How good is the Eurofighter?

[Sanjuro]

F-15 and Flanker simply because they are both bigger aircraft with more powerful engines

Being bigger aircraft, they need more powerful engines... both are considerably heavier than the Typhoon, and have larger RCS than the Typhoon just on the basis of size.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

Being bigger aircraft, they need more powerful engines... both are considerably heavier than the Typhoon, and have larger RCS than the Typhoon just on the basis of size.

Well size is part of the problem with the Typhoon, as its not big enough to realy compete with the F-22, F-15 and Flanker series aircraft as it's in the F-18 class. The Typhoon is excellent at what it was designed for; supersonic BVR interception and close in combat at transonic speeds, but it lacks the range to truely compete beyond its optimum combat range with the F-15 and Flanker who's size may better allow for upgrades to engines, sensors and weapons which could erode any advantage that the Typhoon currently has. The Typhoon is not a stealth aircraft, but information from the RAF suggests that its radar signature is about one quarter of the Tornado F.3 its replacing. Author Doug Richardson claims that the RCS value of the Typhoon in clean configuration is less than one square metre, which if true makes the Typhoon at least twice as stealthy as the Rafale and 20 times better than a Su-30MKI. However the RCS of the Russian Air Forces latest Su-35BM is believed to be fairly close to the Typhoon which is an example of how the radar signature an aircraft of the Flanker series can be upgraded, in addition to improvements in aerodynamics, sensors, engine power, payload carriage and general performance.


BTW I'm sourcing a lot of my data from http://www.ausairpower.net/index.html which is an excellent and well informed site on a whole range of air defence subjects and topics.

[Sanjuro]

Although the SU35 (a derivative of the SU27) has a much lower RCS than the SU27, that does not mean the SU27 can be retrofitted to have that lower RCS.
In most ways, the smaller size of the Typhoon is an advantage in air combat- at close range smaller means harder to see. The size of the F15 (dictated by having a large enough nose for its radar) has been recognised as a problem since the 1970s- USAF exercises gave the F5 a surprising number of victories against the F15.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

Although the SU35 (a derivative of the SU27) has a much lower RCS than the SU27, that does not mean the SU27 can be retrofitted to have that lower RCS.
In most ways, the smaller size of the Typhoon is an advantage in air combat- at close range smaller means harder to see. The size of the F15 (dictated by having a large enough nose for its radar) has been recognised as a problem since the 1970s- USAF exercises gave the F5 a surprising number of victories against the F15.

The point I was trying to make is that with aircraft like the F-15 and Flanker you don't have to spend countless billions on designing new aircraft to achieve effective results. I don't know how much the Eurofighter cost but I believe it has been one of the most expensive defence projects ever. Russia basicaly redesigned and reinforced the basic airframe of newbuild Flankers with better alloys, reduced the front radar signature, added fly-by-wire, improved its avionics, radar and sensor suite, improved the engine and gave it limited supercruise ability and added fully rotating vectoring thrust nozzles for a small fraction of the cost of the Typhoon, and the result is a very powerful and advanced fighter with good stealth capabilities which is longer ranged and more versatile than the Typhoon.

The F-5 like the Typhoon was designed to be an agile short ranged air defence fighter, the F-15 was not. The Typhoon is very good at short ranged air defence, but if it has to operate beyond its optimum range it rapidly starts to loose any advantage it has over some of its more powerful rivals at short ranges. Therefore unless opposition air defences are technologically inferior or a high attrition/casualty rate is exceptable, the Typhoon is not very deployable and can't be used for air dominance over long ranges, which for the Typhon would be in access of 300 nautical miles.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Interesting to see that the Su-35 was essentially developed in the 1980s - maiden flight was 1988 meaning it could easily have a presence in ver.2 T2k timeline.

[Panther Al]

At the risk of sounding jingo-istic, I can't really buy into drinking the koolaid that people drink when it comes to russian designs.

It is a fact I'll accept that there has been a massive improvement over the cold war designs in Russian Fighter development, but not that much. Reliability is still the killer in Russian Aircraft. Everyone that has bought russian have all said the maintenance expenditures have all climbed to levels of total insanity. Particularly the engines. China might still be buying russian engines, but thats more a case of how bad Chinese High Performance Jet Engine development is going than anything else: they are spending vast sums trying to get a engine that is reliable in production. P&W has made some effort to develop replacement engines for the russian ones, but so far Russia sells them so cheap that no one has bit on the idea. The only real reason for russian aircraft sales has been based on cost more than capability. They are good: In fact Aerodynamically, they are *very* excellent, but they can not compete with top end western designs with less than a 3 to 1 ratio in favour of the russian birds. Quality of electronics counts for far more in the air than anywhere else.


