Originally Posted by
typerated
My frustration is that the UK felt it needed partners to start - then often didn't get the airplane it wanted (see Tornado and Jaguar! )
The reason usually cited for partnering is sharing of development costs, which can reduce the bill in the first 10 years (which is all the Government really cares about... the bill in later years is likely to be someone else’s problem). It doesn’t usually reduce the initial bill by as much as expected: history shows the total development cost of a partnered programme increases by roughly the square root of the number of partners due to inefficiencies like time wasted while negotiating requirements, duplication of facilities to preserve national industry, and development of bespoke configurations. That any up-front saving is very likely to be eliminated through life by further inefficiency in running parallel national and international upgrade programmes seems, again, to be irrelevant at the programme definition stage.
So why does it keep happening when the UK could easily follow Sweden or Japan’s example? I think there are two main reasons:
1) British industry looks at the cancellation of TSR-2, Nimrod AEW and MRA4 and sees UK-only programmes which fell victim to changes of political whim. The fact that all three were flawed does not seem to factor. Industry then looks at Tornado and Typhoon and sees programmes which were protected over decades from changes in political whim by robust international agreements. Industry therefore wants more of the same and is happy to sacrifice some workshare to achieve it. (Although when you have a Government which is prepared to countenance breaking international agreements, maybe this is no longer quite the insurance policy industry thinks it is!)
2) There is a sizeable community in Whitehall, not limited to the Foreign Office and rather more influential than the front line commands, which sees international cooperation as the primary goal rather than an enabler. The end rather than the means, if you like. This community would happily sign up to a minor role in a consortium of European nations delivering ‘Chocolate Fireguard Mk3’ if it provided an opportunity for a piece of paper to be signed in front of a collection of flags and six-monthly steering boards in a succession of international venues. It’s just what they do, and the undercurrent continues even now as a way of mitigating Brexit damage.