Jon Lake wrote:Nor do I concur with the idea that Typhoon is 'doing well' at the moment.
I still believe that when both aircraft fully meet their 'brochure promises', Typhoon will be a significantly superior A-A aeroplane, but with all of the problems, immaturity, and delays and development challenges (all of which we should have been entitled to expect to have been solved by now), I do think that Rafale enjoys an edge in near term 'customer appeal'. It's a narrow edge, as Rafale has its own challenges, but I do perceive that Rafale has some momentum.
I was under the impression that the availability had improved somewhat, the reliability was now much better as originally spares were a big issue. (has the amount of cannibalisation been reduced, oris the old contract still in force).
The program is still held back by the multination effect, but when you consider what would have happened if it was a one nation affair it would have never have got to production.
The AtoG implementation is still very slow, but this looks due only to money, and programs with much more momentum are finding it just as hard to get any funding.
The area where I thought the Typhoon was doing well was in the exercises with other nations, they seem readily deployable and seem to be on top of things in regard to DACT.. unless you've heard different, Dass seems to be OK, the radar modes Ok, helmet is having problems, and helmet weight is still an issue (whats the occurrences of neck problems like now? have you noticed the aircrew all have necks like a pro wrestlers now? counter balanced with legs like twiggy
.Is the newer incremental upgrade program any better than the block upgrades that were the previous bottleneck?, or has it turned into a waiting game where each waits for the other nation to fund an upgrade?
I keen to know so PM me if you don't want to broadcast it.
PS I'm also happy for the French to have their day in the sun, they have been waiting so long. (~595 years on St Crispins day
)Cheers
John
