On Sat, 8 May 2004 08:06:15 +0100, "Ian" wrote:


"David E. Powell" wrote in message
ws.com...
"TJ" wrote in message
om...
(Prowlus) wrote in message
. com...
Has the RAF confirmed that their T.1 and F.1 Typhoons are to be
supplied without the mauser gun capabilities? According to Typhoon's
entry on RAF's website there doesn't seem to have mention of a 27mm
mauser on the fighter

http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/typhoon.html

Smart move for an aircraft that is supposed to do Air defence and
close air support missions

The UK Ministry of Defence officially released the RAF designations
for the Typhoon on June 30 2003. Two-seat trainer variants will be
designated Typhoon T.1 or Typhoon T.1A, depending on the production
batch of the aircraft, whilst single-seat aircraft will be designated
Typhoon F.2.

The RAF website still has the single-seater as the F.1. It took the
webmaster long enough to update the fact that the RAF Harriers are not
fitted out for cannons.

TJ

Surely they can't save that much weight or cost in mounting out a cannon
or
two. Can't hurt to have the gun option, for air to air or air to ground.

It wasn't really to do with weight or cost of cannon - was more to do with
cost of qualifying the equipment for use when the gun was being fired. The
vibration and exhaust gas analysis is apparently quite expensive (but since
they share common equipments with the other countries, I don't quite
understand this as they are getting the same guns??)


One of the points sugested to me was the vibration of the gun was
detrimental to the avionics/airframe, this in conjunction with the
training/maintainence/logistics etc would save about £6M, not a small
amout, but IMHO worth spending it, as it should be used in the RAF,
its always better to have it and not use it, than need it and not
have it.


Cheers

John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

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