JTR: 

 

As usual you make good points, but as usual you appear to want to believe there is some equivalence between the F-22's capability and the Typhoon. Or rather, you hope to discover that the typhoon is somehow a match for VLO assets and has the capability to engage these.

 

This has all been done to death as we both know - the bottom line is simply that a platform like the EF has a massive sensory deficit - we know that Captor is a capable and powerful radar, but it is several generations behind even the designs fielded by us 4th gen assets. In short it is quite hard to assert that the EF has any magic bullet to achieve long-range detection/tracking.

 

"Overwhelming" was the term used by the German pilot when referring to the F-22's BVR capability, frankly, if US 4th gen assets using upgraded AESA arrays don't seem to have any joy detecting the Raptor then we can quite reasonably assume CAPTOR doesn't either. 

 

My personal view is that the Raptor is a country mile separate. The EF is exceptional for what it is, but it was not designed to be able to engage 5th generation threats, it was designed to affordably dominate 4th generation Russian designs, it has room for an upgraded AESA array and that's good news for possible exports but I don't think it will fundamentally change anything. EF really was a designed too late to have the same sort of life ahead of it as the F-teens, there's a reason Russia and China are both investing heavily in LO/VLO - I would guess it will be regarded as the pinnacle of 4th gen design and mainly notable for its pioneering system features in self-protection, man-machine-interface, HOBS etc.

 

R 

 

 

maneuverability being limited by pilot ability to sustain G-forces in tight turns.

 

I know that turning ability is not everything in the dogfight, but it is still one of the major contributors.

 

DG

 

can be improved substantially. It just needs a decision by soneone to pony up for the new thrust vectoring nozzles. As shown on Youtube.

Ht*p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss96tsbG5KY

A stunning prototype but no chance whatsoever of that being adopted at this stage in the program - especially when you consider how long they've taken to finalise a roadmap for the CAPTOR-E upgrade, the lack of which has been a real hurdle for the export market..

You're right. Hence my comment about getting the politicians to pony up for it.

 

When I first read about in Flight Magazine, it quoted a cost that was tiny compared to the unit price of the aircraft. just a few million per aircraft if I recall. 

When I first read about in Flight Magazine, it quoted a cost that was tiny compared to the unit price of the aircraft. just a few million per aircraft if I recall.