JSF - industrial implications
First we had the Dutch expressing grave misgivings over the value of the JSF programme, and more recently the Norwegians.
Just to add to the mix, we now have the following (taken as extracts from the UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE to the Defence Committee by Sir Richard Evans, on Wednesday 5 May 2004).
Sir Richard Evans: ........ It is and I do not think we should have any illusions. The great threat to the technological base here in foreign terms is coming from the Americans because they are investing such huge amounts of money into R&T and it is why a lot of our companies are actually investing shareholders' funds today, not here in the UK but actually in America buying American assets. If this process continues without the actions that we have described or outlined or provided for in this industrial policy paper, if we actually do not do that, the UK is simply going to become the American metal basher. There will be no intellectual capability here in the UK in terms of the very high value-added content of programmes that this country has built up over so many years and that is why the big JSF was such a massive disappointment for us. That decision - and we should have no illusions - took us out in the UK from the common aircraft business and we will live to regret it, I can assure you.
..........There are always going to be areas where - and I suspect increasingly so - the right thing for the UK to do is to buy off the shelf. I just want to make sure that in other areas we would - and certainly in my company I would think that is the wrong thing to do - have a proper debate about it and, if we ultimately do decide to do it, we do it for the right reasons and then, if we do do that, we actually get the maximum amount of gain out of the decision for the UK. I am sorry to keep coming back to it, but I think JSF is a classic example. It is no good when you have signed up and paid your cheque over then trying to go back to negotiate the release of technology. It is absolutely not the way to do it and I absolutely subscribe to the fact that there are cases where it is absolutely proper to buy off the shelf, but I would also like other governments to share that view...........
......... Again if I can keep harping back to JSF, the fact of the matter is that it will be on JSF and there will probably be two or three major updates throughout the large programme and we know that one of those updates will be undertaken by Lockheed back in America and not here in the UK...........
One simple question. Is it worth it?
and just to show that it\'s not a raging technical success, either:
11 May 2004 : Column 221W
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the current weight of the standard take-off vertical landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter is; what the required weight at in-service date is; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Ingram: Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) requirements are defined in terms of aircraft performance, which is the product of many factors, including weight, drag, and engine thrust. At current engine thrust and drag values, the Short Take Off/Vertical Landing variant of the JSF is some 3300 lbs overweight to meet its stipulated overall performance levels. Work is in hand in the United States to examine options to ensure that the overall performance requirements are met, addressing all possible options including a significant reduction in aircraft weight. This work will not mature in detail until early 2005, although an interim assessment of likely outcome in summer 2004 will enable performance against the United Kingdom\'s Key User Requirements to be preliminarily evaluated at that time.