They ran out of elephants, otherwise they could have just got them to sit on EE Lightnings and produce Rafales.
Eurofighter Typhoon - Updates and Discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
How is called the shit of an elephant ?
....
An Eurofighter !
....
An Eurofighter !
No.
I know what the elephant in the advert was doing when it sat down on the bonnet now. It was installing the engine.
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You guys could have fixed your aerospace industry if you went out and bought an elephant, a real elephant, but then you decided to go for a white elephant from America instead.
Eurofighter AESA Radar Program Splits into Three
PARIS --- The €1.5 billion contract recently awarded to Germany’s Hensoldt for the development and production of a new AESA radar for Eurofighter is a direct consequence of the 2018 break-up of the original Euroradar project into three separate programs.
Instead of pursuing the original Captor-E radar that will be fitted to the Eurofighters delivered to Kuwait and Qatar (as well as the next batch of Typhoons for Saudi Arabia, if it enters production), the four partner nations separated into two groups because of differing operational requirements.
Germany and Spain decided to jointly fund the development and retrofit of a new radar, provisionally dubbed E-Scan Common Radar System (ECRS) Mk. 1, for their own Eurofighters because their operational requirements differ from those of Italy and the United Kingdom, the other two partners in the Eurofighter consortium.
Captor-E design refresh
Another reason is that the technology of the basic Captor-E is now over a decade old, and so requires modernization, a spokesman for Hensoldt said July 1. The resulting ECRS Mk 1 radar will be jointly developed by German systems house Hensoldt and its Spanish partner Indra, and is the object of the €1.5 billion contract announced July 1.
In parallel, Italy and the UK are teamed on a separate project, dubbed ECRS Mk. 2, managed by Leonardo Italy and Leonardo UK, although there has been no indication of any government funding for this effort. Both Italy and the UK operate Lockheed F-35 aircraft alongside their Eurofighters, and neither has yet announced plans to retrofit the latter with AESA radars.
Both the Mk 1 program and the Mk 2 project are derived from the original Captor-E electronically scanned digital antenna array radar developed under a November 2014 contract awarded by the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) to the Eurofighter consortium. The Captor-E prototype antenna first flew in May 2007 on Eurofighter Development Aircraft 5, but it took seven years for the full-scale development contract to be awarded.
Confusion allows marketing license
While a certain confusion is maintained by the use of different names, the fact is that there are now three different AESA radars for Eurofighter, albeit all derived from the same Captor mechanically-scanned radar (originally called ECR-90) fitted to all Eurofighters.
The German Ministry of Defence announced June 8 that the “Bundeswehr is authorized to conclude four contracts with a total volume of around 2.8 billion euros for new radar technology for the Eurofighter.”
The statement added that these funds will pay to pay for the procurement of “the most modern AESA electronically-scanned radars, including multi-channel receivers to exploit the performance potential of this future-oriented technology, are to be developed and integrated into the Eurofighter.”
“The procurement of the already developed radar hardware should run parallel to the development of the final software. In the middle of the 2020s, the new radar system should then be available with full capabilities,” German MoD said.
The resulting ECRS Mk 1 radar “will then have improved detection and identification options with higher immunity to interference… an important contribution to the capabilities and survivability of the Eurofighter.”
Convoluted contract arrangements
The contractual arrangements are also somewhat confusing, and added to the use of multiple names allow participants considerable latitude to claim involvement in the EASA radar program.
“Due to the special construction of the Eurofighter consortium, NETMA signed the contract with Eurofighter GmbH, which forwarded the contract to Airbus Defense and Space, and Airbus signed,” an Airbus spokesman said July 2.
“Hensoldt and Indra have closed a cooperation agreement to jointly develop and produce the ECRS Mk 1 in a consortium. The subcontract went from Airbus to Hensoldt as the consortium lead, with a significant portion passed on directly to Indra,” which is not a subcontractor but a full partner, the Hensoldt spokesman said.
The original contract for 115 E-SCAN radars was announced by Airbus on June 25. This work was then subcontracted by Airbus to Hensoldt, the leader of a separate consortium with Spain’s Indra.
