The UK Threatens to pull out of JCA

[althenick]

Taken from the sunday Times...

BRITAIN is threatening to pull out of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a co-operative combat-aircraft project with America that is one of the largest military programmes in the world.
The move, confirmed to The Sunday Times by senior defence officials, could have serious repercussions for BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, Britain’s two main contributors to the project.
BAE is part of the consortium developing the plane, and had expected revenues of about $24 billion (£13.8 billion) in development and production contracts.
Rolls-Royce is developing the lift fan for the vertical take-off version, and is working with its American rival, General Electric, on an alternative engine for the aircraft.
The JSF is a versatile plane aimed at replacing several types of aircraft currently in use, and could achieve total sales of more than $300 billion, according to some forecasts.
While the development is being driven by the Pentagon, it is being built by a multinational team in which Britain is the sole “Tier One” partner. The government has already provided $2 billion in development funding, and had been slated to buy 150 aircraft for the RAF and Royal Navy.
But Britain is now threatening to withdraw after rows over the Pentagon’s reluctance to agree to the transfer of technology, and because of likely increases in the price of each plane.
According to senior Ministry of Defence officials, instructions have been given for alternative strategies for projects affected by American technology- transfer problems, the most important of which is the JSF.
Dropping the JSF would stun the defence industry, but a senior official told The Sunday Times it was time to “think the unthinkable”. “I know how the Americans negotiate,” said the official. “They will not do a deal unless they know the other side has a serious alternative. It’s like a high-stakes poker game . . . it’s essential to have a Plan B because it’s very important not to travel in hope.”
The JSF was to have equipped the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers. The “Plan B” being worked on is a version of the Eurofighter Typhoon adapted for the navy. The Typhoon recently entered service with the RAF after long delays and cost overruns.
Defence-industry sources say negotiations on the “Tranche 3” Eurofighter contract, under which Britain will take the last 88 of the 232 orders, now encompassed the issues needed to be addressed to make the aircraft fly from a carrier.
Sources close to the Eurofighter programme say there are no major obstacles to the operation, although some elements of the carrier design would have to be changed.
BAE Systems is likely to stand behind the government’s tough line on the negotiations with the Americans. The company is eager to secure more defence technology to allow it to play a full role in the JSF programme if it continues.
But Rolls-Royce could be an early casualty. Defence-industry sources in Washington said last week that the US budget row could threaten funding for the F-136 engine that it is developing in conjunction with General Electric.

... Is this the HMG's/MoD's idea of lobing one over congress's bows? Strange that this comes out right after all the Hoo Haa about the DoD Choping the STOVL Variant. I suppose if it was technically feasable it wouldn't be a bad idea. How would Typhoon pan out as a strike A/C?

[pr00ne]

"The “Plan B” being worked on is a version of the Eurofighter Typhoon adapted for the navy."

Absolute poppycock! This would somehow be cheaper than participating in a multi thousand aircraft project would it?

[DaveyBoy]

Absolute poppycock! This would somehow be cheaper than participating in a multi thousand aircraft project would it?
It probably wouldn't, but...
They will not do a deal unless they know the other side has a serious alternative.
So even though they probably certainly know that it probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that, although it probably wouldn't, there is no probability that it certainly would. :-)

[PPRuNeUser0211]

posture and pose.... Besides, everyone knows the fishheads want typhoon;) they're just jealous!

[roopoo]

Let's face it the Yanks have always played hardball in the past. They want us to offset their development costs without sharing the technology. This may be good business sense from their point of view but it's time the UK stopped selling itself short. If we're not getting what we pay for then we should leave America to it.....
As for the 'multi thousand aircraft project' time will tell. The project has severe weight problems that will lead to price increases and maybe performance shortfalls, and if you read this link http://www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?sid=&f=1&t=1170[/url] you'll find that lower-tier partners are having doubts too.
Now then, how long is it going to be before Congress looks to cut numbers?

