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You have to wonder how any big company stays afloat, seeing as every single deal they get was apparently a do-or-die, make-or-break situation. How lucky and convenient they always get that life saver deal.
- 5 continents
- 90,000 people
- Largest European defence company
- Top 10 US defence company
- Order book £51.2 billion
- £14.8 billion annual sales
- £1.2 billion annual R&D spend
- 100 new inventions a year
More info about the countless things and projects they do here: http://www.baesystems.com/
Anyone who seriously believes the company was going to be in trouble had the sale of Eurofighters to the Saudis been blocked needs to think things through a little more carefully.
Now it might not happen tommorrow, but unless they sale aircraft the factories which make the Eurofighter and components for it will close down unless they get new business.
Whilst BAE may well be big enough to cover such losses, what about their suppliers? And the places where those suppliers buy their products, and the places where the employees of those providers spend their wages...?
thats why private arms manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to operate on british soil, then they will only be made for our own purposes which of course is still dubious, but is better than putting profits before ethics
Except your not, you're putting your own ethics before other peope's jobs (PS state run arms companies have never shown much disinclination to sell abroad - in fact often more than private as the state used it as way to get access to foreign currency)
Projected sales or not, nobody was depending on the Saudi sale for survival. They didn't even know they'd get such sale when they embarked in the project. Come on guys...
It's ugly, it looks like a fat F-16.
If i was the Saudis I would have gone for the Gripen or the Super-Hornet, assuming they wouldn't buy from the Russkies...
It is also highly manouverable and has good radar. Obviously not manouverable like a Flanker or MiG-29, but moreso than most ordinary standard design jets. The cnard instead of normal design is manouverable...
Its got good Radar, 'cos its British.
But yeah, they'd have been better off buying Flankers to be fair.
Define highly manouverable?
Can the Super Hornet not do anything the Eurofighter can?
What about the Gripen?
Or even the F-16J or whatever it's designation is they are flying at NASA?
All these are inherently unstable to give them the extra manouvreability, controlled by flybywire. The delta wings can only work if the design is right and if this plane didn't have the flybywire, the delta wings wouldn't work. The canards work the same as they do on the Gripen.
The Gripen is cheaper and has got all the things Eurofighter has apart from super cruise.
Also all the airforces now have similar radar capabilities because of the support, like a eurofighter will have GPS and a Sentry for support, and the Gripen has a similar thing.
The countries that built the Eurofighter are desperate to sell it because they want to prove people wrong in terms of waste of money and development glitches and how un-necessary the development was in terms of the JSF coming and the tornadoes still being a mighty fine aircraft.
My point is that taking the russian planes aside because of their superior manouvreability, I've seen the typhoon, f-16, super-hornet, gripen and even a Rafale fly in the same airshow circuit and they are all pretty much the same.
Anyway, Saudi's have bought them as a natural progression, why change everything when you got the infrastructure in place to deal with british planes etc...
Out of interest, apart from the saudis, has anyone else bought any typhoon's? (the countries that developed it don't count)
NO, coz as soon as the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) has finished it's development it will be made here too for our Navy and Army etc to replace the Harrier. So no, no jobs would have been lost. Of course it's not a 100%, but I am pretty sure.
I get your point, I thought you were saying it was a bad craft.. lol.. the JSF? The JSF isn't shit. It's appalingly bad, it's nearly as big a waste as the Raptor. I ain't even joking... it can't opperate in a combat theatre alone you know? It needs other craft to relay radar data to it. It has limited abilities on its own. It isn't even VTOL... it's STOL.
Fucking shit replacement for the Harrier. Might as well develop something ourselves... British stuff tends to be better.
Fuck it, comision Yakolev to make some Yak-141's. (Which the JSF tried to copy, failed, then they got Yak to work with them on it.)
Hell, it's not bad.
THe problem with the JSF is the complexity of the VTOL component. Yes, you were wrong, it's not STOL, it's VTOL. It's a component that's not proven in combat. And it's so ugly. But the contracts have been signed and they will be coming.
BY the way, most air forces in the world use a variety of info systems, radar systems in the combat arena. Even the B2 bombers have scrambled satellite imagery and info downloaded through GPS. No single plane can go into the combat zone hoping information will be the same at the start of the sortie and at the end.
Real time information is vital.
Personally, I don't think there is a need for VTOL aircraft today. There's an Osprey and the helicopter.
And also the future is the UAV, reconn and combat versions.
That's the main research.
I wouldn't mind a raptor for personal use though.
On an official document that they released it is called STOL... I went with that, but I have seen it do VTOL-type manouvers. Perhaps STOL is safer than straight up for it? We know it has balance woes doing this. And if it can just take-off diagonally easier... go for it.
VTOL has proved to be an element that both UK and US soldiers have said they can't do without in Iraq fighting insurgents - The Harrier has recieved high amounts of praise off of the troops on the ground. Working together with a hovering Harrier, they have been pinpointing and blowing up insurgent positions. Still life in the old bird yet.
I wouldn't mind a raptor. But for the price I could buy alot more Sukhoi for the money. And It'd also be better. People don't get free jets or we'd all choose the most expensive. Luckily, when buying, we lok for what does the best job, cheapest. As it happens... the best job... is done by Sukhoi for a fraction of the price of a Raptor. (OMG is can SUPERCRUISE. And has STEALTH. Shame it'll still show up on any modern radar. And it only has slight thrust vectoring, instead of full vectoring. And as soon as it's missile pods open, stealth is lost. So it can't attack stealthed.)
And the JSF... still is dodgey and under-equiped. I can see it ending badly. It's like the Starfighter, all over again. And let's not forget the Raptor's computers like to fail rather easily.
US jet production has hit a bit of a low.
The JSF, I've seen it fly on an official documentary when the whole Boeing vs Lockheed battle for the JSF contract was being played. And I watched it in it's final test days before Lockheed won. I saw it take off vertically and land vertically.
Officially it's STOVL (Short take off vertical landing). It's ugly. Unfortunately the government is commited to the project.
Harrier can still do the job, sure, but it's a shame it is not supersonic.
As for the Raptor, with all the problems, I still love it, coz it's absolutely gorgeous!!
You had to put that up...
You gorgeous thing, you fishbed you!!
But anyone can buy a MiG 21 these days.
And the beauty of the Raptor is in it's simplicity of design. Sleek and sexy.
If only it was simple, it might work! But yeah, the smooth design is at last a sexy stealth aircraft. If it does look a little boring, imho. Whereas a Flanker is designed for supreme performance, (hence the whole body generates lift, much like the MiG-29) without any stealth characteristics.
However, when the Russians get Plasma stealth, this won't matter one jot! I hope they put tons of cash into it... imagine stealthing a Tu-95
The Tu-160 though ;o
As far a I know Plasma Stealth is in the late test stages. It should be awesome.
I don't care about the stealth of the raptor or the super cruise or whatever, it's just so pretty.
Not as pretty as the Fuclrum, by miles.
I agree the Sukhois especially are designed around performance.
The Blackjack is awesome. I like the Lancer though. It's one of my favourites.
Similar aircraft.
Imagine a big Antonov with stealth capabilities...hehe
You know they fucking ship Sukhois INSIDE Anthonovs? Nutters.
Imagine an An-225 bomber version. With Plasma stealth.:yes: Fuck it, Stealth Ekranoplans. Stealth Lada.
The possibilities... jesus. I am going to Plasma stealth my car.
So you can drive into Zhukowsky unnoticed and steal the Berkut?