Eurofighter GmbH, the industry consortium which is nominally the program’s main contractor, announced July 1 having signed the ESCAN radar contract with NETMA. In its press release, company CEO Herman Claesen said “we are again demonstrating our collective commitment towards the continued development of Eurofighter Typhoon operational capability,” which is clearly not the case as only Germany and Spain are buying AESA radars.
Furthermore, although it’s eager to jump onto the bandwagon, Eurofighter GmbH's role is limited to managing the relationship between the four Eurofighter Core nations.
Technology improvements
Hensoldt says the just-awarded ECRS Mk 1 contracts cover a new German-Spanish development of new core components – including a digital multi-channel receiver and transmitter/receiver antenna modules – which a company spokesman says “will make the Eurofighter much more capable of meeting future threats over the coming decades.”
“This means that pilots in the Eurofighter will be better able to detect and engage air-to-air and air-to-ground targets. Several targets will be can be tracked and engaged simultaneously and independently of one another,” the German Ministry of Defence said June 8.
Hensoldt’s contracts include equipping about 130 Eurofighter aircraft of Tranches two and three. The development is being carried out by a Spanish-German industrial consortium under German leadership with the support of the Eurofighter nations Great Britain and Italy, the company said in its July 1 press release.
The difference between the 115 radars mentioned by Airbus and the 130 mentioned by Helsoldt is due to a change in the timing of the Spanish procurement. Spain has up to now ordered the first five Mk 1 radars, and plans to order another 17 in 2021, for a total of 22, an Airbus spokesman said July 2.
This will be an essential upgrade for the German and Spanish Eurofighters, which are still fitted with the original Captor radar that is now nearly 30 years old.
So, they begin the development
PARIS --- The €1.5 billion contract recently awarded to Germany’s Hensoldt for the development and production of a new AESA radar for Eurofighter is a direct consequence of the 2018 break-up of the original Euroradar project into three separate programs.
Instead of pursuing the original Captor-E radar that will be fitted to the Eurofighters delivered to Kuwait and Qatar (as well as the next batch of Typhoons for Saudi Arabia, if it enters production), the four partner nations separated into two groups because of differing operational requirements.
Germany and Spain decided to jointly fund the development and retrofit of a new radar, provisionally dubbed E-Scan Common Radar System (ECRS) Mk. 1, for their own Eurofighters because their operational requirements differ from those of Italy and the United Kingdom, the other two partners in the Eurofighter consortium.
Captor-E design refresh
Another reason is that the technology of the basic Captor-E is now over a decade old, and so requires modernization, a spokesman for Hensoldt said July 1. The resulting ECRS Mk 1 radar will be jointly developed by German systems house Hensoldt and its Spanish partner Indra, and is the object of the €1.5 billion contract announced July 1.
In parallel, Italy and the UK are teamed on a separate project, dubbed ECRS Mk. 2, managed by Leonardo Italy and Leonardo UK, although there has been no indication of any government funding for this effort. Both Italy and the UK operate Lockheed F-35 aircraft alongside their Eurofighters, and neither has yet announced plans to retrofit the latter with AESA radars.
Both the Mk 1 program and the Mk 2 project are derived from the original Captor-E electronically scanned digital antenna array radar developed under a November 2014 contract awarded by the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) to the Eurofighter consortium. The Captor-E prototype antenna first flew in May 2007 on Eurofighter Development Aircraft 5, but it took seven years for the full-scale development contract to be awarded.
Confusion allows marketing license
While a certain confusion is maintained by the use of different names, the fact is that there are now three different AESA radars for Eurofighter, albeit all derived from the same Captor mechanically-scanned radar (originally called ECR-90) fitted to all Eurofighters.
The German Ministry of Defence announced June 8 that the “Bundeswehr is authorized to conclude four contracts with a total volume of around 2.8 billion euros for new radar technology for the Eurofighter.”
The statement added that these funds will pay to pay for the procurement of “the most modern AESA electronically-scanned radars, including multi-channel receivers to exploit the performance potential of this future-oriented technology, are to be developed and integrated into the Eurofighter.”
