Typhoon Arises

Typhoon Arises

Eurofighter's plane finally comes in

by Michal Fiszer

Sep. 15, 2005

eDefense

The Eurofighter Typhoon is finally reaching full operational service, with its Tranche 1 aircraft due to be delivered to customers by the end of this year. The Eurofighter program is one of the major European defense efforts and can be compared to the US F/A-22. Both aircraft have their roots in the Cold War, and both were initially developed with a focus on the air-to-air role. The Eurofighter Typhoon has been widely criticized in the press around the world. The program was cited for its long development cycle and high cost. But it must be remembered that state-of-the-art European technologies were integrated in the aircraft.

Germany initially had placed greater emphasis on the air-to-air role, but as Luftwaffe Tornado units are reduced in strength, the Typhoon will be required to carry a greater share of the strike load.

The Typhoon has all the capabilities typical for modern, fourth-generation fighters. It has a powerful radar of impressive range, target-tracking, and electronic-counter-countermeasures (ECCM) capabilities, as well as modern, beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles. It will be equipped with an even more powerful, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and longer-range BVR missiles in the form of Meteors. It also has tremendous maneuverability and dynamic flight characteristics in terms of acceleration, climb, and a wide flight envelope, which makes it a demanding enemy in a dogfight. The Typhoon will have a helmet-mounted display integrated in the subsequent tranches of aircraft, with agile air-to-air missiles slaved to the helmet cueing system. In an attack role, the aircraft will be able to perform standoff strikes against well-defended targets. It will be also able to engage ground targets with various types of weapons regardless of weather, day and night. Weapons load and combat radius are also high, enabling a considerable punch against a ground target, even deep inside enemy territory, suggesting potential usefulness as a suppression-of-enemy-air-defenses (SEAD) and anti-ship platform. The aircraft is also tailored to a network-centric warfare environment: it is equipped with a MIDS data-distribution system and three multifunction color displays. The pilot's workload has been reduced through the automation of many functions and by introduction of a direct-voice-input system together with hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls.

But at the same time, the Typhoon has a relatively large radar cross-section (RCS) as compared to its peers. Some low-observability features were used but not to the extent employed on the F/A-22 Raptor or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), or even the French Rafale. Detailed figures are classified, but an unofficial source says that the Typhoon has about a 1-square-meter RCS. Such a figure is quite a good achievement, since it is only about 0.13% of the RCS of the Su-27/30/35 and about 0.2% of the RCS of the MiG-29. However, it is significantly than the F/A-22's figure, which is reportedly in the region of 0.05 sq m. This is one point that brings much criticism to the aircraft. But it has to be considered that the balance between various features and capabilities is always a trade-off of one for the other.