Germany fears steeper Tornado costs after the UK ditches its planes
COLOGNE, Germany – The planned phasing out of the United Kingdom’s last Tornado aircraft has German officials scrambling to deal with the increasing costs of a shrinking fleet.
Continuing aircraft reductions in the tri-national program, which also includes Italy, have led to “significant technical, logistical and financial risk” in maintaining the 1980s-era fighter-bombers, officials have told lawmakers in a confidential report seen by Defense News. While the prospect of Britain’s exit from the aircraft program has been known since November 2016, there is “no sufficient and comprehensive planning in place” for sustaining the remaining German planes, the report warns.......
The defense ministry’s March 2018 report leaves open the question of how, and if, the UK would retain some kind of role in the program. Last November, the document states, there was talk about introducing a new, fixed scheme for financial contributions, abandoning the practice of going by the number of airframes used in each nation. German defense officials wrote that they also are unsure what financial contributions can be expected of the Italians before Rome retires its Tornado contingent in 2027.....
“The UK has a large number of airframes left in storage in a variety of conditions and including various degrees of upgrades between GR.1 and the latest GR.4 ‘diamond standard’ as flown over Iraq and Syria,” said Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “These will be a very valuable source of spare parts and consumables for the Luftwaffe Tornado force once the Royal Air Force has fully retired the type,” he added. “Since the Tornado manufacturing lines have long since closed, spare parts are expensive and often time consuming to procure, so Germany will no doubt appreciate access to the RAF’s stock of frontline and reserve airframes to cannibalise.”.....