Eurofighter Typhoon (UK versions) - Technical data and discussion

67 kilofeet

There is also always the question how much maneuverability any plane has even at its service ceiling

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That. Again, couldn’t tell you (though the only example I’ve read of an EFT going to anywhere near the service ceiling was on a transit flight in a straight line)

I can imagine the MiG-31 probably wouldn’t be best suited to turning… well… that much at high alt

A clean 229 F15E at 40k lbs.

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Now think of a f22 with high TWR and without the high drag of stores, you might see them coming high and faster than F15C( in the 50s) with small climb for a loft( or not if rcs is high showing the belly) at these alts. Only china other than the US approaches a high /fast low rcs threat in that area with the j20.

Maneuverability, it’s a fin thing. Not a motor type issue. You can’t generate enough lift up there. And planes aren’t maneuverable enough, like what 1-2°/s turn rate, if fired from a relatively shorter range. Fuze “delay” would be a bigger problem, as it was with earlier F sparrows against test sr71s. If it didnt impact directly the fuze would activate but by the time it did the sparrow’s rod was well behind it.

That’s cool, do you know what kind of air to air missile is being developed?

for one there is the Fcaam iris-t succesor

RCM 2 as taurus / shadow succesor
image

JNAAM as meteor succesor

but seriously you are asking for missles that are mostly named as in development if anything concepts mock ups shown and are pretty unknown.
What the hell do you want to get out of it, you realy that desperate to try to get a one up because it we might not have been able to show them?
Dont even mind you wanting to start comparing them to russian missles propably and start your senseless rambling again and completly derailing threads in your favour

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JNAAM wont enter production, the Project has been finished. Japan started development of a new missile (said to reach Mach 7), but nothing more is known at the moment.

There is also Meteor MLU btw.

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yeah but mostly gen next missles,
MLU mostly a radar upgrade to aesa that guy was rambling again how meteor is “bad” at high altitudes to talk western stuff down etc etc.

but yeah like you have shown there is more missles in developments for the next gen fighters
i dont even know the german/french/spanish side one as of now and needed to search the ones i got

There was no ulterior motive to my question, I genuinely wanted to see what you were talking about since you brought them up. This hostile nature of your responses is exactly why the thread was locked previously so please behave yourself.

It’s interesting to see, the Meteor is being updated with an AESA seeker and they are developing dual pulse missiles otherwise over boost-sustain or boost-only types. Low radar cross section and potentially dual mode seekers are becoming the norm.

I’m interested to see if the Meteor ever finds itself used in real conflict or if it will be another Phoenix situation.

AFAIK the JNAAM project to stick an AAM-4B seeker on Meteor for F-35 use was cancelled. I don’t know for sure but I read somewhere that potentially France VETO’d it or it violated a part of the contract pertaining to France due to standard Meteor using a MICA-based seeker. Though its purely conjecture, all is known is that JNAAM Meteor ceased development.

I think the UK and Japan said they planned for a wholly new line of missiles to be used on Tempest including A2A, ASHM, A2G etc.

Maybe on the Tempest Prototype due to fly by 2027 and which BAE has confirmed is intended to release missiles from an internal bay they will use ‘legacy’ weapons like Meteor, ASRAAM, AAM-5, Brimstone/Spear 3, maybe some sort of cruise missile whether that be Storm Shadow or ASM-2.

A small sidenote, that one Is probably going for Germany and Spain only, Italy, France and the UK are going to use the FC/ASW series.

Wasnt there something about the US preventing the integration of Meteor into F-35 despite the UK being a Tier 1 partner? (totally not to peddle their own new missile)

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That sure is happening.

If Europe makes something new that isn’t 30 years late to the party maybe they could have their own unique unrestricted upgrade-able and modular design to work without sanctions and red tape.

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idk man, if the US missile tech wasnt so behind, they might be able to sell their missiles without having to backstab their allies

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Oh yes. As per usual, the Europeans aren’t allowed to have something that is better and exportable, because the angry little folk in Raytheon must have the best missile in the whole world…

Why else d’you think with ASRAAM Blk.6 we got rid of all export restricted components?

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but that’d be too hard, so instead the US just screws everyone by dragging their heels on the integration of a weapon they know to be superior… because that’d mean their own businesses lose out.

Novel idea, why doesn’t Raytheon make a good missile lmao.

