LowObservable: Too young indeed; a symptom of our slow procurement process that led us to be one of the last customers for Block 1, hence 5 years less use from what we buy due to obsolescence. The same will be true of E model as due to prevarication we will be late into the program and therefore not realise the through life benefit.
The significant through life costs attributable to Block 1 in a large part stem from bespoke software leading to all elements of the platform and part task trainers requiring bespoke development. This can be offset with E model by having common software and hardware as much as possible and federated DAS sensors.
Work share again is an interesting area as Boeing Defence UK has more manpower invested in Uk Apache then Westland do.The jobs will not transfer out of UK; it is merely a choice of an Italian or US owned company.....