France-Germany-Spain Future Combat Air System (FCAS / SCAF / FSAC)

kqcke for you said:
But if other would be open to buy some of the needed Typhoon then maybe the Saudi deal gets trought.
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Maybe.

I mean, people did manage to convince Bill Clinton to order one last Seawolf to tide the shipyard over till the Virginia class started up, on the grounds that it would be far cheaper to build one more, even heavily modified, than it would to shut down the shipyard, lay off all those nuclear qualified welders (and everyone else), then re-hire whoever might be available and requalify them in 4 years.

Plus that more or less guaranteed Bill winning Connecticut in the next election.
 
Typhoon is a 1980 airframe... There is not much in qualified workmanship that doesn't exist anywhere else in aerospace. Hell, you might even get more advanced manned station in an A350 manufacturing line!

To retain qualified workers you can have them build cheaper aircraft per workman hour and more useful aircraft like a strategic heavy lifter. Far better RoI for taxpayers IMOHO.
 
TomcatViP said:
Typhoon is a 1980 airframe... There is not much in qualified workmanship that doesn't exist anywhere else in aerospace. Hell, you might even get more advanced manned station in an A350 manufacturing line!

To retain qualified workers you can have them build cheaper aircraft per workman hour and more useful aircraft like a strategic heavy lifter. Far better RoI for taxpayers IMOHO.
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Which at the least requires retooling and some retraining.

How much life is left in the various Typhoon fleets?
 
Scott Kenny said:
How much life is left in the various Typhoon fleets?
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The UK's T2 and T3 are good past 2040 so no real need. A Uk purchase of 20 EK variant would make a lot of sense. But there is zero to no chance as the combat air budget is all committed for years to come on F-35B and Tempest.
 
timmymagic said:
The UK's T2 and T3 are good past 2040 so no real need. A Uk purchase of 20 EK variant would make a lot of sense. But there is zero to no chance as the combat air budget is all committed for years to come on F-35B and Tempest.
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How about conversion? Surely It might be possible to convert a couple of existing airframes?
 
timmymagic said:
The UK's T2 and T3 are good past 2040 so no real need. A Uk purchase of 20 EK variant would make a lot of sense. But there is zero to no chance as the combat air budget is all committed for years to come on F-35B and Tempest.
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Penny wise and pound foolish again.

Buy the EKs, though a mixed force of F-35s and EKs may be better for DEAD.
 
snne said:
How about conversion? Surely It might be possible to convert a couple of existing airframes?
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There are few enough T2 and T3 anyway....

Converting some of the T1's would end up costing as much as new...but without the industrial benefits...

Scott Kenny said:
Buy the EKs, though a mixed force of F-35s and EKs may be better for DEAD.
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The only hope is that a new government may listen to industry and the RAF and increase the budget. But thats very unlikely...

A Typhoon EK, or even better the 2 seat ECR would have had a very good future supporting Typhoon, F-35 AND Tempest...but the additional capability that 40+ of UK and German EK's on NATO's airpower in Europe alone would be enormous. Even the US has insufficient modern EW types...
 
Probaly a Loyal Wingmann optemised as jammer. This could be used more risky then the EK fighter and gives them more space for other weapons. But i think alteast for now its only a concept. Maybe when they Order EK WE get more information....
 
H_K said:
Still lots of open questions about which FCAS design is actually being pursued… the NGAD lookalike above (aka Superman?) or the Tempest lookalike presented at Le Bourget 2019.
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Probably none of them? It sort of seems like there is one Airbus Germany configuration (the Su-57 ish one with no horizontal tail), and two Dassault configurations (the Su-57 ish tailless one, and the lambda wing + V tail one) that seem to have had some level of engineering work. But who knows what the "joint" concept looks like.
 
