Spectre11

The French pulled out before development of the Eurofighter was actually launched. Each side has its story to tell about the reasons why. Factually the French haven't decided on a common platform for AdA and MN by the time they left the program. Their stated requirement within the EFA program was 250 A/C which was also later on the specific requirement for the AdA only. So the French weren't particularly pushing for the EFA to be carrier capable. It was more about workshare arrangements and how the programme was setup, about the weighing of mission priorities and specifications. The Eurofighter side's view was tje French wanted all and let others pay the bill and having settled their mind with no compromises towards their own requirements. The French view was that the Tornado programme was already overly complex and bound to become more expensive and late. They all had their reasoning and there is probably some truth in all of these views. The Rafale and Typhoon are in fact two quite different aircraft, albeot closer to each other than most other contemporary fighters. At the first glance they have a similar appearance, but they are different by design. The Rafale has an entirely different fuselage and intakr design, it has mid mounted delta wings with a lower sweep angle and close coupled canards, compared to the Typhoon with low mounted delta wings and long coupled canards. The underlying philosophy lies in these details. Close coupled canards directly interface with the wing for increased lift generation and better AoA performance at the expense of more drag. Typhoon's long couple canards are designed for little interferwnce with the wings and less drag, but their long moment arm is creating the sort of instability and pitch authority the Typhoon has. The Rafale is argueably more maneuverable at low to medium subsonic speeds, the Typhoon scores at supersonic turn rates. The difference in engine thrust is actually not as significant if you factor in the weight difference in compareable configurations. But becomes more evident high up and when the Rafale is loaded heavily. Despite being somewhat smaller and lighter the Rafale has a higher MTOW than the Typhoon and thus a notably higher payload capacity.

To my knowledge the Mirage 4000's canards were already trimable. The fixed canards already emerged from the 1960s on Mirage III knockoffs.

It has indeed only been the AIM-9L as said, but in somewhat advanced versions which are similar to the AIM-9M. Your list is correct albeit you can add the 1000 l SFT, FPR and GPS pods and also the RecceLite ARP which was cleared for operational use last year. The Meteor will be introduced on German aircraft as soon as the first aircraft are upgraded to P2Eb standard, scheduled to take place later this year.

Hello Gianky, correct the HMSS was only introduced with SRP 4.3 and there was no alternative before it. Yes the AIM-9L is the only variant available, it's however the version L-I/L-I1 which is a modified version of the stock AIM-9L licence produced by Diehl (former BGT) for many European NATO members. With the development of ASRAAM and IRIS-T integrating other Sidewinder variants was pretty much superflous.

That's Aeyes EF2000 Superpit for Falcon 4.0. The description only fits the Falcon 4.0 environment and was appropriately tailored the F-16's sytem functionality and is subsequently not representative of the real Eurofighter aircraft.

Considering that the airpower site published all of this in the 2002/2003 timeframe it's quite impressive how many information you could already obtain back then already.

Intergration of the B61-12 bomb on German Tornado IDS with ASSTA 3.1 has just been completed IIRC. Intrgration of this weapon has been proposed for the Eurofighter as part of the Tornado replacement programme. Right now it looks like Germany opting for a split buy between F/A-18F, EA-18G and the Eurofighter. The F/A-18F would be used for the nuclear role as well as tactical roles. The EA-18G for EA and SEAD and the Eurofighter for the rest of the mission spectrum. As the contract signatures are still months, probably 1 to 2 years away from becoming reality, nothing is set in stone, however, and we don't know what future governments will decide. Note that the F/A-18F is my personal expectation as I doubt that they will replace the twin seat Tornado with a single seat F/A-18E.

The GBU-16 is and in theory it could be used on German Eurofighters, but the Luftwaffe has no GBU-16 on stock that's the "problem". I write "problem" because the GBU-48/EGBU-16 is an enhanced version of this weapon with dual-mode guidance and and enhanced fuze.

