Tombstone
18th Jul 2006, 10:24
Just been reading, 'The World According To Jeremy Clarkson' and found this part well worth a read for a giggle:
Is It a Plane? No, It's a Flying Vegetable.
April 2001
So, the Bubbles have cancelled their order for 60 Eurofighters, saying they need the money to pay for the Olympic Games. Well, thanks Mr Polopolos thats just great.
Eurofighter could, and should, have been a shining example of Pan-European cooperation. One in the eye for Uncle Sam. The greatest ground-attack (eventually) ‘mud-mover’ the world has ever seen. But instead it will stand for ever more as a beacon, showing the world that a federal superstate can never work this side of the Atlantic.
The Idea for such a place was first hatched back in the early 70’s when Britain realised that it would soon need a land based fighter bomber to replace the Jaguar and Tornado F3. We couldn’t design such a machine by ourselves because we were on a three-day week at the time, so we went to see the French and the Germans.
The French said they already had a fighter, the Mirage, and therefore only needed a bomber which could be used on aircraft carriers. The Germans said they didn’t need a bomber since, for once, they weren’t planning on bombing anyone. They needed a fighter and they absolutely were not interested in this aircraft carrier business as they didn’t have any.
Obviously the whole thing was never going to work, so in the spirit of what was to come, the three countries did the sensible thing, signed a deal and went home to come up with the preliminary studies.
Now, to understand the hopelessness of the position, I would like you to imagine that they were not designing a warplane but a vegetable. So Britain came up with the potato, France designed a stick of celery and Germany did a lobster thermidor. The project was dead.
But not for long. From nowhere, the Italians and Spanish suddenly decided that they wanted a piece of the action and, flushed with the idea of these extra complications, a new contract was drawn up.
It was ever so straightforward. The amount of work, and therefore jobs, given to each country would depend on how many of the fighters they would buy. That was fair but, not to the French it wasn’t. The wanted one plane, fifty percent of the work and total control, and when they were told to get lost they did.
Then disaster, the Berlin wall fell over and all of a sudden European governments lost the will to spend trillions on a plane that would have nobody to fight. The Air forces also realised that a highly manoeuvrable, Mach 2, dogfighting jet would have no place in the new world order. So, it was agreed by everyone to keep going.
Germany and Britain were going to take 250 jets each, which is why they each had 33 percent of the workload. But in the recession on 1992 our government dropped it’s order to 232 jets and the Luftwaffe to just 140 but, the Germans insisted that it kept its share of the work. When everyone else kicked up a fuss, it threatened to pull out.
Fearful that the pack of cards was about to come tumbling down, the Italians and Spanish went to lunch and the British got tough, immediately giving in to the Germans.
However, the delay had thrown up a new problem, the name of the jet. All along it had been called Eurofighter 2000, but by 1994 it was obvious that it could be operational until 2001 at the earliest. So it became the Typhoon, which conjures up images of devastation and death.
Well, don’t get your hopes up. You see, Tony Blair recently decided that the plane’s missiles should be British rather than American. Good call, but the British weaponry won’t be available until eight years after the jet goes into service. So, what are the pilots supposed to do in the meantime, make rude gestures?
That said though, I have talked to various authoritative sources over the past year who have said that it is widely thought that the Typhoon will be become the worlds best fighter-bomber. It is desperately easy to fly and at £50 million a pop it is also cheap. To put that in perspective, each new USAF F22 Rapror will cost £115 million.
So Typhoon is something about which Europe can be justifiably proud. Should the Russians ever decide to invade, we will have exactly the right sort of fire power to hold them back.
However, for dealing with sundry world leaders in far-flung parts of the globe, what really need are aircraft carriers. Britain has just ordered 2 and there was talk of modifying Typhoon to become precisely what the French wanted 30 years ago. But presumably it was too much of an effort. So what have we done? Well, in a perfect spirit of European cooperation, we have teamed up with the Americans to build something called the Joint Strike Fighter [Dave]. Thank you, Europe and goodnight.
