How Germany Fixed The Eurofighter Typhoon Problem 

I was the USAF’s lead (only) Tornado ECR tech in the mid-late 90’s, so it was nice to see those videos from Nellis. Also comforting to know the Luftwaffe is addressing the need for a more modern and capable EW platform.

Kind of refreshing that the government does something that is somewhat cheap, fast, simple and logical. Is this the first time in the history of mankind?

Sead only expensive till you start suffering jet losses in a war. Then the value of Sead is shown.

You might have missed this but what they announced was a two aircraft system, Eurofighter EK with defensive electronic warfare to detect enemy radar and a HARM equivalent and an accompanying loyal wingman drone with an offensive electronic warfare jammer pod. The jammer pod being offloaded to the unmanned aircraft is to increase the pilot survivability. As to other customers, Italy were interested in a purchase of the ECR dont know if they maintain that interest in the EK.

Maan, the Tornado looks so good. It Looks like a muscular, low level, brawler.

The tail art in the concept painting that Airbus released is . . . something.

I am honestly really happy how this turned out. I think the F-35 complements the EF really well and can bring some new capabilities to the Luftwaffe that the Growler would not have. Still think they should make the EKs two seaters, just in case.

to my knowledge, the electronic attack (EA) capabilities will be located in a seperate pod, developed by Hensoldt & Rafael (Sky-Shield, Kalaetron Attack). In my Opinion a pod-solution is fine, bc. this will be more readily upgradable than any components built into the airframe - and there will be probably lots of changes & new developments in the EW Area the next decades

Thanks Chris & wishing you a Happy New Year !

Thank you for another informative video, always enjoy them!

Thanks for the info. Great vid as ever.

Huh.... I never thought this project would really go anywhere. Perhaps I am just not in the loop as much anymore but these developments really didn't show up in media I follow. Still interesting developments. Most informative Chris.

How did I just now find your excellent channel! Great video! I have some catching up to do now! Thank you!❤🎉🎊😃

Makes sense, and uses the right partners to develop this into production quickly.

Would be great to get a squadron or two of these for the RAF to replace (or even rebuild) the Tranche 1s that we're retiring. Current experience coming out of Ukraine seems to be highlighting the importance of EW, it would be a useful niche capability to add into the NATO mix and it would help bolster the size of the Typhoon fleet (both nationally and across Europe), which helps keep prices down for everyone. Of course that would require a UK government that wants to do something other than cutting defence capabilities...

EK is cool but I personally find the AMK aerodynamic rework even more interesting. The Eurofighter has always been an impressive airframe but the AMK managed to SIGNIFICANTLY improve turn radius etc. Maybe you could make a video about it.

One solution for adding jammers would be to use the conformal take shape but use them for ECM jammers. You could also use them for extra chaff and flares. That would allow the weapon stations to stay clear for use with Fuel tanks, ARM missiles, decoys, and other systems.

Seeing the Eurofighter and the Gripen together is just so amazing 😍 🔥💥🛩️🔝

And the Swedes are now a huge game changer now we’re all NATO friends. Time to ramp up Meteor production and can we restart Storm Shadow/SCALP production? I know it’s a bit old hat for NATO but by George! It seems to mess up the Russians quite well.

Sehr interessant. Be well and stay safe

Electronic warfare jets used to coat their canopies with a thin layer of gold or ITO (indium tin oxide) to protect the pilots from the aggressive electronic signals. EA-6B used gold film, F-22 I know uses ITO but more for stealth purposes not EW. I wonder why they stopped doing this with the Growler and other jets with a lot of EW.

I think the obvious answer to will it it do x is not yet- rather sensibly they're rushing to get SOMETHING down they can use to try and hope to add additional functions later. Either a switch to war procurement or to avoid the all or nothing procurement pifalls of the past. An experimental squadron perhaps. There isn't a huge cost to doing this, it doesn't even cut them off from buying a different system in future. Its good to see them get the balls rolling before everything is confirmed. Imho it is a good idea to do even if it is likely to be poor. And maybe should've been done on paper long before now.