I suggest you check out my post here. Here you will find a listing of all weapons that are actually integrated on the aircraft right now and at whoch capability standard which weapons/stores have been intoduced on the real aircraft. That's the real deal, everything is just marketing ploy or wishful thinking.

The Typhoon was designed AFTER the Hornet. The F/A-18 was a development of the YF-17 first flown on 9th June 1974. FF of the F/A-18 was in November 1978. At that time the first concepts already reflecting the eventual Typhoon just emerged. So it's not much newer conceptually, but nonetheless a latter design. The Typhoon was in fact designed for high ITR and nose pointing authority, but didn't live up to its hype in this respect. The intake location was selected with hintsight of TVC. In the mid 70s the future WVR combat was believed to be dominated by frontal maneuvers, brief nose pointing and HOBS capable all aspect missiles. These as well as BVR combat at supersonic speeds and high sustained turn rates up and fast with AHR missiles. Apart of that you are ofcourse right that close aircombat is about more than thrust performance. It boils down to the pilot capable of exploiting the strengths of his and the weaknesses of the opponent's aircraft.

You can count in Spanish and Qataries. However, it will take many years before all aircraft are eventually retrofitted and this assumes that all are being retrofitted. T1 won't be retrofitted, with the sole exception being IPA5 as the sole test asset built under the Tranche 1 contract.

Nice interview. Unfortunately the common myth that the Typhoon was designed as a pure fighter is still being spread. If you simply look at the requirements and the roles the aircraft performed that were going to be replaced by the Typhoon you'll quickly notice that AG was a requirement from the very beginning. That in the post-cold war era requirements were somewhat trimmed initially, before reality struck back and the decision to phase in capabilities incrementally, focussing on AA first doesn't change that fact. That the Typhoon is not as balanced as a multirole fighter as an F/A-18 or Rafale is evident underscoring the emphasis placed on AA performance. However, if you just take a look at the number of store stations and the wide range of AG radar modes specified you get a clue that the aircraft was not just planned to be used in the AA role only. This was apparently known even in the 70s when the precursors of the Typhoon were conceived. Back then it was typically called "dual-role" (AA & AG) rather than multirole/swingrole as of today.

A pitty that it was never brought to life in game.