“The procurement of the already developed radar hardware should run parallel to the development of the final software. In the middle of the 2020s, the new radar system should then be available with full capabilities,” German MoD said.
The resulting ECRS Mk 1 radar “will then have improved detection and identification options with higher immunity to interference… an important contribution to the capabilities and survivability of the Eurofighter.”
Convoluted contract arrangements
The contractual arrangements are also somewhat confusing, and added to the use of multiple names allow participants considerable latitude to claim involvement in the EASA radar program.
“Due to the special construction of the Eurofighter consortium, NETMA signed the contract with Eurofighter GmbH, which forwarded the contract to Airbus Defense and Space, and Airbus signed,” an Airbus spokesman said July 2.
“Hensoldt and Indra have closed a cooperation agreement to jointly develop and produce the ECRS Mk 1 in a consortium. The subcontract went from Airbus to Hensoldt as the consortium lead, with a significant portion passed on directly to Indra,” which is not a subcontractor but a full partner, the Hensoldt spokesman said.
The original contract for 115 E-SCAN radars was announced by Airbus on June 25. This work was then subcontracted by Airbus to Hensoldt, the leader of a separate consortium with Spain’s Indra.
Eurofighter GmbH, the industry consortium which is nominally the program’s main contractor, announced July 1 having signed the ESCAN radar contract with NETMA. In its press release, company CEO Herman Claesen said “we are again demonstrating our collective commitment towards the continued development of Eurofighter Typhoon operational capability,” which is clearly not the case as only Germany and Spain are buying AESA radars.
Furthermore, although it’s eager to jump onto the bandwagon, Eurofighter GmbH's role is limited to managing the relationship between the four Eurofighter Core nations.
Technology improvements
Hensoldt says the just-awarded ECRS Mk 1 contracts cover a new German-Spanish development of new core components – including a digital multi-channel receiver and transmitter/receiver antenna modules – which a company spokesman says “will make the Eurofighter much more capable of meeting future threats over the coming decades.”
“This means that pilots in the Eurofighter will be better able to detect and engage air-to-air and air-to-ground targets. Several targets will be can be tracked and engaged simultaneously and independently of one another,” the German Ministry of Defence said June 8.
Hensoldt’s contracts include equipping about 130 Eurofighter aircraft of Tranches two and three. The development is being carried out by a Spanish-German industrial consortium under German leadership with the support of the Eurofighter nations Great Britain and Italy, the company said in its July 1 press release.
The difference between the 115 radars mentioned by Airbus and the 130 mentioned by Helsoldt is due to a change in the timing of the Spanish procurement. Spain has up to now ordered the first five Mk 1 radars, and plans to order another 17 in 2021, for a total of 22, an Airbus spokesman said July 2.
This will be an essential upgrade for the German and Spanish Eurofighters, which are still fitted with the original Captor radar that is now nearly 30 years old.
So, they begin the development
€ 1.5 billion in 2014 for the joint AESA, € 2.8 billion in 2020 for the German AESA...the radar is expensive , 33 million € cost for the moment ...
EFT guys just cant stop making a fool of themselves. They have crossed all limits.
How many of the 143 EFT of Germany, 96 of Italy , 73 of Spain and 160 of UK are Tranche 1 aircrafts? And what are their OSDs?
You have some reason to fear what the future of the FCAS will be like. Both these countries are your partners and France will eventually become susceptible to their pressure when it comes to R&D workshare.
I think that it is Macron's will to cooperate with the Germans, but it will be a failure like the Typhoon because French industry will not agree to give too large a share to incompetent people. We'll end up alone or in cooperation with the Indians....
I think that it is Macron's will to cooperate with the Germans, but it will be a failure like the Typhoon because French industry will not agree to give too large a share to incompetent people. We'll end up alone or in cooperation with the Indians....