Upgrade existing airframes is a smart move - if they buy additional Tranche 4 airframes. Considering the urge to modernise older airframes it is cheaper to buy Tranche 4 airframes and modernise older airframes, e.g. Tranche 2. Sweden and Finland being admittedly NATO Partners will bring a new dynamic to next gen systems, not only due to their rapidly increasing Security needs. In a more recent timeframe I can absolutely see the Migration of electronic platforms on drone airframes. ECW and even AWACS roles can be fulfilled by existing long range drones circling atop the Battlefield.

So those EW pods at the wingtips are Gripen's right? they look exactly the same so I imagine that's SAAB's part in it.

Thanks Chris, I feel like I'll need to read a transcript of this to properly process and understand this. I guess I can just watch it a few more times. In the meantime, I hope you have a very Happy Holiday and don't get eaten by the Yule Cat or stuffed into a bag or any of those other things that happen in foreign parts.

At 26 seconds: It's weird to know that I worked on this aircraft over 25 years ago. Judging by photographs I found in the web, it is still flying.

Despite the potential of automation, it feels like there would be more flexibility and more risk mitigation if the two-seat platform was used for EK.

From what I've seen so far, the underwing podded jammers have been put on indefinite hold at the moment. Typhoon has only 2 underwing stations capable of carrying the pods or the underwing tanks, and given that the 2-seat variant already removes some of the internal fuel to make room for the rear seat, the heavily laden and draggy aircraft would've been very short on fuel with only a single fuselage tank. Alternatives such as carrying fuel tanks on the inboard stations or adopting the conformal tanks have both been proposed but mooted by the looks of things. Supposedly clearance and flight control issues with the inboard tanks and the substantial modifications to the aircraft's electronic flight control systems and performance concerns with the CFTs seem to have killed both of those options for now. The currently proposed AREXIS suite seems to be largely a replacement of the existing PRAETORIAN DAS suite with more sophisticated self-protection jamming and emitter locating capabilities. Giving the Typhoon ECR a role more akin to the Tornado ECR it replaces, locating and destroying emitters kinetically, rather than the EA-18G Growler with its additional electronic attack and escort/stand-off jamming capabilities. There is obviously room to change this with enough will and money, or to find alternative solutions such as the integration of the UKs forthcoming SPEAR-EW decoy to plug the gap but only time will tell.

Military Aviation History, please make a video about LUWES while you are at it. IIRC Eurofighter EK is a (small) part of LUWES.

I loved the look of the Tornado.

Well it has a kickass paint scheme on the tail.

I find it very odd that any modern fighter from the 90s and on isn't set up for any type of role, just by hanging different equipment from it. An EW variant should be as simple as taking ANY regular fighter and adding pods, like you'd add fuel tanks and missiles. Plug and play. If the systems need more power - then a generator in an underwing pod will handle that, and naturally the aircraft would be set up to be able to deliver fuel from its own tanks to that generator. The whole point of the generation of fighters developed in the late 80s was to allow them to switch between any and every role, from flight to flight, with the exact same airframe. Nuts, just nuts!

If it is a two seater varient it would make sense to build brand new air frames. Single seater would tax the pilot to much if they are considering MUM-T foe ECA attack.

Phenomenal aircraft

Another interesting point: will it be a single oder two seat aircraft. KI or not. Having a dedicated system operator has it advantages.

BAe provides most of the (non RADAR based) ECR capabilities for F-35 - creating a package for Typhoon would be a trivial undertaking for them - this is why NG are mostly funding this project - they are left out in the cold and want a slice of the action.

How did they solve the nuclear capable plarform? Referring to your previous video. And as always, very informative and thoroughly researched. Thank you.

🇩🇪 has always put an emphasis on recee & EW aircraft. It's good to see some nations haven't dropped the ball.

Will the standard engine and power produced be enough power for the AI and advanced analytics being used for EK

Will this be based on 2 seat airframe?

We need a video how helicopters were used in korean war tactics and logistics

Thank you for the update....

Given the recent lessons i wonder if the electronic attack component should not receive a higher priority.

Hi. Please enlighten me on a bit of a naive question: What part of EW requires a specific adaptation of the airframe? External pods seem so much more flexible in terms of future development and mission specifics. The video mentioned the cooling of the components? Is it volume/weight relevant? This question already applies to Tornade IDS vs ECR of course. And Super Hornet vs Growler, although in that case I can see the different requirement in the two-seat variant for EW. Anyone know the specifics of airframe internals for EW? At what cost do they come compared to the regular variant? (weight? fuel capacity?)