Hi folks, everyone is excited these days by the announcement that the Eurofighter Typhoon is brought to DCS World by TrueGrit and is asking the three really most frequently asked questions. The questions are: When is it going to be released? Which version/variant of the Typhoon we will get? How realistic will it be? You can be ensure I share your enthusiam and am just as excited as you are, however, you do yourself a favor to lean back, relax and take yourself some time to logically think about these questions. In theory you can, at least partially answer the questions yourself! First and foremost there is a FAQ available which responds to these questions. Ofcourse the FAQ is not exhaustive yet and doesn't fully still your hunger for information, but it effectively tells you that no definitive answer can be provided at this point in time and that you will be informed as soon as practicable. When will it be released? The TrueGrit team itself is a young setup, and I'm not talking about the age of the individuals involved. They have just started to work and have no previous experience with developing aircraft modules for DCS World. So give them some allowance to catch up in terms of skill and experience with the very specific DCS environment. Developing a complex aircraft module over night isn't going to happen and you can apply the development times of other complex modules, like the F-14B or F/A-18C as a yardstick. Add some allowance for a new team to fight into the realm of DCS and you can maybe expect a module in the 18 - 24 months timeframe (optimistic guess). If you add the aforementioned allowance this may well extend to 36 months, dependent on whether or not an Early Access release is on the table or not. This once again has yet to be decided. Ofcourse an EA would be desirable, because as with real modern combat aircraft, none is entering service feature complete and bugfree! Which version will we get? Once again the team announced they will aim for the latest version feasible, which could mean anything in theory. However, you can again create an analogy using the F/A-18C or F-16CM as an example. These are not the latest operational versions either and approximately fit into the 2006/2007 timeframe! That doesn't mean that the Typhoon will necessarily be bound to this timeframe, but it is a rather unrealistic assumption to think, let alone ask about a version from the 2015+ timeframe. An FOC jet would be great to have and it's in my opinion very much in the realms of what is feasible. P1E would be the "newest" that I could imagine, considering that the module is still some time away from being released. I have posted an overview what that means in terms of capabilities and features, just to give you an indication what you can reasonably expect and what is really just wishful thinking. How realistic will it be? Many question the feasibility of an authentic representation of the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, but there is no reason to do so. No PC based flight simulator for the public consumer market is going to simulate a modern military, or even civil, aircraft with 100% accuracy. That's not going to happen because it is impossible for many reasons, including the constraints imposed by a purely virtual PC environment or the limitations of the DCS engine, even if it is the benchmark in this genre as of today. There is stuff you cannot reasonably simulate anyway, or it doesn't even make sense! Or what is the purpose for simulating the generation and recording of maintenance messages, or structural data for example? Are you going to dig through them in your post virtual flight to uncover which LRI has just failed? Certainly not! You are also not going to analyse and record data for your simulated life consumption, because you are not managing a fleet of aircraft and will probably crash your virtual machines much more frequently then in real life. Again that makes no sense. The real Typhoon is probably the most comprehensively covered modern combat aircraft in the public domain. You can find a wealth of data on the aircraft and its systems and capabilities, ofcourse not everything is necessarily correct, but you have a time driving the project that has the relevant backgrounds and knowledge to sort through it. At the end of the day ED wouldn't contract/licence a 3rd party developer if it hasn't the confidence that the team is capable of adhering to DCS standards. You can surely expect a simulation of all relevant systems to a reasonable degree of fidelity. That the one or other particular function might be omitted it is natural in this field and similarly applicable to ANY operational modern aircraft simulated in DCS World. Or do you really believe that the F/A-18C or F-16CM are 100% authentic? Just my 2ct for managing expectations at these exciting and also difficult times. Stay healthy.

@Brun Stunning 3D model!

It effectively depends on the standards we are talking about. That German aircraft lack PIRATE and the laser warners is common knowledge, as is the use of IRIS-T compared to the ASRAAM used by tHe RAF and RAFO. The Germans didn't add the wiring to use the LDP on their Tranche 1 A/C and have thus far not adopted any of the "Drops" on their T1 A/C. The only AG weapon German T2/3 aircraft use at the current P1E standard is the GBU-48. There have been some national modifications as there are on other nations' aircraft, but the scope of enhancement the RAF has driven is unmatched by anyone thus far. Often those national modifications are eventually fed into the four national development stream and through mutual support agreements there is also an exchange of information and developments. The perhaps most notable addition based on national development is the integration of the RecceLite ARP, but this one has been nationally integrated by others as well. This has been publicly communicatwd, but is less well known. Hope that's enough of a start.

@MrBurns Yes at least DA1 & 2 both had only two MHDDs and some analogue flight instruments in place of the third one. Not sure sbout the layout of DA3 though. All others has three fromthe start.

I'm not sure whether it were T2 or T1. The RAF faced the problem that it had to re-train their pilots to become proficient in AG back then, as they focussed on AA after the Tiffies were not dend to Afghanistan in 2008 which wad the primary reason for rushing out SRP 4.2 then. The main reason for the initial pairing of torandos and Typhoons was the the crews of the Tornado had plenty of operational expierence. But it might be correct that SRP 5.1 was prtially used at the beginning.

Enhanced Paveway II, EGBU-16/GBU-48 and Paveway IV have been integrated which are all dual-mode bombs with INS/GPS+laser seeker. JDAM is planned for different customers and for SDB there is a requirement but no contract yet.

