eurofighter better than 210million f35

[Toma]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f...fighter-2013-2

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f...fighter-2013-2

[Go4Long]

From another forum discussing the same article:

There is no one simple answer to this.

The Eurofighter and F-35 are very different designs with very different concepts of operation.

The Eurofighter was designed primarily for air to air with a heavy emphasis on speed and maneuverability, particularly at higher speeds and altitudes.

The F-35 was designed primarily as a strike fighter, dangerous in an air to air mission, but with a design optimized to carry out long-range strike missions as well.

At lower speeds(transonic and below) and altitudes where the F-35 is optimized the two will offer similar performance. At higher speeds and altitudes the Eurofighter has the advantage.

Overall a Eurofighter will have a kinematic advantage over an F-35 while an F-35 will have a large advantage in stealth/situational awareness and avionics in general.

It isn't really a question of who would kill who to determine which is "better." That is almost exclusively something fanboys concern themselves with.

In the real world the question is one of how each plane fits into the broader system. The Eurofighter is faster and more maneuverable, but it needs to be as that is primarily how it fights and survives. The F-35 is neither slow nor unmaneuverable, but by virtue of its stealth it can operate places a Eurofighter can not and generally possess a lot of advantages that a Eurofighter doesn't.

Putting things another way by paraphrasing an old joke...

"A Spitfire pilot and a Mustang pilot are arguing in a bar about who's plane is better. The discussion goes around and around with nothing being decided. Eventually, the Spitfire pilot, growing exasperated, proposes they settle the matter in the sky the next morning. The Mustang pilot agrees instantly and says, "I will see you at 0900 over Berlin." The Spitfire pilot responds, "That is too far, my plane can't get there," to which the Mustang pilot replied... "Too bad, that is where the fight is."

Much of the F-35's design is driven in one way or another by a need to get there. The F-35's stealth allows it to operate places the Eurofighter can not. The F-35B and C's ability to land on carriers or operate from short strips gives them the ability to operate from places the Typhoon can't. These attributes are extremely valuable to air and naval air forces, but they forced trade-offs in the F-35's design that limited its raw kinematic performance.

If I were going to pick a plane for a "fair" BFM exercise, clean jets, no pre-merge shots, etc etc... I would pick the Typhoon over the F-35.

If I were going to pick a plane to go to war in where anything goes I would pick the F-35 without a second thought.

The F-35's stealth and sensors will buy it crucial moments to build an understanding of potentially lethal situations. It will allow the F-35 pilot to maneuver to a position of advantage and take high percentage shots against unwitting or less-witting opponents, or if the F-35 pilot decides, to avoid a fight altogether.

In a few years when F-35's start showing up at various exercises, etc, expect to see the usual nitwits brag about their favorite plane beating F-35's in the usual mock dogfights with restrictive rules that take away most of the F-35's advantages. At the same time... expect to hear glowing reports on the effectiveness of F-35s in more realistic scenarios like Red Flag.

In summary, an F-35 with Meteors in its bays isn't the same thing as a Eurofighter with Meteors... but both are exceptionally unpleasant aircraft for an adversary to have to deal with.


Addendum (a few extra thoughts):

1. This assumes the F-35 never develops the 360 degree engagement capability (paired with a missile like Stunner/Python-6 and/or Cuda) envisioned for it, which would largely remove the relevance of most BFM.

2. We spend a ridiculous amount of time going over air-to-air scenarios, when in fact they make up a tiny percentage of the threat. In an air-to-ground scenario the F-35 will win across the board, including kinematically.

