For a laugh here’s a letter I found in the national Archives from the Royal Aircraft establishment, where they give a rather brutal assessment of the planned ACA design, and MBB’s engineering competence:
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Yeah the book mentions they really hated the supermaneuverability requirements particularly as the aircraft was slated to be more than maneuverable enough without those features and hence the P.110 was significantly more favoured supposedly even by the AIT engineers.
The EAP was not a prototype.
It was a Prototype-Demonstrator. Not an actual weapons platform prototype. And they have multiple times on this forum mentioned it will never come.
No harm in asking ;-)
The EAP did carry Skyflashes and ASRAAMs (visible today at RAF Cosford) so it would be possible. Sure, it was never fitted with operational weapons or a radar, but if the Japanese paper planes were added then why not this.
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The japanese jets were removed for these exact reasons and they re-defined what is acceptable.
Gaijin time and time again has explained this was a technology demonstrator not a prototype for a combat aircraft and will never be added into the game.
The fact it was never intended to have functioning weaponry, and had it’s radar housing contain a block of concrete ballast to ‘simulate’ the weight for a later production aircraft prototypes (such as the eventual Typhoon prototypes), shows how little they considered towards the EAP to be used for combat.
It’s basically an aerodynamic proof of concept jet, not a live weapon firing prototype used for weaponry feesability tests as a launch platform (which usually back that occured later in prototyping for a production variant).
This is going to age well when Gaijin adds the Su-47, F-15MTI, MiG 1.44.
This is definitively false, and there is a significant amount of proof for it.
The most simple and inarguable example is this - if the EAP was never intended to have functioning weaponry, why would the pilots joystick - that was built bespoke for the EAP, not re-used from the Tornado or Jaguar or anything else - feature a weapons release button?
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IIRC the EAP featured a “rudimentary release system” to allow them the option of testing weapons separation from a delta-canard airframe, should the need arise. However while planning the early trials they explicitly did not have any intention using the weapons release system, and as far as I know never chose to do so in any of the later trials.
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It indeed never happened. But that’s beside the point, the point was, at any point in it’s development, was the EAP intended to carry weapons. The answer to which is again a resounding yes.
If you are unconvinced how about this - the EAP wing structures were each built with 3 pylon attachment points - these aren’t the semi recessed missile bays in the fuselage, or the fake ASRAAM rails on the wingtip, these are mounting points for actual functional ordnance pylons built into the EAP wings.
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Just as capable of holding ordinance as the Su-47 I see.
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If they add the Su-47 after everything they have changed in terms of what qualifies as an aircraft to be added. Then the EAP HAS TO BE ADDED. But if they never add the Su-47, MiG-1.44 and so forth that never carried or in use intended to carry them, then the EAP Should NOT be added.
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I spoke with a staff member at RAF Cosford many years ago, and asked about whether it had any weapon functionality.
And they ‘claimed’ in passing that though it had the control columns and such, it was never wired up with the looms for it to fire. And that the nose was fitted with concrete ballast.
Now if that tour guide was wrong and the fire control wire looms and connectors were connected/added then you are closer to the argument of it being added but still not there.
If they are correct and not even the wiring or connectors were added or joined up, then it absolutely shouldn’t come.
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