Air Show

[Scooter]

Was anyone at the air show today??

it wasnt the nest one ive been to but the new Eurofighter typhoon was asome :thumbsup:
it was that power full it made the ground shake the noise was unbelievable. It went from a couple of hundred feet to 24,000 feet in 20s vertical :drool::thumbsup::agree:

[GhostofBolivar]

Was anyone at the air show today??

it wasnt the nest one ive been to but the new Eurofighter typhoon was asome :thumbsup:
it was that power full it made the ground shake the noise was unbelievable. It went from a couple of hundred feet to 24,000 feet in 20s vertical :drool::thumbsup::agree:

Shame it's pointless and ridiculously expensive.

Wanna reason why our armed forces are chronically under-equipped, that's one.

[Hibhibhooray]

Pointless & expensive:bitchy:

The Typhoon is the top multi-role aircraft in the world....more than half the price of the American F/A22.....The Tornado, which the Typhoon is replacing is almost 40years old....maybe now troops on the ground will get some decent air support:grr:....getting of the soap box now the PBY Catalina was stunning and what about those Blades that was some flying:agree:

[Scooter]

Shame it's pointless and ridiculously expensive.

Wanna reason why our armed forces are chronically under-equipped, that's one reason.
Eurofighter = £54m
F22 = £1.5billion
do the maths

[RyeSloan]

Pointless & expensive:bitchy:

The Typhoon is the top multi-role aircraft in the world....more than half the price of the American F/A22.....The Tornado, which the Typhoon is replacing is almost 40years old....maybe now troops on the ground will get some decent air support:grr:....getting of the soap box now the PBY Catalina was stunning and what about those Blades that was some flying:agree:

Interesting article here on the painful process to get this far

Euro Fighter History (http://http://www.wdif.net/air/eurofighter-ef-2000-typhoon-4.html)

It kind of brushes over the reasons for the French leaving, they had identified the need for a multi role aircraft long before and baulked at the original EuroFighters traditional air to air spec...a lot of the farting about in the 90's was caused by the euro fighter consortium being forced to backtrack and develop alternative abilities for this plane. That said it seems the consensus agreement that it might have taken a while but they finally got there!

Got to agree thought that a plane of this type was desperately needed to upgrade our armed forces.

There is a seperate argument as to what we should do with our forces but IF our governments are to send them to fight all over the world then a plane like this is essential.

Tis some machine sadly not had the opp to see it in the flesh though.

[GhostofBolivar]

Pointless & expensive:bitchy:

The Typhoon is the top multi-role aircraft in the world....more than half the price of the American F/A22.....The Tornado, which the Typhoon is replacing is almost 40years old....maybe now troops on the ground will get some decent air support:grr:....getting of the soap box now the PBY Catalina was stunning and what about those Blades that was some flying:agree:

What's the point of the Eurofighter?

It's an air superiority fighter designed for a war that might have been fought against the USSR 20 years ago. It has no relevance to the commitments our armed forces face, or are likely to face in the next 20 years. At least the Yanks can claim to need the F-22 for a potential war with China.

"Multi-role" - you're having a laugh. The ground attack 'capability' was introduced post-development to make the aircraft look relevant in the modern world. Eurofighters will replace dedicated ground attack aircraft on the front line so the brass hats can say the massive outlay was justifiable. But I cannot imagine it will better at it than existing aircraft we could have got at relatively cheaper prices. It's like the council buying a bunch of Ferraris for it's binmen to use. It's very good at what it was designed to do, but nearly useless at what it was not.

But it will have to be converted. Otherwise it will do absolutely nothing in it's service life.

The cost of the programme to the UK is approximately £20bn. For that we're supposed to get 230-ish planes. Of which we'll use fewer than 130. This is because we've committed to spending the money and that represents the best value for money on a per-unit basis. Buying 100-odd planes that will never be used, that is. Of course, converting it so that it can, occasionally, drop bombs on people costs money. So it'll likely cost us considerably more in the long run. In the end, those aircraft that actually see use will cost the British taxpayer at least £120m each. Though I have seen estimates that they'll be £50m more expensive than that.

That's for something that was designed for a war that will never be fought.

Of course for that money we could have bought enough heavy lift capacity, helicopters, body armour and armoured vehicles that journalists would have to look harder for their stories. We might have bought a more efficient ground attack system. The Nimrods a national newspaper described today as "deathtraps" might not be flying over Afghanistan today, despite the RAF being told to ground them. We might also have been able to keep the Scottish regiments independent of one another.

And we could have done all this and had change from £20bn.

Pointless and vastly overcosted.