"Ed Rasimus" wrote
"Paul F Austin" wrote:

No, my statement is that a Typhoon had better be superior to an ATA
configured Eagle (an F-15C), never mind a Mud Hen. There's no "story"
there
and there's no stupid chauvinism either. In case you haven't noticed, the
main operator of Typhoons is Great Britain, who is on_our_side.

It makes no difference in the size of_my_weenie whether a thirty year old
McAir design is superior to a ten year old BAE design in a dog fight.


I've never been into the "size" thing either--I've simply gone with
customer satisfaction. Eagles have satisfied the customer for a long
time, so there's something to be said for them.

What's at issue here is the (re-)education of the masses, which in a
democratic political structure, influence the direction of defense
spending. If they are told repeatedly that some low cost (dare I say
"free lunch") solution is effective, they will opt for it rather than
a more technologically and tactically superior one at higher cost.
(I'm not arguing that high cost per se is definitive.)

Over simplification, to the point that the GUM understand a very
technical situation such as twenty-first century air-superiority, is
dangerous. The idea that this spontaneous encounter between two
un-briefed and un-prepared adversaries in a decidedly WVR, tail-aspect
situation is somehow definitive of a paradigm shift in air/air is
ludicrous.

When the voters of Liverpool and Birmingham are writing their MP who
used to be the candle-stick maker in Nottinghamshire regarding the
superiority of Typhoons over Raptors and urging the investment of
precious defense pounds sterling, they have to understand the total
came, not simply they caused an overshoot and gunned the Eagle's
brains out, ergo the Eagle is dead, long live the Typhoon.

Eagle is a fine airplane and under some circumstances (the -15C with AESA,
in BVR engagements) is still competitive with anything in the air. It's
interesting that the Typhoon operators have suddenly found more urgency in
air to mud software and systems (as has the USAF for Raptor of course).

Right now, most of the potential Disturbers of the World's Peace have second
and third rate air forces. I wonder how long it will be before someone with
a first rate air force pops up on the RADAR and ATA becomes a key mission
again. Probably 20 years and probably China.