H_K said:
Still lots of open questions about which FCAS design is actually being pursued… the NGAD lookalike above (aka Superman?) or the Tempest lookalike presented at Le Bourget 2019.
The recent Indra renderings below look more like the later.
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breakingdefense.com

FCAS weighing 4 fighter designs, could make final choice by March 2025 - Breaking Defense

"There is a good working atmosphere and the deliverables are being delivered," Major General Jean-Luc Moritz said of the French-German-Spanish future fighter system project.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
NGAD will probably end up being another F-22 and will not be exported for obvious reasons which will be sad.
 
FighterJock said:
NGAD will probably end up being another F-22 and will not be exported for obvious reasons which will be sad.
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Especially with the USAF already talking about only buying a couple hundred, not enough to replace all the F-15s and F-22s in service.
 
200 NGADs for the USAF Scott Kenny? That is not nearly enough, I would have thought that 500 would have been a better figure to replace the ageing fighter force. Though it depends on how much the NGAD will cost to purchase once it gets of the assembly line.
 
FighterJock said:
200 NGADs for the USAF Scott Kenny? That is not nearly enough, I would have thought that 500 would have been a better figure to replace the ageing fighter force. Though it depends on how much the NGAD will cost to purchase once it gets of the assembly line.
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While I agree, that's what the USAF is talking about... (this forum needs better emojis, this comment requires the "crying my eyes out in waterfalls" emoji)

They screwed up, they're replacing basically the entire USAF in the same purchase cycle. Needed to buy about 800x F-22s back in the day to 1-for-1 replace all the F-15Cs and Ds (Strike Eagles are a different discussion, but could have been FB-22s). The B-1/B-2 replacement needed to be bought 10-15 years ago. Then the F-35 gets to replace the F-16s now.

TomcatViP said:
Just a note: I was referring to the USN NGAD.
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I think the USN NGAD is going to be way too big for the French carriers. I'm expecting it to be on the order of 85klbs, and longer/wider than a Flanker. USAF NGAD is likely to be a 100klb aircraft.
 
French future aircraft carrier project renderings depict a carrier sized already for Gulliver kind of aircraft. I have no doubts that NGAD would fit in.
 
Yes, but with one single emal on the main launch deck. It's enormous. Enlarge it for a second emal and it could reach above 80000t.
 
TomcatViP said:
Yes, but with one single emal on the main launch deck. It's enormous. Enlarge it for a second emal and it could reach above 80000t.
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I hope they stick a second EMAL on the waist. I don't like single-point-failures like when the one catapult you have goes down and prevents flight ops.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I hope they stick a second EMAL on the waist. I don't like single-point-failures like when the one catapult you have goes down and prevents flight ops.
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The design has two, one on the starboard bow and one down the angle. Supposedly the latest version (or at least as of this time last year) is arranged to allow a third EMALS, if desired.

www.navalnews.com

Euronaval 2022: Latest PANG Aircraft Carrier Design Breaks Cover - Naval News

An updated design of the PANG (porte-avions de nouvelle génération) new generation aircraft carrier was unveiled today on Day one of Euronaval 2022...
www.navalnews.com www.navalnews.com
 
you could easily see the space for the 3rd catapult if you zoom in on the model.

i do hope that the SCAF will have folding wings. it looks like it takes up a lot of space on the PANG
 
im still wondering if a large combat plane is the right direction for france?
the past few fighter generations, Dassault had success with smaller fighters like the Mirage 2000, F1, M3.. the Rafale is only slightly larger than the F-16.
 
helmutkohl said:
im still wondering if a large combat plane is the right direction for france?
the past few fighter generations, Dassault had success with smaller fighters like the Mirage 2000, F1, M3.. the Rafale is only slightly larger than the F-16.
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Complete internal weapons carriage for stealth and any decent range implies a large aircraft.

Even if it's the size of an F-14, it'll still be the smallest 6th Gen fighter. The USN plane is likely to be at the max for the catapults, some 83klbs, and the USAF is likely to be over 100klbs. The Japanese GCAP is likely to be 100klbs, not sure about the UK version.
 
