BAE Chief & Eurofighter

[Lima Juliet]

Just got a great bit of gossip about the new Eurofrigthner. It appears that the first production fuselages have had a few "Mating" problems with their continental cousins ie. Pipes at top on one and pipes on bottom on another.

I wonder if this is why we saw the loss of Mr Weston (Big Cheese BAE) last week? After all he has had a stunning time with GR4, Nimrod 2010, Eurofrightner and A400M.

Can anyone confirm this? I hear a "Slip" (Read slide) is in the pipeline...

LJ

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Pipes at different places? You're joking?

Reminds me of the time the new facility for Trident warheads was being built at Aldermaston and two different contractors used different pipe sizes. It was on Panarama.

Lack of Configuration Managagement, thats their problem.

[Talking Radalt]

ooooh! A slide in the pipeline you say?
Goodee! The swings are getting so boring these days!
:)

[Muff Coupling]

Another possiblee delay in ISD for Typhoo T 2 eh!... Just what the Chancellor ordered.

With the military stoney broke for the next year (last year of the tri-annual Govt spending review periods) and things not looking good for Defence in the next period 03 - 06! Gordon will now save wadges to sweeten joe public by diverting cash into NHS, Welfare and Railtrack shareholders.

Joint aircraft program co*k ups...why are we NOT surprised! I also heard about a delay due to Spanish not being included in the "Bitching Betty" cockpit voice warning and auto -FRC system!

[SPIT]

Hi there
As there are so many cock-up's with the Eurofarter I wonder if the thing really exists?? Every time it is for public display (say an Air Display) it is always cancelled.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :D

[WE Branch Fanatic]

When Tornado was designed, the three nations worked together on the design but the manufacture was done in each nation. Each nation produced its own aircraft. The same is true of the Merlin programme.

Now isn't that a better way to do things? I mean producing different parts of the aircraft in each of the four participating nations then assembling them and hoping it works, with no nation/service/company etc being in charge to look after configuration management, is that sensible?

Send your answers to the MOD.

[Flatus Veteranus]

Bits of Tornado were made in the 3 countries, but they were assembled at Warton and Munich. I do not believe the wops had an assembly line. But they did make the "swing wing" bearings and when they first example arrived at Warton they held their breath. But it slotted into the jigs - Zot! CAD/CAM has been the enabling technology for multinational projects, and I am very sceptical about this story of mis-aligned pipes.

[The English Passenger]

Surely if there was any truth in these stories of misaligned parts on "Eurofarce", then one of the many thousands of BAe workers at Warton who know about it would have leaked it to the press. There is no way that a story of that magnitude would stay quiet within a company like that.

However, I do have to agree that stories like this don't tend to come from nowhere.....I await further developments with interest.

On the whole debate as to whether we even need Euofighter, I personally think F/A 18 C/Ds would have been a far better bet, good enough for what we need, cheaper, proven capability both air to air and air to ground, and funny old thing when the new CVAs fail to appear due to budget cuts in 2012, we could buy a couple of retiring Yank carriers on the cheap and continue to have a carrier capability. But that would be being realistic and not living in the "world power" illusion of president Tony!!!! :eek:

[ORAC]

Flatus, maybe. But I had an interesting chat with an ex-RAF engineer mate now working for a company building one of the black boxes in the Buffoon. It contains slots for cards procured from the various nations - and all the cards arrive in different thicknesses.

They had to develop clip-in slot guides (a different colour/thickness for each nation) to hold the cards securely.

[Flatus Veteranus]

Yes, ORAC, I can imagine that bits made by the various nations are of varying thickness. And I can guess whose are the thickest!

[ORAC]

Yes there is:

Flight International: (http://www.flightinternational.com/fi_frameset.asp?target=fi_latest/lt_news.asp)

IPA2 (Twin-seat):
(5 April) Alenia completed the first flight of a Eurofighter production aircraft today from its Caselle facilities near Turin, Italy. Maurizio Cheli, Alenia's chief combat aircraft test pilot flew the two-seat IPA2 (Instrumented Production Aircraft) during a 25min flight. Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmeccanica company and partner in the Eurofighter consortium built the IPA2. The Italian aircraft was the first in the series of aircraft to complete all the pre-flight tests planned by the programme and other partners. EADS in Germany and the UK's BAE Systems are expected to fly production versions of the Eurofighter soon. Cheli says: 'The aircraft shows a very easy manoeuvrability and an exceptional reliability.' The aircraft is one of 620 that will be delivered to the four partner countries in the programme: Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Deliveries to the air forces of the four partner countries will start this year.

IPA3 (Twin-seat):
(8 April) EADS Germany has flown the second Eurofighter Instrumented Production Aircraft (IPA), three days after Alenia flew the first production fighter. IPA3 took off from EADS's Manching factory with Eurofighter project pilot Chris Worning and German air force test pilot Lt Col Robert Hierl at the controls. The flight lasted for 31min.

IPA1(Twin-seat):
(8 April) BAE Systems is completing final tests on IPA1 which is due to fly for the first time later this month, completing a series of crucial milestones ahead of the hand-over of the first aircraft to the UK Royal Air Force later this year.