3. Missiles like Meteor do not benefit from high/fast launches as much as an AMRAAM. It is always better to launch high and fast, but the difference will be smaller.

here's the thread...lots of opinions...fill your boots.
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewt...a74b3a1e0.html

and my personal favorite:

Methinks the Eurofighter pilot that was interviwed was feeling a bit defensive about his airplane. I'm quite certain that the JSF would lose in a manuvering contest against the EF. I'm just as certain that the EF2000 wouldn't even know a Lightning II was in the area before it was fried like chicken. 5th gen fighters are in a different league than their decades-old 4th/4.5 gen counterparts. Simply put, the F-35 is the better air-to-air machine. But there is no way you'd want to go toe-to-toe with an EF2000 in the dogfight with an F-35, even with the JSF's sensors.

and fly away cost on the F-35 is still <$100 million a piece, all other numbers quoted are including service costs over 40 years, cost of simulators, ground hardware, replacement engines, etc.

This should just be merged with the other already started F-35 thread, since this is all the same info that's been spouted 100 times over...by you alone.

All these articles claiming one plane is "better" than another focus on a specific aspect, or a specific performance variable and say that THIS is the reason why this plane is better, it's like saying that a Chevy volt is better than a corvette because it gets better gas mileage...awesome, but what if you were building a race car? is a chevy volt still the better choice?

[jutes]

Toma go home, you are drunk.

[95EagleAWD]

The fact of the matter is, we could buy Eurofighters tomorrow and have them in service next year or wait what's going to be another ten years for the F-35. The RAF seems to be pretty happy with the Typhoon...

[Go4Long]

Originally posted by 95EagleAWD
The fact of the matter is, we could buy Eurofighters tomorrow and have them in service next year or wait what's going to be another ten years for the F-35. The RAF seems to be pretty happy with the Typhoon...

But are still purchasing the F-35...shouldn't that tell you something?

In fact speculation has them REPLACING their typhoon fleet with F-35's...seriously...why don't we buy their used typhoons so we can be WAY behind? Sounds like a really awesome idea. Again, apples to apples the F-35 is the aircraft you want to go up against any of these other aircrafts with.

I could MAYBE see a positive argument for the Gripen NG based on a couple of different factors, but it's still not going to take down an F-35 squadron. To see its strong points you have to do the same thing this article does, focus on the specific aspects you want to, and leave out the big picture.

[e31]

Lately, I've been thinking that Canada should shit-can the F-35 and market it's own missile system called Bomarc 2 out of spite. Hopefully, it would then crush the American military complex the same way it decimated Canadian aeronautics, with compound interest.

After all, history has been said to repeat itself right?

[Xtrema]

I thought euro fighter is more comparable to F22.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[jutes]

Originally posted by 95EagleAWD
The fact of the matter is, we could buy Eurofighters tomorrow and have them in service next year or wait what's going to be another ten years for the F-35. The RAF seems to be pretty happy with the Typhoon...

We could buy F35's tomorrow if we wanted to. Eurofighters were built mainly to deal with A/A threats, they are still having problems integrating it for A/G missions. During the Libya bombing campaign RAF Tornado's had to identify and laser the targets for the Typhoons.

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Then we could market our awesome Canadian fighter to the world

No one is going to buy it, not even our own Air Force. Canada DOESN'T have the industrial complex to undertake such a massive program. It would cost billions of dollars just to set it up and there is no guarantee other countries will buy it. The US is the leader in the fighter jet world right now and it would be stupid not to just buy off the shelf. Wasting an exorbitant amount of money based on national pride and nostalgia is retarded and no sane government will fund it. Maybe the NDP.

[revelations]

Originally posted by jutes
No one is going to buy it, not even our own Air Force. Canada DOESN'T have the industrial complex to undertake such a massive program. It would cost billions of dollars just to set it up and there is no guarantee other countries will buy it. The US is the leader in the fighter jet world right now and it would be stupid not to just buy off the shelf. Wasting an exorbitant amount of money based on national pride and nostalgia is retarded and no sane government will fund it. Maybe the NDP.

We wouldnt see a fighter out of Canada until 2025 at least if we started from scratch with our own. We simply lack the experience to build war planes now - unless we offered disgruntled American enginners and designers top dollar to come work here of course.