I do wonder if big planes make sense in the age of loyal wingmen - instead of putting a ton of payload on a single plane, why not have an F-16/Rafale sized small plane, and double up its payload with a fighter-class drone? The latter approach is way more flexible, and cost-wise it might be even competitive, considering the large plane would have to be twin-engine, the two smaller planes could get by with one engine each, especially considering a broad set of missions would only require the manned component.

And the export market is very important for France, and the market for giant, expensive jets is considerably smaller.
 
Scott Kenny said:
If the SCAF is anything under Tomcat sized I will be amazed. 72klbs, ~32,000kg.
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I’m kind of hoping for Mirage 4000 sized myself. A modern day M4000 with CFTs would weigh ~13 tons empty with a massive internal fuel load (11+ tons). If Dassault can pull off a stealthy airframe of the same general size and tradeoff some of that fuel volume for an internal weapons bay they may well have a winner with a still-reasonable TO weight of 25-30 tons for most missions.
 
H_K said:
I’m kind of hoping for Mirage 4000 sized myself. A modern day M4000 with CFTs would weigh ~13 tons empty with a massive internal fuel load (11+ tons). If Dassault can pull off a stealthy airframe of the same general size and tradeoff some of that fuel volume for an internal weapons bay they may well have a winner with a still-reasonable TO weight of 25-30 tons for most missions.
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Boramae, is that thou ? must be feasible... indeed.
 
Elysium said:
I do wonder if big planes make sense in the age of loyal wingmen - instead of putting a ton of payload on a single plane, why not have an F-16/Rafale sized small plane, and double up its payload with a fighter-class drone? The latter approach is way more flexible, and cost-wise it might be even competitive, considering the large plane would have to be twin-engine, the two smaller planes could get by with one engine each, especially considering a broad set of missions would only require the manned component.

And the export market is very important for France, and the market for giant, expensive jets is considerably smaller.
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Still needs to be fairly big due to range requirements, even with fancy, highly efficient engines.

And needs two seats to be able to wrangle the drones.

As to capacity, at a bare minimum we're talking about 2x BVRAAMs and 2x 2000lb sized bombs, nukes being roughly that big. And that's F-35 sized. Not exactly a small plane.
 
H_K said:
I’m kind of hoping for Mirage 4000 sized myself. A modern day M4000 with CFTs would weigh ~13 tons empty with a massive internal fuel load (11+ tons). If Dassault can pull off a stealthy airframe of the same general size and tradeoff some of that fuel volume for an internal weapons bay they may well have a winner with a still-reasonable TO weight of 25-30 tons for most missions.
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The MTOW multiplier from F-15 (all ordnance external) to F-22 (equal amount of ordnance internal and similar range) is 1.55x.

I don't have an MTOW for the Mirage 4000 to hand, but the combat gross weight is about that of the Rafale (M4K is 16.1 tonnes, R is 15 tonnes). So running with the Rafale MTOW and adding 1 tonne, 25.5 tonnes times 1.55 internal weapons carriage multiplier makes 39.5 tonnes. 87klbs.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The MTOW multiplier from F-15 (all ordnance external) to F-22 (equal amount of ordnance internal and similar range) is 1.55x.
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Which version of the F-15?
It seems the F-22 with 38t MTOW is just a "better" F-15E with 37t.

FighterJock said:
NGAD will probably end up being another F-22 and will not be exported for obvious reasons which will be sad.
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That is probably the point!
And if there is an export: not everyone love to buy a black box as some political discussions on the F-35 shows.

Scott Kenny said:
The USN plane is likely to be at the max for the catapults, some 83klbs, and the USAF is likely to be over 100klbs.
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The F-111B had an MTOW of 88,000 lb (39,900 kg) and the F-111C 110,002 lb (49,896 kg). So, the USN NGAD may be a downgraded USAF NGAD with less payload or less range.

If an FCAS shall have good export chance than it has to beat the F-35 with 70,000 lb (31,800 kg) MTOW with payload and range.
 

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