Hello. Very nice video. Just one comment, currently FCAS Is not a France- Germany Programme.

Sounds like it would be great if it had a datalink - obviously it does - but one which could immediately send back everything it found and/or communicate it to friendly aircraft. Perhaps a satellite link would do what was needed?

@MilitaryAviationHistory, if I may venture some personal questions and opinions ... the decision to develop the Eurofighter EK is interesting in light of previous German government interest, brief as it was, in the SuperHornet F/A-18E/F for the strike role with the Luftwaffe. Had that order occurred, acquisition of the EA-18 Growler, which shares the same airframe, might also seem to have been a logical, if not irresistible, decision? (That was certainly the case with my own country, Australia, which ordered the Growler even as it awaited delivery of its first SuperHornets. In fact, the first "AusGrowlers" were built out of airframes already acquired for RAAF SuperHornets.) So I'm guessing that the idea of doing the Eurofighter EK may have been around for several years and could even have been a factor in Germany's loss of interest in the SuperHornet? In other words, the much greater expense and significant delays caused by developing the EK were weighed and offset by non-financial benefits - creation of local skilled jobs, development of intellectual property etc?

Lots of comments about "this year". Does Germany work of calendar years (Jan - Dec) or financial years (Jul - Jun) in this context? That is, do they have days to make this decision or six months?

Just grab a 2 seat version of the Eurofighter, Slap a few "Growler pods" on it and there you go..... But I'm guessing that would be too efficient and be missing the over budget component that is a must for any and all government projects...... (I'm half series, and half joking....)

The photos show the single seater. Is this confirmed? This would be different from the EA-18 and the Tornado and require a lot of automation.

All criticism are complete BS. The US developed the E/A-18 Growler and there are only orders from the USN and RAAF (Just 172) A ECR version can be integrated into the forces of Germany, Spain, UK and Italy.

The Saab Gripen story has learned us that all critical components of a EU jet fighter should be sourced from EU suppliers. Good to see that Airbus has learned from this story.

Make a video on HAL Tejas mark1a and mark2 matching it’s class to other jets

f35 ecm? isnt that a bit daft adding emitters to a stealth plane?

Yes, but does it have a Griping Gretchen?

Yes.

Thanks

India could be interested. They are currently considering buying 114 fighters of foreign design. Offering an EW capability could increase odds of winning the selection.

Ist PRAETOR (die EW-Suite die Airbus für die TR4 vorsah) wohl doch nicht so gut, wenn die das Saab-System nehmen?

Could be a situation where the Luftwaffe specialise in EW and then partners such as the RAF offer the strike platforms?

Having such a specialist variant aircratft in so few number is a solution of the previous century. The modern solution would have been for all upgraded EF to use the EW pods and the antiradar missiles only with internal software modifications. This should have been part of the Quadriga upgrade, not a separate program.

Seems to me that the Eurofighter could easily be modified similar to the F-16XL for ground attack missions. Why not do that?

A.I. is a good fit for signal classification. It is nothing new. The question would be what kind of A.I. is used.

The EF has basic EMW capability build in, but I wouldn't say this is going to be easy or cheap.

When a video about helicopters in korea?

Next I want see is the Dassault Rafale

This is not a dedicated ECM aircraft like the E/A-18G Growlers of the USAF, RAAF but more like the limited lite ECM aircraft. The lacking of large jamming pods said it all, one just has to look at the large Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) pods for the EA-18G to realise this aircraft is of limited capability. Generation 4.5 aircraft can not operate over a battlefield without true dedicated ECM aircraft if at all...............what is needed is 5th or 6th gen with stealth now.

One would have thought that SEAD was properly the province of the F35. It had a much greater level of survivability in that environment.

I think, that it is about keeping the production line open for Eurofighter, until we have a decision on the production of FCAS (or rather the complimentary drones, which might be Germany’s part, if France secures exclusive production of FCAS). We don’t want to lose the skills and production facilities due to a gap in political decision making…

This sounds similar to how ea-18G Growler was developed from the F18.

