Official UK Eurofighter history

[Mike Pryce]

Part 1 of the Air Historical Branch's history of Typhoon

https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-history/air-historical-branch/post-coldwar-studies/eurofightertyphoonpart1coldwarorigins1983-1990/

 

[CJGibson]

Thanks Mike.

Chris

 

[Mike Pryce]

Thanks Mike.

Chris

Not too much technical detail and very skimpy on the early days.

Very much a 'who said what to which MOD committee' history, as is the AHB's remit.

 

[Scorpion82]

Thanks for sharing. It contains some interesting historical infos and also dates that I have been missing. It's also interesting to learn that the French indeed brought up the carrier thingy, albeit late and it wasn't considered. It indeed seems the French intentionally blocked the programme to their own advantage. Some interesting tidbits from the German side can be found in the book "Der Eurofighter". This piece well complements these infos.

Edit:
It's interesting though how narrowly the focus was on the very few metrics of BME, wing area and thrust. That's pretty simplistic. Apparently it was clear that the 9.75t figure was essentially expected to be not the actual BME of an operational airframe. Explains well why it ended up at 11t, while the Rafale ended up in the 9.5t class.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Useful set of National Archive references there too.

 

[Mike Pryce]

Edit:
It's interesting though how narrowly the focus was on the very few metrics of BME, wing area and thrust. That's pretty simplistic. Apparently it was clear that the 9.75t figure was essentially expected to be not the actual BME of an operational airframe. Explains well why it ended up at 11t, while the Rafale ended up in the 9.5t class.

Also interesting in the files it references to see politicians debating these points like they have any idea what they mean. I think the narrow selection was for their benefit.

 

[Mike Pryce]

Useful set of National Archive references there too.

Yes, although they focus on the 'committee' stuff rather than the technical, or the 'raw' politics.

I interviewed Michael Heseltine about all this for my next book (looking at the ASTOVL vs EFA decision) and he gave lots of context, and some juicy quotes, that helped make sense of things. An interesting case of how the records miss things out.