First Typhoon Tranche 3 Front Fuselage Rolls Off Production Line

The first Typhoon Tranche 3 Front Fuselage unit has rolled off the production line at our Samlesbury site.

Under the Tranche 3A contract signed in 2009, a total of 112 aircraft have been ordered for the four European partner nations, with 40 aircraft bound for the Royal Air Force. Deliveries of Tranche 3 aircraft are expected to start in 2013.

Building on the success of the Typhoons already proven in service, as demonstrated during Libyan Operations, Tranche 3 aircraft will be even more capable.

The Tranche 3 front fuselage, part of the British single seat aircraft number 116, includes over 350 modified parts designed, engineered and assembled ready to incorporate the most advanced capability enhancements.


Those enhancements include provision for conformal fuel tanks and a fuel dump system which will enable Typhoon to fly further and stay on mission longer. Also included are extra electrical power and cooling to cater for an E-Scan radar which will enhance performance, reliability and availability whilst delivering lower support costs for Typhoon customers. Extra computing power and high speed data network systems will give the aircraft capacity for even more capability in the future.

Mark Bowman, BAE Systems’ Chief Test Pilot said: “This represents the next significant milestone in the evolution of this remarkable combat aircraft. The new provisions including for example, conformal tanks and an ESCAN radar capability not only pave the way for more war-winning advantages such as range, detection and persistence, but ensure that the aircraft remains at the forefront of combat aviation for decades to come. I look forward enormously to putting this exciting piece of cutting-edge technology through its paces when it takes to the skies in the near future.”

BAE Systems Saudi Arabia concluded a contract for the processing capacity to repair Typhoon aircraft in national facilities

BAE Systems Saudi Arabia is very pleased to announce that it has invested SAR-65M with Advanced Electronics Systems (AEC) and Rockwell Collins Deutschland (RCD) to bring into Saudi Arabia the repair capability for the Cockpit Interface Unit (CIU) Interface Processor Unit (IPU) key avionics boxes on the Typhoon Aircraft, the Royal Saudi Air Force’s (RSAF) and Salam Project Office’s latest and most advanced fast jet aircraft.

This repair capability is expected to be installed and commissioned in the AEC facilities in Riyadh in June 2014 with In Kingdom repairs for the CIU & IPU commencing shortly thereafter. This investment with AEC and RCD will be followed up later this year with a further investment which will bring additional avionics repair capabilities to AEC.

Jim McDowell the Managing Director & CEO of BAE Systems Saudi Arabia said “BAE Systems is proud of it’s partnerships with the RSAF and Saudi Industry and these investments reinforce BAE Systems allegiance to industrialisation which will see significant elements of the Typhoon Aircraft’s repair capabilities moving to Saudi Arabia providing long term employment of Saudi Nationals in a multitude of technical roles in the Typhoon supply chain”

Dr Ghassan Shibl the CEO of AEC welcomed these investments saying that, “These are important investments which demonstrate BAE Systems commitment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and AEC which will introduce AEC into the supply chain for the RSAF’s Typhoon aircraft bringing repair capabilities into Saudi Arabia while creating new jobs” Dr Oliver Stucky, Director Programs, EuMEA Airborne Solutions, from Rockwell Collins Deutschland said “This investment extends further the excellent relationships Rockwell Collins has with both BAE Systems and AEC and we look forward to working with both organisations to introduce more indigenous avionics capabilities to Saudi Arabia” .

Asian Defence News

What the F-22 vs. the Typhoon tells us

The anti-F-22 crowd over at Wired bring up some great points about the F-22 and Typhoon. Also, they may have overlooked or just didn't get around to mentioning some other things in the big picture of air power emerging threats.

For starters, while the F-22 may face some challenges in air-to-air combat, anything less than that is going to suffer a hard time in coming anti-access threat scenarios.

With the Typhoon, consider that (except for its F-18-class airframe profile), its speed and performance mimic some of the SU-35 capability. The SU-35 is the non-stealth reference threat for the Pacific in coming years. It was designed to exploit the Raptor. However many of the SU-35 are made, expect its technology to bleed elsewhere.

One big difference between the F-22 and the Typhoon is that one of them is going to have more difficulty in a high-end SAM environment.


What Wired, or us, do not know, are the rules of engagement for the exercise. By getting the F-22 into within-visual-range (WVR) practice with the Typhoon, we give the F-22 a look at what it will have to deal with when facing emerging reference threats in the SU-35 class of jet: or worse.

Wired is right to bring up the single point of failure in the U.S. air power roadmap. That is the AIM-120 AMRAAM. While it may have some combat victories, they were against poor opponents and not someone using cross-eyed jamming in a new-gen Flanker. Once the AMRAAM probability of kill is lowered to that of a Vietnam-era AIM-7 Sparrow, we have problems.

According to Janes and others, we have even more of a problem with the AMRAAM. Rocket motor production for the AIM-120D AMRAAM (the new supposedly longer range variant) is in dire straits because of serious production defects. This problem has affected all AMRAAM deliveries within the last two years.

The fix here is that the U.S. needs to get competing sources for beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles in the AMRAAM class. Sooner rather than later.

That and a dual mode or family of BVR missiles that use not only radar but optical guidance for terminal homing.

Years ago, when the advanced tactical fighter (ATF) project started--which gave us the F-22--red-force evaluators knew that stealth, for stealth's sake, was not good enough against emerging threats. One had to have extreme altitude and super-cruise to lower the effectiveness of enemy firing solutions by degrading missile no escape zones (NEZ).

With its AN/ALR-94, it has an interesting way of detecting targets; passively. Also the F-22 has usable combat range. And, certainly more than the F-35 will ever see, if it ever shows up in combat trim.

The most important thing that the Typhoon vs. F-22 flights show us is that against almost any emerging threat for the foreseeable future, the F-35 is dead meat. It's BVR capability may count for something, but with the AMRAAM PK taken into effect and a serious lack of dancing ability, what will be delivered to the warfighter are tales of the Brewster Buffalo, Vindicator and Helldiver.

The Pacific isn't looking all that great for air power deterrence. In part, we can thank, Gates, Schwartz and Donley: three people that when you combine their total fund of air power knowledge, it could be written inside of a match-book; with a large-sized crayon.

This should also worry the Israelis when looking at all those Typhoons. For them, the F-35 will not provide a credible deterrence. There was a time we supported our allies. President Clinton did promise them the F-22. Too bad for them, the U.S. didn't follow through.

Today? All the U.S. really wants from its allies is to purchase faulty weapons systems. No matter what the consequence. Asian Defence News