The Half-Full, Half-Empty Eurofighter Glass, Too

[[R_H]]

DefPro

05:47 GMT, August 3, 2009 Within the space of a week or so, European Governments have managed to clear their act and put the two main ongoing cooperation programmes for military aircraft back on track. First came the decision to try and save the A400M strategic/tactical transport aircraft through a renegotiated contract (and hopefully programme management structure) (see: http://www.defpro.com/news/details/8797/).

And now, after much hesitation, bickering and not-so-well concealed attempts at cutting and running if only one could blame the others for this, the Tranche 3 contract (officially half-tranche, 3A) has finally been signed (see: http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/368/).

This is most certainly excellent news for the Air Forces as well as for industry. But not unlike the case with the A400M, certain aspects of the deal do give ground for serious concern.

It is pretty obvious that unless WW3 descends upon us, this will in all likelihood be the last order by the four member countries, and there will be no Tranche 3B contract. This, however, is only too logical, given the radical evolution of the strategic scenarios, and the drastic reductions in defence spending since the Eurofighter programme was originally launched. If the United States thinks it can do with 183 F-22s, it is quite difficult to maintain that, say, Germany needs the same number of Eurofighters. If production is to continue beyond the 3A order, it would have to depend completely on export.

The really disturbing point, however, is that despite rather oblique attempts (not by industry) to conceal by truth by mentioning phantasmagoric multi-role capabilities, it is painfully evident that the €9 billion contract covers but aircraft to the Tranche 2 standard – i.e., absolutely identical to those currently being delivered.

None of the improvements and advanced features that were expected to be introduced with the Tranche 3 standard, and which the Eurofighter desperately needs in order to both adapt itself to the evolving operational scenarios and remain competitive on the export market, will actually be implemented.

There will be no AESA radar, no conformal fuel tanks, no TVC nozzles, no integration of weapons such as Meteor, Storm Shadow or Taurus – NOTHING. The aircraft will be fitted with electrical systems and interfaces to allow for the possible future integration of new weapons and electronic systems through retrofit programmes, but this is projected into a vague future.

One may speculate as to whether this is the tragic result of the Air Forces being absolutely unable to find the money for the aircraft they want, or rather having lost faith in the industry’s development and management skill, or possibly a combination of both factors.

Be this as it may, the unpalatable conclusion is that development of the Eurofighter is effectively terminated at Tranche 2 standard level. The aircraft’s development potential toward a true multi-role configuration is being thrown away.

Related article

The NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA), consisting of its programme nations Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, today signed a long awaited contract with EUROJET Turbo GmbH and Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH on behalf of the partner companies Alenia Finmeccanica, BAE Systems, EADS CASA and EADS Deutschland for the first part of the third tranche of the Eurofighter Typhoon programme consisting of 112 aircraft and 241 engines. The contract is estimated at €9.1 billion (US$12.86 billion) including €1.4 billion for the engines.

As originally intended, the third tranche included 236 aircraft. However, earlier this year the nations agreed to split this tranche into two batches due to severe pressures on defence budgets. Before signing the 3A deal in Manching near Munich, Germany today, the programme nations, nevertheless, announced that participating industries agreed to cut by 50 per cent the costs for fighter aircraft maintenance over their 30-year life span.

With this contract, which includes 40 aircraft for the UK, 30 for Germany and 21 each for Italy and Spain, Eurofighter has secured 559 units for production, including 15 for Austria and 72 for Saudi Arabia.

The new CEO of Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH, Enzo Casolini, noted: “This is a major achievement in the Eurofighter programme and serves to reaffirm the importance and the independence of the defence sector of the European industry.”

A total of 178 Eurofighters had been delivered by June 30, including 24 tranche two units.

The Eurofighter Typhoon multi-role/swing-role combat aircraft has been ordered by six nations (Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). With 559 aircraft under production contract, it is Europe’s largest military collaborative programme.


No Tranche 3B?

However, Tranche 3A – which is less than half of the 236 aircraft originally anticipated – may, for the time being, be the final Eurofighter deal of the programme nations. UK defence procurement minister Quentin Davies today said that Britain has no current plans to buy any additional Eurofighter Typhoon combat jets after completion of this contract. "This is really tranche three. I don't exclude the possibility that we will buy more aircraft in the future, but there is no present intent, nor any expectation from our partners, nor any obligation," he said.

Besides the United Kingdom, the other partner nations have also declared their desire to scale back their purchases. In June, the head of the German parliamentary defence committee said the country could not afford its full complement of 180 Eurofighters, although the defence ministry announced it remained committed to the quota.

