Originally Posted by
jindabyne
Rufus,
Not the political will of its manufacturers - rather that of participating Governments, especially the UK.
Apologies, that's what I meant by "manufacturers": manufacturer countries. I should have been more clear.
I have nothing against the engineers in charge of the Typhoon: they've been held back by idiotic management and bad political choices (both through political incompetence of the EF partners unwilling to spend the required money to keep the plane really competitive and geostrategical bad luck, which made the primary Typhoon mission moot while giving Rafale a lot more chances to shine).
One of the big problems, IMO, to the Typhoon is that the program did not have a single, well-established leader. Without it, everyone wants to save money while getting the whole package (I'm looking at you, Germany, ordering a lot of planes to get the industrial kickbacks and then cancelling tons of orders). And as for exports, the cacophony of these four countries isn't helping either. A good example is Iraq. When your average tinpot dictator with some cash looks at 2003, he sees that the Frogs (I'm French, so please, mods, don't kick me for that derogatory term) did their utmost to save Saddam's behind, both for practical reasons and because he was a good customer. The EF partners? Divided on the issue, each with different foreign military sales policies that are much more likely to end up with an embargo, and so on.
If the Brits had put their foot down when the French left, and said, "OK, now, Germany, Spain and Italy, I'm the leader here and what I say goes", it might not have been very cordial, but at least, there would be some visibility.