- 22 Feb 09, 19:43#91261The Typhoon's combat performance compared to the new F-22 Raptor and the upcoming F-35 Lightning II fighters being developed in the United States and the Dassault Rafale developed in France, has been the subject of much discussion.
In March 2005, United States Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. Jumper, then the only person to have flown both the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Raptor, talked to Air Force Print News about these two aircraft. He said,
“The Eurofighter is both agile and sophisticated, but is still difficult to compare to the F/A-22 Raptor. They are different kinds of airplanes to start with; it's like asking us to compare a NASCAR car with a Formula 1 car. They are both exciting in different ways, but they are designed for different levels of performance."
Further, "The Eurofighter is certainly, as far as smoothness of controls and the ability to pull (and sustain high g forces), very impressive," he said. "That is what it was designed to do, especially the version I flew, with the avionics, the color moving map displays, etc. — all absolutely top notch. The maneuverability of the airplane in close-in combat was also very impressive."
The Typhoon is capable of supersonic cruise without using afterburner. This is referred to as "supercruise". According to the official German Luftwaffe and Austrian Eurofighter website, the maximum speed possible without reheat is between Mach 1.2 and Mach 1.5. Air Forces Monthly gives a maximum supercruise speed of Mach 1.1 for the RAF FGR4 multirole version.
The Eurofighter consortium claims their fighter has a larger sustained subsonic turn rate, sustained supersonic turn rate, and faster acceleration at Mach 0.9 at 20,000 feet (6,100 m) than the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, Mirage 2000, Rafale, the Su-27, and the MiG-29.
In 2005, a trainer Eurofighter T1 was reported to have had a chance encounter the previous year with two U.S. Air Force F-15Es over the Lake District in the north of England. The encounter became a mock dogfight with the Eurofighter allegedly emerging victorious.
In the 2005 Singapore evaluation, the Typhoon won all three combat tests, including one in which a single Typhoon defeated three RSAF F-16s, and reliably completed all planned flight tests. Singapore still went on to buy the F-15 due to uncertainty over Typhoon tranche 2 delivery dates.
During the exercise "Typhoon Meet" held in 2008, Eurofighters flew against F/A-18 Hornets, Mirage F1s, Harriers and F-16s in a mock combat exercise. It is claimed that the Eurofighters won all engagements (even outnumbered 8 vs 27) without suffering losses.
The aviation magazine "Flug Revue" reports that in 2008 German Typhoon were pitted against French Rafales. The results are said to be "extremely gratifying" for the Typhoon based on the "much greater thrust of the EJ200 engine".
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 
The F-18 is my favourite military plane 
(although the A-12 more than made up for it!)