IPA4 & 5 (Single-seat):
EADS Casa is building IPA4 in Spain while BAE is assembling IPA5, neither of which are due to fly until next year.

[Lima Juliet]

Hi Y'all

I managed to get an unofficial reply from someone in the know, "Yup, it's true! Pipes and wires all over the place!".

Seems the 2 seater is ok but the single seater is up for slip of "Approx 6-12 months" by the sounds of it, with further injects of cash all round. Are you sure we're short of navs PMA???


LJ

[Archimedes]

IPA 1s flight covered on Sky News a few mins ago - presented as 'everything went jolly well, aircraft's going to be rather good'. Pity that they followed this up with that new Zurich advert which ends with three flying pigs. I'm sure no subliminal link was intended...

[Lima Juliet]

Latest on this is that the Eurofighter that will be participating in the Queen's Jubilee Flypast is a 2 seater!!! More fuel for the great single-seater fuselage debate!

Plus the RAF are going to have to put up a Texaco to allow it to fly the route with the other FJs - not enough fuel! Glad I won't be in a rate-fight in one of these new wonder-jets with an SU-35 that has twice as much gas!!!! - Cabin doors to manual, hurrah!

LJ

PS Don't you just love "!!!" marks!

[Jackonicko]

English Passenger,

Hate to spoil a good story, but:

1) The F/A-18C/D is no longer in production
2) The unit cost of recent exports (eg to Switzerland and Malaysia) is higher than the unit production price of EF.
3) It's a 70's airplane which does not compare with EF, which promises to be an excellent AD aircraft quite quickly.

There is a single entity in charge of configuration management etc. for EF. It's called Eurofighter GmbH and has been doing a good job, just as NETMA did for the Tornado. There was an Italian Tornado assembly line, by the way.

The sensible option (in cost terms) would surely be to have a single EF assembly line, a single Flight Test facility, etc, not to 'quadroplicate' everything. How much has the unnecessary duplication of all these facilities added to EF's cost?

[The English Passenger]

Jackonicko,

It's a fair call...next time I will check my facts!

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story (please do not apply to journalism as too many of your colleagues do!):cool:

[BEagle]

The sensible option would have been to bin the b£oody thing when BWoS et al. couldn't deliver on time - and to buy Gripen!

[The English Passenger]

Beagle

Buying anything from anybody would be better than relying on BWoS to

a. Deliver on time
b. Build a machine that is up to the job
c. Build a machine that had any form of reliability
d. Provide any real support to the user after the sale

All of the above applies especially when they try and work with all those other famous European aircraft manufacturers (try and count on one hand the number of effective combat aircraft the Spanish/Italian and German aircraft industries have ever managed to build)

Ah well, if only our government had a spine.:(

[Archimedes]

"try and count on one hand the number of effective combat aircraft the Spanish/Italian and German aircraft industries have ever managed to build"

No effective German combat aircraft in WW1 & WW2?:eek: :D

[Jackonicko]

Don't think we should be too harsh on BAE. Eurofighter promises to be a great aircraft, eventually, albeit late, and costing more than it should have done. In their time, Hawk and Tornado weren't too bad either, and nor were Canberra, Lightning, Harrier, etc.

BAE have f***ed up on numerous occasions, for sure, but what real incentive is there for them to do otherwise, when their lapses go unpenalised (GR4, Jag engine), when the Government will always bail them out (Nimrod MRA4), and when Smart procurement still allows them to receive upgrade contracts in the face of ample evidence that other upgrade solutions may be faster/better/cheaper (GR4, Harrier GR9)?

One problem is the risk aversion of the DLO and DPA which forces the forces to give all work to BAE, and another is the unwillingness of government to even acknowledge that any problem exists.

[steamchicken]

The Austrians - tee hee - are currently trying to replace their Saab Drakens, the last ones flying in the world, and are having a little political war about it. Interestingly their air force seems convinced that the Eurofighter is technically the best out of the EFA, F16, and Gripen. The finance ministry's view is different! And a lot of politicians seem to believe that it would be possible to have their airspace defended by some other country - whilst keeping their neutrality! - in return for money:D They'll have to do something, though, 'cos they can't get parts for the Drakens, which are suffering from structural corrosion, hydraulics problems, and - just to keep morale high - failing ejection seats!

[Beeayeate]

Jackinicko said . . .

"In their time, Hawk and Tornado weren't too bad either, and nor were Canberra, Lightning, Harrier, etc."

I don't think you should group the Canberra or Lightning with BWoS - if indeed that was your meaning. These two were English Electric aircraft, designed and built in the days when the UK had a dynamic aircraft industry, an industry that produced such kites as the Hunter, Vulcan, Victor, Buccaneer, Comet, and yes, the TSR.2!

I hold nothing for or against the Typhoon but it does seem to be turning out to be an answer to a long forgotten need. The way things seem to be going with the project it'll come into squadron service just in time for the last dozen or so blokes left in the RAF to be able to polish it once or twice before it gets too expensive to even taxi down the runway.