European defence industry nearing crisis, report warns

Flight Global ^ | 3/26/2012 | Craig Hoyle

[U-238]

Europe's ability to develop next-generation combat aircraft has been dangerously eroded, and will reach "a point of no return" unless collaborative funding decisions are made soon, a new industry study warns.

Commissioned by the European Defence Agency (EDA), the Future Air Systems for Europe (FAS4Europe) group study says "the situation for future air systems is severe, with some important industrial capabilities and technologies already at risk".

Without additional investment and a joint strategy, the situation "will soon become critical", it says, identifying the "development of future combat aircraft (manned and unmanned) and attack helicopters" as being at risk.

"Europe's military aeronautics industry remains competitive, however, today's position is based on past investment," the report says. "Many of the capabilities at risk will be very costly, in both time and money, to adequately recover if lost." It warns that in some cases industry will be unable to meet EDA member state requirements by as soon as 2020.

"The timescales and costs associated with advanced military aviation suggest the need for European Union member states to agree a coordinated plan, but no plan exists," the FAS4Europe partners say. "Short-term pragmatic decisions need to be balanced with a long-term strategy and plan for sustaining sovereign military capabilities."

[U-238]

Excellent news for the U.S. aerospace industry

[moovova]

Europe sez: "Help! Help, America! America, please come save us...again. Russia is attacking us and we can't defend ourselves."

The Obamster sez: "...uh...sorry folks, you're on your own. I uh, gave away our missle system to Vladimir."

[SnuffaBolshevik]

Not like the good old days.

[U-238]

I believe that this “European Crisis” will increase the orders for the F-35s.Lockheed Martin should be very happy over this article. Basically they have no competition.

[FAA]

As an aviation enthusiast, this is not necessarily “good” news.

The F-35 is an overall superior product to the Eurofighter and Rafale. It is more advanced, contains more advanced avionics and weapons capability as well increased low detection properties, and will no doubt be in production and fly longer than either.

The environment has been getting to this point for the last two decades. New airframes and tech, along the current production and development schedule, has been becoming more and more cost prohibitive.

Unmanned airframes have been able to decrease some of the cost in new winged aircraft but not completely negate it.

Sweden is now prescribing a modified Gripen for its next combat airplane. Probably rebuilds of current airplanes. I don’t think it will happen. England, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, etc have not produced requirements for any next generation manned combat aircraft. They don’t know where to go after the EF and Rafale. Russia? The PAK-FA is the only new and producable airframe of any kind that they have created in the last 15 years. And it took everything they had to get it done. No mas.

The dark horse is China. They’ve rolled out and flown the J-20 which is a very respectable sample. The question around the J-20 is whether it’s an air superiority platform or a strike aircraft. The application of stealth and low observables on the airplane is odd. They are making leaps but don’t seem to understand the big picture as most Western organizations do.

[U-238]

The Europeans,Russians and Chinese have nothing comparable to the F-35. The J-20 design is where the U.S. was 20 years ago. I believe, its a reversed engineered Su-33.The Europeans will have to come to the United States for any future purchases. The F-35 will probably be the standard fighter in Europe.I have included some links on the J-20.

Info on the J-20:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8241968/Chinas-J-20-stealth-fighter-design-is-25-years-old.html

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/long-march-chinas-fifth-generation-fighter-is-years-351462/

[Yo-Yo]

I wouldn't be quite so hasty in dismissing the Russians.

[Scythian]

Don’t worry, after Obama wins the election we will be giving Russia all our nukes ...

[U-238]

As of this moment,the Raptor is still king of the skies

[tanknetter]

I wouldn't be quite so hasty in dismissing the Russians.

I wouldn't be quite so hasty in praising them. The Raptorski has a number of decidedly non-LO features (the jet exhausts, for instance, look directly lifted off of the Su-27, the IRST ball forward of the canopy as well) and many of the other features look to be direct copies of other known LO designs (wing planform is a near-duplicate of the F-22, the main fuselage the YF-23, the forward fuselage the F-35). This would indicate an attempt at reverse-engineering from sight and measurement, rather than the ability to conduct predictive-stealh trials using computers.

Add to that the pretty small control surfaces for what is allegedly supposed to be an air-dominance fighter. Plus the very good likelihood that the plane's "integrated" avionics/weapons-control suite is at least a generation, and maybe two, behind what the US is putting into the F-22 and F-35.

The Raptorski is certainly neat-looking, especially with the splinter cammo scheme. But good looks really say nothing about what lies underneath.

[Yo-Yo]

Again, I wouldn't be so hasty in dismissing the Russians.

The aircraft you have critiqued is a protype, ala YF-22 or X-35. The production aircraft will include supercruise, 3D thrust vectoring allowing for the smaller control surfaces, and will include improved frontal aspect stealth.

The avionics, while probably not on par with what is promised for the F-35, will most likely be equal to or slightly better than the now 15 year old F-22 avionics. (The F-22 doesn't even have IRST or a Helmet Mounted Cueing System.)

The F-22 will still probably have superior performance, but the PAK-FA will have a pretty decent AESA radar in it's own right, and a supercruising F-22 glows very brightly at 50,000 ft against the cold stratosphere, making the PAK-FA's IRST especially effective.