Tom B

[ukatco_535]

As an ex naval aviator is saddens me to see things like this happen to our forces....

However it is nice to see that the 'special relationship' that Tony Blair talks/talked about when venturing into american led conflicts with is reciprocated. NOT.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

From a Eurosceptic blog (http://eureferendum.********.com/) and in particular
this: (http://eureferendum.********.com/2005/11/grave-and-important-development.html)

The central figure in the blockage all along has been Henry Hyde, and his concern, as it has always been, is the leakage of technology from the UK to our European “partners” and thence to China and other potentially hostile powers. Currently, he cites the UK’s refusal to strengthen its own laws on transferring military technologies to third countries. He will know, however, the of the Framework Agreement with European nations, signed by Geoff Hoon in 2000, which prevents the UK doing just that.

To Hyde, this lack of specific laws that prevent transfers of military technology to third countries has been a particular problem. With the open UK defence market, which has big representation from military contractors based in places such as Paris and Munich, Hyde has warned that technologies transferred to Britain may find their ways to capitals less friendly to US interests. And, in a blistering report prepared by Hyde's committee last year, he lashed out at Britain's refusal to address the third-party loophole, calling it "not only disappointing, but potentially highly prejudicial to US interests around the world".

His views have also been coloured by Britain's push to lift the European Union's arms embargo on China and has been an outspoken critic of the EU's move, and Britain's support for removing the ban.

In more immediate practical terms, this could have a significant impact on the STOVL version of the joint Anglo-US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project, as we pointed out last July, and its implications for the carrier project. We cannot help but wonder whether John Reid’s enthusiasm for the "voluntary" code of practice on European arms procurement, which was formally agreed on Monday in Brussels, is in some way related to this whole issue.

[roopoo]

A Little Further Information

Follow the link for further proof of who is the original thinker. http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article1517.html
If the Americans had original thoughts in VSTOL then the rest of the world would only find out when it was comercially advantatious to them.
As one who worked on early VSTOL designs for the likes of Grumman I should know!

Ain't politics a pain.......................

Tom B

[Navaleye]

Is a reciprocal deal in the wind with the French. They "buy" our CVF design we buy their a/c to fly off it? Stranger things have happened. In all honesty all I hear is sabres being rattled and I don't see anything untoward happening.

[tucumseh]

Watch this space for Min(DP)'s forthcoming announcement on Defence Industrial Policy. Promised this month. All (ok, a little) will become clearer.

[mini]

The sums made sense before no 1 partner decided to pi** off half of the potential purchasing countries...

By the time this gets back into shape the design brief will be obsolete.

[brickhistory]

Ummm, sorry probably won't cut it on this, but the JSF partners are getting shafted by us. Sorry..............

If this turns out to be the case, I do hope the UK, others buy elsewhere. Actually, would serve us right. We'll wind up getting about a squadron's worth of JSF (they can park on the same ramp as the F-22 buy which keeps getting smaller).

I am a big supporter of my country, but this is not a way to treat a bro.

[dmanton300]

I've thought for a while now that a late model AMSAR/Meteor/M88-3 Rafale M is the way forward for the FAA. Even at the expense of some/all of T.3 Typhoon. Never happen of course, but that's politics. I think a carrier capable tiffie is an accident waiting to happen.

[Tarnished]

dmanton300,

I would be intrigued to hear your logic behind the statement that " a carrier capable tiffie is an accident waiting to happen."

Regards

Tarnished

[FB11]

Tarnished,

Please, not again. This has been done to death. But one tiny point for you while you search Pprune for the hundreds of pro/anti maritime Typhoon threads:

Due to the canard blanking the forward view at the higher AoA required for carrier landing, a maritime Typhoon would need a camera on the nose leg to allow the view out the front to be projected onto one of the cockpit displays.

The pilot doesn't have a real world view of the deck.

Now there's a successful maritime aircraft in the making.

Not to worry, I'm sure they'll bury some olympus engines into the back of the flight deck to blast high speed air out into the approach path mitigating the higher land based speed/lower AoA approach, thus allowing the pilot to see. Oh, hang on.........