In light of this news, I hope that Switzerland won't be purchasing the Typhoon, seeing how the Rafale and the Gripen (eventually) have AESA radar, not to mention being cheaper too (especially the Gripen).

[Colonel Olrik]

no integration of weapons such as Meteor, Storm Shadow or Taurus

The Meteor will fly in a couple years and many of the firing tests so far have been from Typhoons (the last one was in July and the missile motor outperformed the models..). In worse case, they will fly with limited options for a while (the missile has advanced coordination and "swarm" capabilities, but it also flies very nicely as a fire and forget weapon). It's too late for the countries that have Typhoons and are going to start receiving Meteors to go another route. And I believe that for the Typhoons there's no real, modern, alternative to the missile. That said, the Meteor also fires from the Rafale and Grippen nicely, so I'm not worried.

[Julhelm]

Why can't they design the damn plane with features like TVC, AESA and multirole weapons from the start if that's what they want?

[Colonel Olrik]

Why can't they design the damn plane with features like TVC, AESA and multirole weapons from the start if that's what they want?

The design of the plane started in the end of the 70s. It suffers from the same obsolete technology problem of the F22, and cost cuts postponed the upgrades or made their implementation very slow. The design cycles of complex military hardware, in particular aircraft, does not keep up with technological advances. That leads up to some fun situations during development. Oh yes, fun.

[Simon_Jester]

Fun as in "we're changing the specs on your design halfway through the process" fun?

[Colonel Olrik]

Fun as in "we're changing the specs on your design halfway through the process" fun?

But it's easy on Powerpoint!

Yes, bad people make engineers sad by communicating a CCR (contract change request) while shutting their brains to reason at the same time.

[folti78]

Don't forget the joys of having multiple governments with their own requirements and agendas getting into bitchfights every few years because of disageements over funding, procurement numbers, required capabilities or whose-defense-company-would-do-r&d-or-production-of-part-X.

[Serafina]

Don't forget the joys of having multiple governments with their own requirements and agendas getting into bitchfights every few years because of disageements over funding, procurement numbers, required capabilities or whose-defense-company-would-do-r&d-or-production-of-part-X.

Which is just another good reason why the EU should create a coherent military force.

[Colonel Olrik]

Don't forget the joys of having multiple governments with their own requirements and agendas getting into bitchfights every few years because of disageements over funding, procurement numbers, required capabilities or whose-defense-company-would-do-r&d-or-production-of-part-X.

At company level you'd be surprised, things work quite well. There's a lot of accumulated experience in working at consortium level, and the industry has never been so consolidated. It was much worse a couple decades ago.

The problem with the funding is that no one in Europe really feels in danger. That's the reason we half cheer every time North Korea tries to launch a "missile".

Which is just another good reason why the EU should create a coherent military force.

Wouldn't solve the problem as the voters are much more against military spending that the US ones. In fact, an unified EU airforce would probably order less aircraft than all the countries put together.. as for the industry, as I say the merging process is ongoing and never has been stronger.

[Vympel]

For a fun American example, B-2 maintenance guys have been forced to hit up eBay for supplies of old floppy discs. You think of these aircraft as the height of technology but even the newest aircraft like the F-22A has embarassingly ancient computer tech.

[tim31]

This is news to me. Are you saying my desktop PC has more processing power than the world's only operational G5 fighter?

[Vympel]

This is news to me. Are you saying my desktop PC has more processing power than the world's only operational G5 fighter?

Yes. The F-22A is powered by 486-level processors, IIRC. Or somewhere around that.

You've got to remember though that it doesn't necessarily need more. And modern stuff generates more heat which is a problem.

[phongn]

Military embedded systems need to operate in much more hostile environments - heat, EM interference, nuclear SREE/EMP effects and who-knows-what. They need to be much more reliable.

[Stark]

Why would it need more anyway? It doesn't need to push around 5 billion triangles or post-process icons; I imagine most of what it does is networking and geometry, which is simple stuff.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Why would it need more anyway? It doesn't need to push around 5 billion triangles or post-process icons; I imagine most of what it does is networking and geometry, which is simple stuff.

Probably more to process the output from the radar.

[tim31]

Fair enough. They'd have similar controlling systems for the Eurofighter, yes?

[phongn]

Why would it need more anyway? It doesn't need to push around 5 billion triangles or post-process icons; I imagine most of what it does is networking and geometry, which is simple stuff.

You could do all sorts of signals processing trickery if you have the compute power to do it with.

[Stark]

I'm sure you could come up with things to do with any arbitrary amount of computing power, just like any other application.

[Starglider]

You've got to remember though that it doesn't necessarily need more. And modern stuff generates more heat which is a problem.