Can anyone explain the capability differences between f-35 and a given dedicated ECR 4.5 gen? I always wondered when the UK dropped the tornado ECR what was filling that role, and i couldn't find where to look to find out so i just assumed an f-35 would fill the role or otherwise be able to perform sead using stealth and render the role irrelevant? But given germany is acquiring F-35s and doing this anyway, and the RAF is adopting ECR capability in some of its eurofighters, clearly this isn't the case? If thats true it feels as if we have had a massive hole in our capability since the tornado was dropped?

Very interesting!

2:09 F-45? Is VTOL VR leaking?

If the CGI mockups are anything to go by, I think they are making one grave mistake. Namely in making it a single seater. When it comes to ground attack, and even moreso when it comes to electronics warfare, you want a dedicated person in the rear who can focus their entire attention to the task, while the pilot can focus on flying. The idea that automation or AI as they love to call it now, can take over those tasks have proven time and again to not pan out. But their decision to convert existing airframes rather than doing new builds may be the reason. Everyone is operating single seaters as their main aircraft and only uses twin seaters for trainers, so there is too small a fleet to draw from in that case.

They should develop both Tempest and FCAS in a major consortium and then pick the jet that is better for each role

Three definitions of combat air space volume: Controlled, Contested, Denied. Nothing but missiles and drones are going into denied airspace as the 15-20 year investment in a fighter generation technology base simply isn't worth the risk. While the latter two, unless you are talking Big Crow levels of Jx, simply have low relevance to any kind of Peer Level CHI fight. The EEK (smile) is going to be too high a signature for more than the outer limits of Standoff Jamming in a Contested zone and will depend on the likes of a MALD J or perhaps a Valkyrie or similar system to do stand forward jamming. The F-35 is the Contested and outer edge of Denied airspace platform and is heavily dependent on digital stealth which is not necessarily aided by volumetric jamming to gain penetration. Fitting ALQ-249 low/midband jamming to a shaped RCS enclosure pod is certainly not going to be easy for the F-35 but the LDTP and similar 'stealth external weapons pod' enclosures may change this whereas a Eurofighter will never be stealth. This leaves only the 1 vs. 2 seat dynamic and frankly, without a dedicated ECMO/EWO in the back, monitoring HAL 9000, the ability of the EEK to roll back threats 'better than' a very busy F-35 is...dicey at best. Remember, you are not just controlling onboard assets but stand forward and escort systems as well, displaced/distributed by dozens of miles. And even though these are primarily missile suppression escorts, designed to break in friendly ALCM/HCM; the cost of the drone MEP is likely to make them incompatible with likes of an ADM-160 variant throwaway jammer. It will certainly be beyond the capacity of a single seat fighter to maintain his own airframe safety margin and act as a combat controller of multiple detached formations, in an environment where the onset of TJS electronic attack is what dictates a lot of the threat modes and codes and displaced SAMbush force response. The threat will likely be in Lighthouse mode (single, distant, EWR, using tropobounce or ionosphere bounce for range) until the music starts and then the ADGE will go full Christmas Tree mode with blink and blank and even bistatic/PCLS systems, saturating everything while TELs are completely separate and their missile seekers unpredictable in their cued target acquisition in HOJ/AA-ARM or dual-band modes. If EEK is not based on the two seat trainer then it's utility, as a full-signature airframe toting completely non-stealth compliant, external weapons is highly doubtful. Pretending that this is a European EA-18G equivalent is no excuse, as a lot of people believe the Navy went the wrong direction with an anachronistic conop doctrinal choice in replacing the EA-6B this way and the USN is, in fact, dumping a bunch of Growlers, starting with the landbased expeditionary squadrons which they are handing over to the Blue Suiters. If you are going to have a fully recoverable, landable (not parachute aided) system with high end stealth coatings as some kind of denied airspace CCA, as the likeliest alternative to a manned system, then do you even want your AI to be imbedded in a command network combat controller system? Or do you want to keep the machine learning, large scale computing, network controller fully offboard in some secure theater location and transmit control instructions via a secure satcomms pipe with a lot of bandwidth and data security by 10,000nm HEO orbit geometry of the command network? None of these questions are being asked-and-answered here. You are simply rewording zoomie speak a brochure talking points for your video.