In the end (10 years from now) the F35 will be a viable workhorse. It will be like the Swiss army knife of fighters. No other aircraft in the world can claim this. Switching roles and targets at the push of a button.

But in the meantime, well have to deal with the issues.

[Go4Long]

Not to mention the timeline. People seem to forget that the concept of the F-35 originated in the mid 90's. Even if they started today, in a non-existent production facility run by a non-existent company (Bombardier has a 2 year backlog of orders on hugely profitable business jets, they've had plenty of time to get in to defense contracting and haven't) we still wouldn't even begin flight testing in time to replace the hornets which we've already started scavenging to keep them flying...MAYBE we could have a replacement for the F-35 if they started working on the design today.

The arrow II concept was a paper airplane, it's a sketch with imaginary specs based on imaginary engines in an imaginary plane, it doesn't exist. Even if it was turned into a real design it would even more obsolete than our current hornets by the time it hit the sky.

Also, I think Jutes' estimate of it costing billions is a little short, starting a defense company from scratch and designing a plane from scratch would probably run more like into the trillions of dollars.

[Darell_n]

Originally posted by jutes
Canada DOESN'T have the industrial complex to undertake such a massive program.

Canada designs and builds more than a few planes already. Small unknown company named Bombardier.

[badatusrnames]

Originally posted by Darell_n


Canada designs and builds more than a few planes already. Small unknown company named Bombardier.

Pretty different airplanes than a 5th generation fighter aircraft...it's like saying a manufacturer of buses is going to all of a sudden starting making F1 cars.

[jutes]

Originally posted by Darell_n


Canada designs and builds more than a few planes already. Small unknown company named Bombardier.

What is their experience with fighters? None. Lockheed Martin has decades under their belt building, testing and gaining knowledge. What do we have? Even if we managed to build a frame we'd still need US-made Avionics, hardware and engines so what is the damn point?

[lilmira]

But they stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night.

[e31]

It appears that none of you understood what I meant. Look into the history of the Avro Arrow, and how it was killed off in part due to a missile system (Bomarc) being pushed by the US. My suggestion was simply to reverse the roles played in the 50's (because it worked so well in our favor back then...)

[jutes]

Originally posted by e31
It appears that none of you understood what I meant. Look into the history of the Avro Arrow, and how it was killed off in part due to a missile system (Bomarc) being pushed by the US. My suggestion was simply to reverse the roles played in the 50's (because it worked so well in our favor back then...)

What good will that do? BTW, the Arrow was killed off because it was a useless piece of shit that the Canadian Forces didn't even want. Great, Canada builds a fighter jet that no one wants, but at least we are awesome because we can? It's one thing building something its an entirely different thing selling it.

[revelations]

Originally posted by e31
Lately, I've been thinking that Canada should shit-can the F-35 and market it's own missile system called Bomarc 2 out of spite. Hopefully, it would then crush the American military complex the same way it decimated Canadian aeronautics, with compound interest.

After all, history has been said to repeat itself right?

How is a missile going to intercept and identify a intruder or hostile aircraft?

How is a missile system going to join other NATO members in war and offer air support for ground troops?

[Sugarphreak]

...

[jutes]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
[B]

You seem to be under the impression that we (Canadian engineering, Aeronautical and aerospace firms) don't have the technical expertise to execute a project like this, and I have to disagree. Canad is usually at the forefront of major design innovations and technologies, we have a proven history in it.

I think we are too far behind in the game to undertake something like this. I don't believe its achievable considering the tight fiscal budgets we are under right now. Now if we stopped payments to the First Nations in Canada and transferred them over to a Canadian Fighter Jet building program then I'd support it.

I don't really understand why nobody would want something that is equal to or better than some US jet that has a ridiculous price tag on it. F-35 is still built and designed by people, not gods.

LM is a massive company with US government money behind it and they are still struggling to build the F35 on time and on budget. Canada would have a really hard time building something better than or equal to the F35 under the same budget with zero experience building stealth fighters. It's one thing saying we can, its another actually doing it.