So that people are driven to make better missiles and better technology in the West, as opposed to nuh-uhing each at every step of the way because Europeans couldn’t possibly make a better weapon

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I wouldn’t say the US is backstabbing their allies. That is a bit of a stretch… at least, not as bad as Rheinmetall / Germany has failed to support their customers for example.

The Meteor has a very convoluted history, the US defense industry is profit driven… anyone could have seen this coming. When NATO isn’t so dependent on the US for support you might see a change in the way these things go… until then, this is what you can expect.

In regards to being “behind” … that couldn’t be further from the truth. The US has been well ahead of other nations in many aspects from stealth, electro-thermal-chemical guns, radars, missile design, propellant performance, etc. Raw production capacity, research funding, etc all assists this.

I think one of the best ways to make my point is to look at the AMRAAM program. The initial designs from Raytheon were wingless tail controlled missiles similar to the ASRAAM. In fact, it was these studies that helped the UK develop the ASRAAM in the very beginning. The ASRAAM is built around the same design philosophy as the early AIM-120 models utilizing body lift.

Lockheed beat them to it I suppose.
https://aviationweek.com/term/lockheed-martin-aim-260-jatm

The irony being that the AIM-260 is a wingless body lift missile similar to ASRAAM design, and very similar to Raytheons original design contender for the AMRAAM program.

Also the same as Northrop’s design;

If I recall, the Meteor was also a wingless missile early in the development phase before it became what we know of it now, no?

Anyhow, the integration of weapons onto existing platforms has been a process absolutely strapped in red tape since the 70s. Look at the attempts to integrate the AIM-120 onto the F-14. The US sabotaged themselves in that respect, too. It’s all just politics.

Although they recently fielded a missile with considerably more range and higher NEZ than the Meteor… it just isn’t being fitted to any stealth fighter (soon?). ~600km range?

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fcaam might follow iris-t blk 2
rcm 2 is a remote carrier, not exactly like taurus
jnaam is just a research project. meteor MLU should get a similar seeker upgrade

It’s hugely off-topic but yes, and its also probably why the UK and Japan partnered on Tempest due to both of them being screwed over with regards to the source code 2 big economies with some of the worlds leading tech enemy-of-my-enemy type thing. (Though Japan just wanted the source code and got denied, whereas UK was legally entitled to it).

Spoiler

The US seems to have violated the original terms to the UK’s partnership on the JSF project which stated that the UK had the right to ‘Manufacture, modernise and maintain’ its F-35 fleet which necessitated the sharing of the aforementioned source code. As the only Tier 1 partner the UK was unique in this respect and this was the exchange for providing more funding than other partner nations and sharing more technologies (For example BAE Replica and P.125 stealth research was confirmed to be used on F-35, as well as the lift-fan systems, as well as general knowledge on RAM coating, avionics systems etc).

There was quite a debate as to whether the UK can technically claim to independently operate the F-35 as other nations cannot claim this. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmdfence/177/6121906.htm

Even so the UK basically either risked having to pay for and then wait domestic integration (and effectively became a tier 2 partner as far as I can find a distinction) or risk being removed from the project like Turkey if they caused a big deal over it (which jeopardised the UK’s national security having no 5th generation aircraft). So they elected for the first one.

They (along with Italy when it comes to Meteor) paid the money to integrate things like ASRAAM and Meteor and SPEAR, this if the source code had been shared could and should have been done by BAE in the UK, but unfortunately due to the refusal to share source code it can only be done by Lockheed Martin in the US at their Fort Worth facility.

MBDA modified the missile’s dimensions and software and made it fully compatible with F-35 on their end and then sent over the data to Lockheed. Who evidently did not hold up their end first delaying it and then changing the upgrade it was due to be part of. Evidently it all happened on Lockheeds timescales and Meteor will released as part of the P4 upgrade, which I believe is the same one AIM-260 will be part of, because they have time to integrate a whole new missile, but not speed up the upgrade despite being paid for it…

I disagree, if its big enough for the US’s biggest lapdog to have the minister in charge openly call out these companies on their BS then I think its pretty evident somethings going on behind the scenes.

I’m going to sound like a conspiracy theorist but frankly I think this is likely so Meteor doesn’t take away from AIM-260 sales. Note the ‘back of the queue’ and ‘fairly integrating’ somebody is taking the mick and MBDA say they did their part and finished it years ago.


By this point MBDA and BAE had done everything they were required to do.

Two reasons Britain could slow its purchase of the F-35

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