[Tarnished]

FB11,

I have no intention of dragging us over old ground, I was involved in the work. I simply was interested in hearing why it should be an "accident" waiting to happen.

Sure there are practical/technical challenges to making it possible, but it is not outwith the wit of man - it might be expensive/time consuming/heavy etc and it may take some lateral thinking, but its not impossible.

Tarnished

[SSSETOWTF]

FB11

An innocent question, asked out of ignorance, but why does a Typhoon on approach to a boat need a camera and a Typhoon on approach to a runway not need one? On a 3 deg glidepath, either the nose/canards block your view of the touchdown point, or they don't, surely? Or are you assuming a boat approach will be at higher AOA/steeper glidepath than a land approach?

Respectfully,
Single Seat, Single-Engine, The Only Way To Fly

[Tarnished]

View over the nose. The camera option was suggested because at the planned landing AOA of 14 degrees (land based) the touchdown point is pretty much atthe bottom of the windscreen. When you want to fly a slower approach for arrestor gear considerations (without changing the lift characteristic of the wing) this results in a higher AOA which puts the touchdown point under the radome (the foreplanes have no intrusion into this issue whatsoever, a red herring). You could(can) change the lifting characteristics of the wing by scheduling the wiggly bits differently (flaperons/slats) but a "redesign" of the FCS was outwith the scope of the study at the time. The biggest impact was going to be in beefing up the landing gear to cope with the controlled crashes carrier landings tend to be.

Tarnished

[dmanton300]

Ahh, perhaps I should've been clearer, when I said "Accident waiting to happen" I meant as much a political and fiscal accident as anything else, but I do have reservations about putting the Tiffie on a flight deck as well.

As I understood it the plan was to avoid having to strengthen the airframe by having software control the Tiffie to a precise, gentle landing on the carrier. Presumably this is specialised software involving some kind of data link twixt boat and plane? I dunno, but there seems to be any number of reasons why relying on this this could end up with the pilot having to perform a more normal "arrested crash" no flare type landing, and where would this leave the unstrengthened airframe? Shades of Seafires to me. . .

Or is there a new plan involving making it weigh a few tons more to take the stresses? Or has someone produced the figures to show that, in fact, Typhoon doesn't need strengthening for the job? I certainly don't think it's impossible, I'd just hate to see pilots flying a halfway house solution because a fully funded, proper solution was deemed too expensive by some shyster pen pusher in the halls of power, which seems to happen all too often these days (Which is rapidly starting to look like the fate for the carriers themselves, never mind the A/C to fly from it!)

Fact remains that few if any conventional aircraft designed to fly from land have successfully made the transition to the carrier, even the Seafire 47 was not really strong enough (I know that's nearly 60 years ago but still. . . ) Fury to Sea Fury maybe? I would be surprised (and genuinely delighted) if Typhoon made the leap without pouring money into it that could be better spent buying something already available. But then I also believe the only really necessary variant of the JSF is the big wing C model and the FAA should be buying that if any JSF model.

[Tarnished]

I thought that was probably what you meant, but I was caught on the word accident.

As far as I can remember the study work we did was fairly constrained, there was no "blank sheet of paper" and certainly no blank cheque book. The brief was to see what could be done on the cheap. The question was could we utilize the clever tricks within the FCS combined with an auto pilot/auto approach coupled landing to the deck. The idea was as you say an auto flare to reduce the normal carrier sink rates to something within the existing gear design limits (which are actually quite high because it was designed bearing in mind Tranche 3 growth).

The trouble was that a gentle arrival on a precise spot needs a helicopter! If you want to reduce touchdown spot scatter you need a steep approach (hence the no flare technique used by tradition), When you combined this auto flare with deck motion we often went off the bow (is that the pointy end?) without actually having hit the deck! Conclusion, auto flare and a pitching deck was a non starter. However, the technology does exist to land the jet on the deck automatically, just not with the ROD within limits for an unmodified Typhoon.