Is It a Plane? No, It's a Flying Vegetable.
April 2001
So, the Bubbles have cancelled their order for 60 Eurofighters, saying they need the money to pay for the Olympic Games. Well, thanks Mr Polopolos thats just great.
Eurofighter could, and should, have been a shining example of Pan-European cooperation. One in the eye for Uncle Sam. The greatest ground-attack (eventually) ‘mud-mover’ the world has ever seen. But instead it will stand for ever more as a beacon, showing the world that a federal superstate can never work this side of the Atlantic.
The Idea for such a place was first hatched back in the early 70’s when Britain realised that it would soon need a land based fighter bomber to replace the Jaguar and Tornado F3. We couldn’t design such a machine by ourselves because we were on a three-day week at the time, so we went to see the French and the Germans.
The French said they already had a fighter, the Mirage, and therefore only needed a bomber which could be used on aircraft carriers. The Germans said they didn’t need a bomber since, for once, they weren’t planning on bombing anyone. They needed a fighter and they absolutely were not interested in this aircraft carrier business as they didn’t have any.
Obviously the whole thing was never going to work, so in the spirit of what was to come, the three countries did the sensible thing, signed a deal and went home to come up with the preliminary studies.
Now, to understand the hopelessness of the position, I would like you to imagine that they were not designing a warplane but a vegetable. So Britain came up with the potato, France designed a stick of celery and Germany did a lobster thermidor. The project was dead.
But not for long. From nowhere, the Italians and Spanish suddenly decided that they wanted a piece of the action and, flushed with the idea of these extra complications, a new contract was drawn up.
It was ever so straightforward. The amount of work, and therefore jobs, given to each country would depend on how many of the fighters they would buy. That was fair but, not to the French it wasn’t. The wanted one plane, fifty percent of the work and total control, and when they were told to get lost they did.
Then disaster, the Berlin wall fell over and all of a sudden European governments lost the will to spend trillions on a plane that would have nobody to fight. The Air forces also realised that a highly manoeuvrable, Mach 2, dogfighting jet would have no place in the new world order. So, it was agreed by everyone to keep going.
Germany and Britain were going to take 250 jets each, which is why they each had 33 percent of the workload. But in the recession on 1992 our government dropped it’s order to 232 jets and the Luftwaffe to just 140 but, the Germans insisted that it kept its share of the work. When everyone else kicked up a fuss, it threatened to pull out.
Fearful that the pack of cards was about to come tumbling down, the Italians and Spanish went to lunch and the British got tough, immediately giving in to the Germans.
However, the delay had thrown up a new problem, the name of the jet. All along it had been called Eurofighter 2000, but by 1994 it was obvious that it could be operational until 2001 at the earliest. So it became the Typhoon, which conjures up images of devastation and death.
Well, don’t get your hopes up. You see, Tony Blair recently decided that the plane’s missiles should be British rather than American. Good call, but the British weaponry won’t be available until eight years after the jet goes into service. So, what are the pilots supposed to do in the meantime, make rude gestures?
That said though, I have talked to various authoritative sources over the past year who have said that it is widely thought that the Typhoon will be become the worlds best fighter-bomber. It is desperately easy to fly and at £50 million a pop it is also cheap. To put that in perspective, each new USAF F22 Rapror will cost £115 million.
So Typhoon is something about which Europe can be justifiably proud. Should the Russians ever decide to invade, we will have exactly the right sort of fire power to hold them back.
However, for dealing with sundry world leaders in far-flung parts of the globe, what really need are aircraft carriers. Britain has just ordered 2 and there was talk of modifying Typhoon to become precisely what the French wanted 30 years ago. But presumably it was too much of an effort. So what have we done? Well, in a perfect spirit of European cooperation, we have teamed up with the Americans to build something called the Joint Strike Fighter [Dave]. Thank you, Europe and goodnight.