Lockheed Martin, it seems, has recently been talking down the Eurofighter Typhoon’s capability as a fighter, at least vis-à-vis that of the F-35 Lightning II (the Joint Strike Fighter). In response, Eurofighter GmbH has attempted its own blogging smackdown. This story has been underway for years, but we might look at it again to ask what it says about the companies involved. Specifically, we can ask how reasonable are these claims, and what do they say about the relative marketing strategies of the companies and their supporters?
In its response, Eurofighter makes three arguments. Drawing on some comments at Aviation Week, we can analyze each of these assertions and their messaging in turn.
The Typhoon can supercruise, is more agile and has more firepower. True, on all points. The LIghtning II doesn’t apparently supercruise, and so far, few are rushing to call it highly maneuverable. On the contrary, none other than former USAF Chief of Staff General John Jumper, the only person to have flown both the Eurofighter and the F-22 Raptor, has called the Typhoon’s maneuverability “very impressive”. And, if Eurofighter GmbH has been criticized for its relatively lagging air-to-ground weapons integration, it is frequently noted that the F-35 loses its radar-evading qualities when carrying an external ordnance load.
The Typhoon can detect low-observable aircraft like the Lightning II. Sure, the Lightning II lacks a towed decoy, but Lockheed Martin and the program office say that won’t matter. When pressed on this issue by Aviation Week, the program office wrote that
the JSF will operate in stealth mode in high-risk situations, giving it an advantage in air combat. The JSF pilot, with unique situational awareness, will have the option of declining close-quarters maneuvering combat while tracking and engaging adversaries from any direction.
Nice boilerplate, but it’s easy to note that the strategy only works as long as the aircrew can count on its lower observability. Using a famous thermal image of a B-2 in crosshairs, Eurofighter has pitched its PIRATE (Passive Infra-Red Airborne Track Equipment) as capable of finding and tracking radar-evading aircraft. Every jet aircraft has a flaming tailpipe, and there is only so much that can be done to suppress that signature. Particularly ominous was this point that Aviation Week repeats:
While the JSF’s radar cross-section characteristics are fixed by shape and construction, radar processing and networking are advancing according to Moore’s law, and new systems (like VHF radars) designed to detect stealth targets are under development. They may be even more effective against export-standard JSFs if those aircraft do not have the same stealth technology as U.S.-operated aircraft.
That is, It’s hard to improve the radar-stealthiness of an aircraft after it has been designed, but sensors are certain to continue to improve. The program office’s refusal to deny that different levels of stealthiness have been designed for US and allied aircraft is disconcerting to potential-but-unconvinced buyers. So, if Eurofighter’s claims about its sensor today are reasonable, then the joint venture has a claim on the upper hand over time.
On the other hand, Eurofighter is not being quite open about the adaptability of aircraft designs over time. The F-35 is supposed to be the F-16 of the early 21st century, and the F-16 is famous for having evolved from a relatively simple machine with iron bombs and short-range missiles to a precision-fighter bomber with JDAMs and AMRAAMs. So, it’s reasonable as well to wonder how well the F-35 would do with the sorts of sensors that Eurofighter describes.
Eurofighter also isn’t being completely fair about the relative value of stealth. Low observability isn’t invisibility per se: it is merely intended to reduce the range at which the aircraft is detectable, hopefully allowing it the first shot. That can make a big difference with highly accurate weapons. The F-35’s premier air-to-air weapon, the AMRAAM, has thus far shown a 46 percent kill rate against beyond-visual-range targets. That sounds good, but as Stillion & Perdue’s August 2008 briefing from RAND famously pointed out, none of the victims have been shown to have been using electronic countermeasures. So, the value of that first shot is yet an open question.
The cost of the Lightning II seems to be much higher than expected and higher of any competitor. Or more specifically, the Typhoon’s offered price about the same as the Lightning II’s claimed price. This is an important distinction. Claimed prices for fighter aircraft don’t tend to go down as advertised, with the notable recent exception of Boeing’s F-18E/F/G Super Hornet program. Eurofighter doesn’t disclose prices, but some customers and would-be customers have:
- In 1999, Eurofighter offered the Dutch government a price of €57.4 per aircraft
- In 2003, Eurofighter concluded a deal with the Austrian government for €62.9 million per aircraft.
So what can we make about these arguments overall?
Eurofighter’s story is notable not just for what it contains, but what it omits. The company failed to make much headway in the Norwegian competition when extolling the benefits of twin engines for long over-water patrols. Frankly, now that airliners cross the Atlantic daily with but two engines (vice three or four), the marketability of added engines (and their added weight and cost) is slipping. That’s an artifact of the Typhoon’s design, the basic outlines of which date to the late 1980s, but it’s a reality with which the company must deal today.
Both aircraft manufacturers are largely missing the point about the marketability of their respective aircraft: the question is not how well either would fare against the other, but how either would fare against their plausible opponents. That’s a more difficult set of potential threats to imagine for European customers than others, but the threat folders can be devised. Until someone who might fly against European air forces can be shown to be operating stealthy fighters, the question of the F-35’s low observability is considerably less interesting.
That said, Eurofighter has one unassailable argument: it can offer a fixed price today. Saab is doing that with the Gripen NG. Boeing is doing that with the Super Hornet. Lockheed Martin won’t do that, and that’s problematic. With a worldwide recession underway, and tax revenues impaired all around, offering a price formula would go a long way towards resolving lingering concern about the affordability of its aircraft. We think the finance guys in Fort Worth ought to be thinking of just how they could balance risk and reward to offer something more compelling than assurances. Plenty of companies which develop complicated aircraft on their own nickel—Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, and even (to a degree) Airbus—do just that. A known price isn’t a far-fetched request.
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