It is true that the thermal envelope for desktop CPUs has increased from ~5W to ~80W in the last 20 years. However, modern low-power processors (e.g. ARM Cortex, Intel Atom) use significantly less power than a 486 and are still between ten and a hundred times faster.

With regard to the main topic, at least there is a good chance of a comprehensive mid-life upgrade for the Typhoon after 15 years or so. Even the Mig-21 has been made semi-competitive by comprehensive avionics upgrades, so I am optimistic about the capabilities of a 2025 upgrade of the Typhoon. Unfortunately I have a nasty feeling that the F-22 will just be left to wither on the vine, given Gate's McNamara style obsession with diverting all funding to his pet aircraft.

[FSTargetDrone]

For a fun American example, B-2 maintenance guys have been forced to hit up eBay for supplies of old floppy discs.

Because of the cost (seems doubtful), or because they can find no other reliable source of bulk floppies? I can order brand-new floppies in bulk from Staples or by simply Googling and get multiple sources that I would use before depending on eBay.

[Vympel]

Because of the cost (seems doubtful), or because they can find no other reliable source of bulk floppies? I can order brand-new floppies in bulk from Staples or by simply Googling and get multiple sources that I would use before depending on eBay.

No idea. Maybe they're just ignorant of their options. Read it on defensetech.org. They could just be being lazy with the facts.

[phongn]

No idea. Maybe they're just ignorant of their options. Read it on defensetech.org. They could just be being lazy with the facts.

They could be using 5.25", 8" or some other size disk instead of the 1990s-common 3.5" drive.

I'm sure you could come up with things to do with any arbitrary amount of computing power, just like any other application.

If I was unclear - I meant to say that the Raptor's avionics actually do a considerable amount of work that takes nontrivial computer time.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yes. The F-22A is powered by 486-level processors, IIRC. Or somewhere around that.

It has a pair of custom 400mhz chips with 300 megs of ram apiece as its central brain, hardly 486 technology. But mainly those chips serve to offload tasks to 81 lesser processors that do most of the real work, all integrated and rigged to be redundant. Space exists for 122 processors in total, and in addition a whole extra computer can be added. That was projected as being necessary should it have gained that projected 180 degree field of view radar with side antennas.

Given how much computers have evolved, such an addition is not likely to happen, but for some time now the USAF has been working on a new computer setup. It will use far fewer and more modern chips of much greater power. Everything computer wise is in a line replaceable unit already, so whenever they make the software for that upgrade work (I doubt that will happen anytime soon since they don’t even know everything they want to do with it) it will be fairly straightforward to install it.

You've got to remember though that it doesn't necessarily need more. And modern stuff generates more heat which is a problem.

Yeah it is a problem, but they use liquid anti freeze based cooling on the radar and the main avionics bays, and chilled air (you already have an AC for the pilot) is piped to more remotely located computer processors as well as certain kinds of sensors. Those features are standard for just about any computer era aircraft.

The F-15 had some huge problems early on though because its avionics cooling wasn’t designed with enough heatsink capacity to handle when it was sitting on the ground. The designers assumed it’d never idle for more then about 15 minutes, so when people idled it for as long as 45 minutes on desert runways (mainly Nellis, big swarms of planes waiting to takeoff for Red Flag and other exercises) the engine control computers cooked and gave erratic performance after takeoff (wasn’t noticeable on the ground because maintain idle did not require much computing power). I think that caused at least one crash, I know it caused engine stalls in mid-flight, but I’m not certain. Anyway it got fixed quick.

I’d imagine the big challenge on F-22, and to a much lesser extent Typhoon was designed an air flow system for the cooling system that was stealthy, and did not unduly detract from the mighty power of supercruise.

No idea. Maybe they're just ignorant of their options. Read it on defensetech.org. They could just be being lazy with the facts.

It probably happened once, because it was quicker then making a request through normal channels, and also maintenance units DO have a budget to stick too. Defensetech can have some useful information but I would not trust them on anything that sounds outlandish and illogical like that.

[Marcus Aurelius]

They could be using 5.25", 8" or some other size disk instead of the 1990s-common 3.5" drive.

No way could they be 8" floppies. Those things were phased out in the early 1980's and they their imminent obsolescence was clear already in the late 1970's. The disappearance of the 5.25" floppy a decade later was more of a surpise; after all the improved 1.2 MB version was introduced with the IBM AT in 1984, but only five years later practically all new PCs had only 3½" floppy drives as standard.

[Beowulf]

Vot? I remember still using 5.25" floppies in elementary school, in the early 90s. I remember reinstalling win3.1 from a whole bunch of 5.25" floppies.