As I said any large scale redesign was out of scope for this study, but I believe that some work was done in case we were asked what it would cost. However, decision was made to stick with JCA in the form of F-35.

We shall see where the QDR and ITAR and technology transfer issues takes this in the next few months I'm sure.

Regards

Tarnished

[Jackonicko]

I'm looking at some drawings of 'Marinised' Typhoons (from a few years ago) as I type this, and it's clear that a whole range of options were explored, including different nose gears for nose-pull and fuselage pull catapault launch, and two different main gear units - one with a lengthened and strengthened oleo, one entirely redesigned and retracting into a semi-external fairing. They looked at strengthening the wing structure, and at the impact of different weight increases on performance. It also seems as though they looked at different solutions to the problem of getting a better view over the nose. My drawings show a periscopic arrangement, but I imagine they also looked at raising the canopy line to allow a higher seat.

I suspect that they began by looking at minimum change Typhoon variants, and then at more radically modified variants. Here's hoping that Tarnished can fill in some gaps.

Exactly what they are looking at now, I don't know.

[West Coast]

Don't mothball those Harriers yet. Hell, time to invest in a SLEP for them.

[BEagle]

Mothball? They never do sensible things like that. The UK has no equivalent of AMARC, the MoD just flogs things off to the highest bidder or scraps them.

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Saw an article somewhere yesterday saying that they expect the harrier fleet to keep trundling on til 2018, though someone was quoted as saying "wouldn't be surprised at 2020+" or words to that effect. Would post the link, but have a memory like a goldfish these days. I'm all for "Joint Force Typhoon"!

[SSSETOWTF]

Another daft question:

If we decide that the F-35B is not for us, and we either go for the -C, marinated Typhoon (in soy sauce for example), Rafale etc etc, wouldn't we also need some sort of carrier qualification trainer? Or would everyone's first arrested landing be in a rather expensive trainer? Has anyone heard any rumours about that?

Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly

[PPRuNeUser0211]

SSEBTF,

Good point! Surely to go along with marinized typhoon we could by marinized hawk 128... (along with a sim this time please guys!) The yanks have already done the hard work making the Goshawk, so we could just buy a few of them?

[foldingwings]

some sort of carrier qualification trainer

You wooses! Never needed one with the Bucc and then there was no QFI (other pilot) in the rear seat!

[ORAC]

DID update based on Sunday Time article: ITAR Fallout: Britain to Pull Out of F-35 JSF Program? (http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2005/12/itar-fallout-britain-to-pull-out-of-f35-jsf-program/index.php)

You can almost understand Congress's point when they see articles like this. But then, the French have a strategic interest in driving a wedge between the UK and the USA, and Congress seems to be willing accomplices.....

Janes - 8 Dec 2005: French leader brands Chinese arms embargo "an anachronism"

The French prime minister has reiterated his desire to see the EU arms embargo on China lifted, branding it "an anachronism". Reinforcing the position taken by the French government over recent years, Dominique de Villepin added that France would "continue to work for it to be lifted".

His words came as Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao signed a USD9.7 billion agreement to purchase 150 Airbus A320 airliners for national carriers across the country.

France has been one of the most fierce critics of the EU arms embargo, which was imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Yet a senior official from within the French Délégation Générale pour l'Armement procurement agency told Jane's Defence Industry that France had "no intention" of increasing defence exports to China, but more that it saw the embargo as a "black cloud hanging over relations" between the EU and Beijing.........

[Pierre Argh]

carrier qualification trainer? Or would everyone's first arrested landing be in a rather expensive trainer? Been done before I believe? Lossiemouth & Honington both had "Dummy Decks" painted on the airfield for pilots to practice ashore... then first carrier approaches were made hook-up to bolt, until the LSO was happy to let them try an arrested landing.

Not saying the historical way is the best way, but it was cheap and it sort-of worked... So bound to be a popular option these days?