Tranche 2 aircraft had no meaningful AG capabilities until the P1E upgrade emerged which is likewise applicable to T3A aircraft. From a capability point of voew there is currently no difference between T2 and T3. All depends on which individual aircraft has been upgraded to particular standard and which has not. Initial T2 at SRP 5.0 essentially lacked AG capabilities altogether. At SRP 5.1 the delivery of LGBs was possible with third party designation, but this capability was not really exploited operationally as T1 at SRP 4.3 featured LDP integration as well as EPW II integration that was missing from T2 aircraft. With the introduction of the P1E upgrade on T2 aircraft they eventually became multirole capable. The majority of T3 was directly delivered at the P1E standard. In the meantime T2 and T3 have been or are being upgraded to the later P2E and P3E capability standards dependent on the operators. It is notewortjy that all T1s at SRP 4.3 featured the software for LDP support, but only the UK also installed the wiring to permit the LDP to be used. This has meanwhile changed for most operators, but Germany and Austria. Germany skipped its plans for fitting its T1s with the necessary wiring, apart of one aircraft.

The Eurofighter has the means to deliver unguided munitions with the typical CCIP or CCRP modes. I don't know how well it works with Paveways, but it's an option if you don't want to lase your targets. In a sim you don't need to care for the cost difference of the bombs. Yeah the good old EF2000 still runs well with Relpaded and doesn't look to bad woth hires, accelerated and Track IR support. Still a great game even a quarter century after its release.

Thank you TurGrit for making this thread a sticky. I have updated the opening post to include the indicative dates when particular standards were first introduced. I have taken the earliest dates where particular standards were first introduced by one customer, which was often thw RAF especially since the PxE programmes emerged.

If i recall correctly the Luftwaffe took delivery of the first IRIS-T missiles in 2005. IRIS-T was integrated with SRP2 (Block 2 aircraft). The first Block 2 example was GS2 (30+07) formally handed over to the Luftwaffe on 14th February 2005. The AIM-9L was still being flown, especially on QRA, for many more years though. Bear in mind that each missile has a limited lifing when carried on aircraft. So consuming the life, especially of operational rounds is a logistic aspect to be considered. It's thus sensible to use up the useful life of the older missiles, preserving life on newer missiles.

The actual g limit of an aircraft depends on various factors, most importantly structural strength of the airframe, local stresses at particular locations, aircraft weight, airspeed, altitude etc. The international design standard is 1.5 times the design load limit. So an airframe designed for 9 g at a given gross weight should be able to absorb 1.5 times that load at this same weight. You always have wear and tear on the airframe the higher and more often the airframe is stressed the faster is the life consumption. An airframe designed for 6000 Fh lile the Eurofighter for example wouldn't last that long if you permanently fly it to the limits. The lifing specifications are based on assumed load spectrums to be encountered throughout the life of an aircraft with underlying mission profiles. Different measures can be taken to increase the g tolerance of pilots, in addition to the physiological conditions of an individual and training, the seat inclination and other aspects of the cockpit design as well as the flying suits of the aircrew are all factors that dictate how many g and more importantly for how long a pilot can be exposed to these.

This is test aicraft IPA7. Aie Data Gatherimg trials with the TAURUS were performed in 2014, mainly in support for Storm Shadow integration, but the opportunity was ofcourse used to gatjer some TAURUS specific data. TAURUS isn't integrated on the aircraft right now and is not even on contract to be integrated. I'm sure once the Eurofighter starts to replace the Tornado in Luftwaffe service Taurus will get integrated. You will certainly find other pics of the TAURUS being fitted to a Luftwaffe EF on ground (think it was GS20/30+32) but that was only for a Static display. You can be sure if the weapon is integrated there will be some formal announcement related to it. You may also see pictures from one German T1 twinseat GT15 (30+42) in-service aircraft fitted with PIRATE. The aircraft had been equipped with a sensor loaned by industry in support of the Swiss flight twst evaluation in Nov/Dec 2008 and was afterwards flown on the aircraft until ~2010. Gernerally the Luftwaffe doesn't use PIRATE operationally. All images of Gwrman EF that show serials beginning with 98+ are plain test aircraft and not operational aircraft used by the Luftwaffe's operational wings.