Comparison of 2000s fighter aircraft. I was under the impressino the F-35b did have supercruise - am I wrong? BTW, isn't Australia developing a conformal drop tank for the Typhoon? BTW2, I agree that long range is important for a vast country like Australia (perhaps they could go for the Su-35 which has a range of 3300 km on internal fuel?) -- Cabalamat 03:14, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

From all the reading I've been able to do it appears that the F-35 doesn't have supercruise capability. Yes, an Australian firm has been developing conformal tanks for the Typhoon (reference: http://www.awgnet.com/shownews/03paris/hard05.htm ), but we have also become a "technology partner", or some such thing, in the JSF program Australia's fighter aircraft (and the old but very useful F-111) all become obsolete between 2010 and 2018, so Australia is looking very hard at the next generation of fighters. --Robert Merkel 02:41, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If the F-35 doesn't have supercruise, we need to amend the [F-35 Joint Strike Fighter] page. BTW, the Wikipedia doesn't like it when you follow a ULR with a ")" -- Cabalamat 03:34, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've ammended the supercruise speed to M1.3, based on information at http://www.eurofighter.starstreak.net/Eurofighter/engines.html . I'm going to reword the section on Combat Performance to make it more NPOV. -- Cabalamat 16:11, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Hi User:Sugarfish, I like the new picture you put up. It shows very well how the plane looks from the top (I'm sure there's a better way to say that :-)). One thing I'm not sure about is my decision to have a separate section with pictures in it; perhaps we should revert to having the pictures alongside the text, to the right of it (making the pictures smaller might be useful in that case). Thoughts? -- Cabalamat 23:12, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think the general policy is to have the images inline with the text, but sometimes many images of aircraft are needed to get a good general picture of different variants in different roles. If more images are added in future, it could end up dominating the article. -- sugarfish 02:19, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That sounds sensible. Perhaps best if we leave the images where they are for now -- Cabalamat 02:46, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Agreed! -- sugarfish 06:48, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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David, if you're going to add a table at the top (something which I'd prefer doing without, since it is both too complex as it stands using HTML (maybe we'll get a Wiki-markup table soon), and also IMO makes the page look unbalanced and badly laid out), please fill in the values. Don't just leave them blank. -- Cabalamat 00:31, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Its inriguing that on the RAF's website the aircraft is listed under "Offensive aircraft" with the Harrier, GR4 and Jaguar not under "Defensive aircraft" with the Sentry and F3. The RAF are really pushing the "multi-role" tag aren't they! Mark 15:29, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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It's odd to start the article by saying the Typhoon is "very similar to the US-German Rockwell-MBB X-31 prototype". This seems to imply the development of the Typhoon owes something to that project, but I've never heard any evidence of that. The only major similarity is that both use canard-delta layouts, and the British had already been trying such designs in the preliminary work that led to the Typhoon even before it became a multinational project. Anyway, it's a layout that predates both aircraft. And there the similarities end. The X-31 was built specifically to investigate thrust vectoring, a technology that the Typhoon does not employ. - --Sergeirichard 15:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)