Of course, the opinions here are just mine, and is only worth what those sorts are worth, but...

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Panther Al

At the risk of sounding jingo-istic, I can't really buy into drinking the koolaid that people drink when it comes to russian designs.

It is a fact I'll accept that there has been a massive improvement over the cold war designs in Russian Fighter development, but not that much. Reliability is still the killer in Russian Aircraft. Everyone that has bought russian have all said the maintenance expenditures have all climbed to levels of total insanity. Particularly the engines. China might still be buying russian engines, but thats more a case of how bad Chinese High Performance Jet Engine development is going than anything else: they are spending vast sums trying to get a engine that is reliable in production. P&W has made some effort to develop replacement engines for the russian ones, but so far Russia sells them so cheap that no one has bit on the idea. The only real reason for russian aircraft sales has been based on cost more than capability. They are good: In fact Aerodynamically, they are *very* excellent, but they can not compete with top end western designs with less than a 3 to 1 ratio in favour of the russian birds. Quality of electronics counts for far more in the air than anywhere else.


Of course, the opinions here are just mine, and is only worth what those sorts are worth, but...

I won't deny that reliability has been an issue with Russian aircraft, although what they export may not be as well built as what they build for themselves as no Russian aerospace designer or engineer wants to end up in a Russian prison. However the factor of a quality lag in current Russian designs may be misplaced and is perhaps a lingering Western notion from when such assumptions were justified about 20 years ago. If you look at some of the engine, sensor and weapon technology that goes into current Russian fighters, the technology gap between the West and Russia is not that great outside of stealth technology.

In engines the supercruise AL-31F-117C of the Su-35 has performance figures which may indicate that Russia has closed much of the gap America opened up with the F119/F135 family of the engines. FADEC systems are also available for a range of recent Russian engines, including the AL-31F-117C, and any lead America and Europe hold over Russian engines is largely down to maturity of software. To date the only Western fighter with thrust vectoring nozzles is the F-22, while Russia has already exported them in a range of Flanker variants.

In avionics Russia introduced quadruply redundant digital flight control systems back in the 1990’s and offers them on all Flankers, including Su-27 rebuilds. Russian fighters have also long used digital data links. Intraflight data link technology to network flights of fighters to share sensor data between multiple fighters is now offered on all Russian fighters, while inertial and satellite navigation equipment is also widely availability in the global market. All Russian fighters also use glass cockpits, and the Su-35 uses two large area panels similar to the projector screen arrangement of the F-35. What advantage the US and Europe hold over Russian technology in avionics is largely based upon the maturity of software and this gap is not expected to last for long, but America does retain a lead in wide areas of GPS technology.

In sensors Russian technology matches or in some cases exceeds current Western technology. The radar of the Mig-35 is of similar technology to the F-22, and the Su-35 has radar comparable to the Rafale’s with the largest antenna of any fighter, and a range similar to the F-22's APG-77. The Russians have also developed up-to-date radar pseudo-noise waveform coding techniques. America retains a lead in active module technology and software, but only the radar of the F-22 is better than Russian radars in range performance. In radar warning receivers, homing and warning systems and ESM the Russian Khibiny M system intended for Su-35 uses the same channelized receiver technology as the F-22, and any lead America or Europe has is based solely on software and gallium arsenide chip packaging. Russia also offers for export advanced radio frequency jammers such as DRFM and towed decoy. Some Russian jamming equipment is better than Western equivalents. The KNIRTI Sorbstiya jam pod carried by numerous Flankers has a wideband phased array RF stage that is more effective against monopulse emitters, and is more sophisticated than the wideband horn or lens emitters in Western fighters.

Since the end of the Cold War the Russians have seriously improved the technology they use in smart bombs. The KAB-500/1500 is available with lock-on-before launch electro-optical guidance comparable to the EGBU-15 series, semi-active laser homing guidance comparable to Paveway series, and satellite and inertial guidance comparable to the JDAM. Russia has also closed much of the former gap in active radar guided missiles, with the R-77 Adder's Agat and R-27 missile using the same American designed digital processors as most Western equivalents.

The Su-35BM/S Flanker outclasses almost every Western fighter at the moment in all round ability except for the F-22. Late model AESA equipped F-15’s would match a Su-35BM/S in some areas, and the Typhoon is superior to it in close combat agility and dash speed, but only an F-22 is significantly better than it. However by looking at the stats for the new Sukhoi PAK-FA the lead enjoyed by the F-22 over Russian fighters may not last to much longer.