Any joint venture outside Europe can possibly mean loss of autonomy for France. So even if Dassault might be willing to cooperate with India, the DGA may not. I think that will be the biggest roadblock from the French side for any French-Indian JV. In India's case, it may undermine AMCA. I'm not sure if India will be able to afford a second expensive next gen program alongside AMCA. So lack of finance and will is going to be our biggest roadblocks. But you never know, it may be possible for India to replace FGFA with FCAS instead.
However some sort of JV might be possible between India and France in the loyal wingman aspect of the FCAS. India lacks an air superiority component of our own loyal wingman program due to our engine troubles.
I agree with your assessment about Germany. There's no way FCAS will succeed with Germany as a partner. And they will ensure the program will become unaffordable for everyone involved. And they will put up roadblocks for exports to some countries. But I also don't believe Dassault will be given too much of a choice when it comes to choosing partners due to political compulsions.
Where I think France and India can actively collaborate is when it comes to true next gen aircraft, like the ones that can operate in space or near-space. That will require both of us pooling in resources and minds in order to compete with the US and China.
Why not the tempest? The British design seems much more realistic. BAE and RR have both experience in working on the f35 program and also the f22 for RR. Working with the British would actually result in better gains for us and we do have good lobby that can drum up pro indian sentiment among the Brits. Everything of the NGF has been very vague from the dummy models to any actual concrete designs. The Brits have actually shown much more objectives of how the tempest would be. Also RR and BAE is also supplying components for the Turkish and Japanese fifth gen designs. Plus they seem to be much more desperate than the French so we could arm twist if we wanted.
And we still have su57 there is going to be su60mki most probably so we may not even be buying any Western European system...
Right now both programs are nothing more than paper models, so both are at the same starting point. Both are expected to fly by 2025.
You can't arm twist anybody when it comes to these technologies. Everything that you have seen or read about Tempest is something you will find in MWF. Unmanned flight, AI, advanced cockpit, loyal wingman, CEC etc. A lot of next gen technologies will become operational on MWF before finding their way into AMCA.
Our only weakness is engine tech. But we do not have to enter FCAS or Tempest for it. It's not like they will give us ToT and IPR on their main engines. So we're gonna have to make do with what they can provide us today and then we have to improve on that.
FGFA is from a totally different timeline, it's expected to become operational between 2025-30, and we need some due to a critical need. Tempest and FCAS are only expected to become ready between 2035 (Tempest) and 2040 (FCAS). And knowing how both countries work, the fully developed aircraft will take a lot longer than that, so add at least 5 more years extra. And by the time India decides to buy either, it will be well after 2045. So any procurement decision for FGFA will have no bearing on FCAS or Tempest.
Rather it's more likely that we will start another project alongside AMCA Mk2 that will become our FCAS/Tempest equivalent for induction post-2040. We need a new aircraft that will replace our MKIs after 2045. The Europeans are hoping that will be FCAS/Tempest, but we should be hoping it's our own design.
I think that it is Macron's will to cooperate with the Germans, but it will be a failure like the Typhoon because French industry will not agree to give too large a share to incompetent people. We'll end up alone or in cooperation with the Indians....
Spain , Germany are surely technically more competent than any non existent Indian alternative. The Indian partners only job in an hypothetical JV will be funding and integration of Indian weapons on the platform.
The French are flexible when dealing with a non western power, in this case us. UK ain't. We failed to even complete the follow on deal for 20 BAE HAWKS very recently pretty much sums everything up.
Some explanations on the program:
1) The Captor-E development contract, concluded in November 2014, was based on a specification that defined the hardware and software requirements. This configuration is also called Radar 1+. The software had to be almost completely redeveloped and functioned completely differently from the existing Captor-M. In terms of hardware, the receiver and processor were retained. The antenna, travelling-wave tube, transmission and auxiliary transmission unit were replaced by the new AESA antenna with a dual swach plate and an antenna control and power supply unit.
2) For export, a temporary solution based on the above Hardware configuration with software based on that of the planned existing Captor-M adapted to the new hardware configuration. A separate specification has been written for this and this version of the Captor-E is commonly referred to as ECRS Mk0. This is the version for export customers such as Kuwait or Qatar.
