The comment was actually made by the committee chairman, Julian Lewis MP.
An interest8ng point is the last line of the Telegraph report, which does not name the source, which states that: “If a decision to scale back purchases was made, the MOD would consider keeping older jets the F-35 is due to replace”.
Which would presumably be another lease of life for the Tornado? And, of course, a total loss of any surge capability to man both carriers in an emergency.
Originally Posted by
pr00ne
ORAC,
And to that point, as they can ONLY be referring to Tornado, it is out of service in 2018/9, BAE have announced that they are laying off the support staff at Marham and Leeming, and they will not know about price or the next order tranche until AFTER Tornado OOS date, how on earth could this be delivered?
Over the life of the F-35 programme, he could instead be (and probably is) referring to Typhoons if you read "older jets" as meaning individual aircraft that were to be retired and which could be retained, rather than an entire type.