Telegraph on Typhoon's gun

[Navaleye]

This story is beginning to sound like a Whitehall farce. Are the lunatics running the asylum now? Comments invited

Typhoon Gun Story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=1HQ2VOQEXCSR1QFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2004/08/13/nplane13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/13/ixnewstop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=44632)

[Llademos]

I think this was covered in depth here some time ago! However, the update in Telegraph would be funny if it wasn't our money being spent ...

1. MOD decides to save £90m by not fitting gun

2. As gun was part of the design of the aircraft, MOD finds out that aircraft will only fly with ballast shaped, and same weight as, er, a gun

3. MOD now realises that it's cheaper to actually fit the gun. But hey! We still save £2.5m by not buying any bullets

fast forward 9 months ...

1. MOD decides to save £2.5m by not loading ammunition in gun

2. As ammunition is part of the design of the gun, and gun part of the design of the aircraft, MOD finds out that aircraft will not fly properly without ballast shaped, and the same weight as, er, ammunition

3. MOD now realises that it's cheaper to actually load ammunition. But hey! We still save by not actually allowing the pilot to fire

[Impiger]

I ought to know but will admit that I don't. Why does it need the ammunition for ballast/C of G considerations?

After all the damn thing is supposed to fire the bullets so does it then become unstable or uncontrollable whereupon the pilot must bale out?

We had a gun in the mighty (sic) F3 but rarely carried the ammo except on one-way trips (ammo that is not aircraft)

Could this, be journalistic bolleaux .... again:uhoh:

[pshakey]

How many times have we been around this one?!

No self respecting fighter pilot would EVER want to be without his/ her gun. There are simply too many circumstances in which it is the only weapon to employ, however advanced the platform. I fail to believe that this decision made it this far, without someone at the top end of the food chain telling the idiot perpetrators that they were " 'avin' a larf".

Was I alone in believing that this was just some madcap scheme that wouldn't make it past the following spending round?

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help thinking that some poor guy down the line will pay the ultimate price for this.:*

[Letsby Avenue]

Hats off to the DT's funniest front page story for years. I thought that the Typhoon farce was only marginally less funny than the 'Burning Bunny' story but as a certain Richard Littlejohn would say; "You couldn't make it up"...

I especially liked the titbit at the end where Britain, a few years ago, forced the four partners into a tightly controlled contract in which anyone that pulled out must pay the same amount of money in damages as they would if the took the aircraft. Then Hey..Guess what? Britain has hosed the defence budget on childcare and some rather nice chairs and has no money to pay for the second tranche and is resisting calls to honour said contract. Priceless!:\

[Jackonicko]

It is the new national sport isn't it? The less people know about Typhoon, the happier they are to spout utter bollocks about it. That said, of course I'll join in.......

"Britain has hosed the defence budget on childcare and some rather nice chairs and has no money to pay for the second tranche and is resisting calls to honour said contract."

You think? Nothing to do with the customer using his one tiny and very limited bit of leverage (non signature of T2) in order to strongarm what he wants in the back end of T1, and to extract the best possible terms, cost/capability wise, then? Have you told Brian Burridge? Or Chris Boardman? Or Peter Anstiss? Do you even know who any of them are?

You don't think that industry isn't being paid anyway? That £0.5 Bn towards T2 costs hasn't already been paid, in four separate payments?

You think that the other nations are REALLY ready to sign? When the UK has said it isn't it's just too easy for them to say "well of course we are" when that commitment cannot be put to the test. You don't think that if we said "OK, we're ready now" the Germans would meekly sign up themselves, and wouldn't say: "Well when we said we could sign, what we meant....."? Or the Spanish? Or the Italians?

In each nation, this is the last chance (til T3) for the customers to have any hold over industry. Do you seriously think this is a UK-specific problem? Do you even think it has anything to do with the ability to pay for a measly 89 jets, when cancelling them would incur just as much in penalty payments?

[Navaleye]

Jacko, The head of the Eurofighter consortium is on record as saying that 3 of the 4 nations involved are in full agreement on how to move forward and when, except 1. I'll leave you to work who that odd man out is.

[Jackonicko]

Navaleye,

I spoke to Aloysius Rauen (MD of EF GmbH) about Typhoon T2 contract signature at Farnborough. He was, as you suggest, bullish that the only thing holding up the process was the 'perfidious Brits' (my words, not his). Other senior figures from EF GmbH stated that the UK T2 problem was political - that the Brits had taken their eyes off the ball thanks to the workstrands and the defence review, and due to a 'blockage' in the DLO/DPA below Ministerial level.

More recently, it's become clear that the delay in the UK is not political, nor financial, but is a simple refusal by the RAF to sign up to T2 without absolute assurances that they'll get the interim A-G capabilities they need at the end of T1.

And it's equally clear that other customers have similar issues, and that the British delay has prevented them from having to be seen to be equally unable to sign the contracts.