3) From the beginning, the company focused on modular hardware and software. The British had special requests for their version of the Captor-E, which were not covered by the quadri-national Radar 1+ specification. For this reason, an advanced version called Radar 2 was mentioned early on.
4) It became clear very early on that some of the specified capabilities of Radar 1+ could not be implemented with the targeted hardware configuration, which prompted the German side to make additional requests. After a study phase called EEER (Eurofighter Enhanced E-Scan Radar), the ECRS programme was finally launched. Against this background, both the Germans and the British saw the need for more modern equipment, particularly with regard to the receiver. The possibilities of a standardised development were therefore explored.
5) The planned joint development, hence the name ECRS (Eurofighter Common Radar System), was only partially feasible, resulting in three variants. I have already roughly described the Mk0 version under 2).
6) The ECRS Mk1 has now switched to the German / Spanish solution. It is based on the Mk0 version and receives a modified antenna and the new multi-channel receiver. The processor and the antenna control and power supply unit are only adapted on the software side. Since the software specified in the Radar 1+ contract requires more extensive modifications to the overall weapon system, which are only possible with P4E, the existing software of the Mk0 is initially used and the new software is introduced retrospectively, probably with P4E.
7) The British Mk2 will be equipped with a completely different antenna, a modified antenna control and power supply unit, a new processor, a new receiver and an additional device. So far only one system definition has been ordered for this version, after which a development order will then take place. The software for Mk1 and Mk2 will then initially be set up on a common basis before forcing development according to national requirements. More independence from the British and more control over the development of the radars are decisive factors for the development of Mk1 and the assumption of the responsibility for the development of the Mk1 version by the German side.
I don't know when they will introduce GaN ....
What about the Italians?Some explanations on the program:
1) The Captor-E development contract, concluded in November 2014, was based on a specification that defined the hardware and software requirements. This configuration is also called Radar 1+. The software had to be almost completely redeveloped and functioned completely differently from the existing Captor-M. In terms of hardware, the receiver and processor were retained. The antenna, travelling-wave tube, transmission and auxiliary transmission unit were replaced by the new AESA antenna with a dual swach plate and an antenna control and power supply unit.
2) For export, a temporary solution based on the above Hardware configuration with software based on that of the planned existing Captor-M adapted to the new hardware configuration. A separate specification has been written for this and this version of the Captor-E is commonly referred to as ECRS Mk0. This is the version for export customers such as Kuwait or Qatar.
3) From the beginning, the company focused on modular hardware and software. The British had special requests for their version of the Captor-E, which were not covered by the quadri-national Radar 1+ specification. For this reason, an advanced version called Radar 2 was mentioned early on.
4) It became clear very early on that some of the specified capabilities of Radar 1+ could not be implemented with the targeted hardware configuration, which prompted the German side to make additional requests. After a study phase called EEER (Eurofighter Enhanced E-Scan Radar), the ECRS programme was finally launched. Against this background, both the Germans and the British saw the need for more modern equipment, particularly with regard to the receiver. The possibilities of a standardised development were therefore explored.
5) The planned joint development, hence the name ECRS (Eurofighter Common Radar System), was only partially feasible, resulting in three variants. I have already roughly described the Mk0 version under 2).
6) The ECRS Mk1 has now switched to the German / Spanish solution. It is based on the Mk0 version and receives a modified antenna and the new multi-channel receiver. The processor and the antenna control and power supply unit are only adapted on the software side. Since the software specified in the Radar 1+ contract requires more extensive modifications to the overall weapon system, which are only possible with P4E, the existing software of the Mk0 is initially used and the new software is introduced retrospectively, probably with P4E.
7) The British Mk2 will be equipped with a completely different antenna, a modified antenna control and power supply unit, a new processor, a new receiver and an additional device. So far only one system definition has been ordered for this version, after which a development order will then take place. The software for Mk1 and Mk2 will then initially be set up on a common basis before forcing development according to national requirements. More independence from the British and more control over the development of the radars are decisive factors for the development of Mk1 and the assumption of the responsibility for the development of the Mk1 version by the German side.
I don't know when they will introduce GaN ....