"sort off..." savage. lol

Nice. Really. But can it run doom?

Didnt you make a video on Germany buying the Growler, and why dont you mention their approval to purchase exaclty 15 Growlers in 2020? Have Germany stepped away from that, or will they work parrallel? I can see reasons for both paths, but whats the status - was there an order? (EDIT: you did make an exact video on the topic ;) and explained why Germany hadnt ordered and wouldnt, and this EK development is a natural outcome of this)

hit 400k guys

The UK had the worlds most advanced SEAD platform in the form of the Tornado EF3 (the fastest and best version of the Tornado) armed with the British Aerospace ALARM missile used extremely successfully in the Iraq wars. Oddly, when the missile propellant time expired the UK decided not to build new ones for the Typhoon. The combination of the ECR 2 as will be fitted on the UK Typhoons and new build ALARM missiles would be unbeatable. Not holding my breath though.

EW is accentual to day. A good EW suite came blind stealth aircraft and level the playing field. The F-18G proved that.

While this is good news and seems to be working well, i am still worried about the numbers. F35 and EK may be great, but they are highly specialized planes with expected low availability, and then only 35 and 15 respectively? For now the question is how many you can afford - but once things go south, the real question becomes if you can afford to not have enough of them.

Me when seeing German government doing something useful and in a speedy manner: *shocked pikachu face*

Every Gripen fighter has EW capability 👍🏻

Is this only for a single seater? Losing an EWO is gonna be a big loss surely

My new bus had same issue. It was a Volvo.

i think it is a future investment, also meant for exports and nato allies. once such a system is developed, i doubt that it is limited to the eurofighter alone. this can be crarried over to future types or like mentioned to the gripen for example. rather seems to me as a european solution to that task. generally i think the EF is much underrated, especially when asking justin bronk.

It is pivotal for European security that Germany is a significant military power in Europe. Even with the country's history, But that is also history. Germany is a force of good, and has been so since 1945.

I don't get it. It doesn't need to be a high speed, highly manoverable jet fighter. A longer fuselage and larger wings would make sense

I wonder how the F-35 is gonna fit in with this. It is said that the aircraft can provide a Lot of EW capabilities without needing any special variant.

Will Eurofighter EK become the best European air superiority fighter? combining the best from saab and the pure performance of Eurofighter

@4:55 is that LERX at the front of the wing as fitted to the AMK enhanced knife fight agility concept from a few years back? If so will this be standard on T4s/EKs? If so and combined with the often teased improved EJ220 and AESA radar the new Typhoons will be finally living up to the potential of the airframe🤞 Would love the RAF to take some and upgrade our T2 and T3s (never gonna happen I know). Imagine that combined with the Japanese/UK meteor AESA seeker upgraded to the once mentioned anti radiation upgrade to meteor and you’d have the ultimate Typhoon!😂

Question: What ever happened to the 2 seater electronic warfare version of the 2 seater Gripen Fighter? - I might be wrong but I assumed it would be similar in approach as the EF 18 Growler. Great video guys!

For a good and cheap solution Germany could have planned for these needs a decade ago. A new airframe is sensible as Germany needs: UAV, Tanker, EW, SEAD rolls filled.

Surely the enhanced ECM capability’s of the F35 are more capable. Not to mention the first block of major f35 upgrades mainly huge leaps in processing power almost double the Lightning’s defensive and offensive ECM capabilities. Typhoon is a worthy platform but the f35 can penetrate into a SEAD environment while passively collecting electromagnetic data then jam at a much closer range. Whilst not hanging easily detectable offensive ordinance on pylons. This is one of the main advantages of the f35 proven at multiple large scale air exercises. It makes jets like the typhoon and other 4/4.5 gen platforms more lethal.

FCAS is a Germán, French and SPANISH program, and you must know that

Stilll baffles me where all the fuel is stored - skinny wings!

Yea.. but is it Final Solution ?

I'm really wondering how effective this will be. Based on what I see it really does not seem to bring a lot of actual dedicated hardware to the table. If no new radar I see it being even more limited.