Eurofighter a dud - London plans to reduce order for obsolescent fighter
 

UK govt trying to cut, delay or cancel Eurofighter Typhoon order - report



13-SEP-2007 08:17

13-SEP-2007 08:17

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The UK government is trying to reduce, delay or entirely cancel a 5 bln stg order for 88 Eurofighter Typhoon jets from a consortium including European aerospace group EADS and BAE Systems PLC, according to a report.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is in talks with the consortium about how much it would cost to cut the so-called Tranche 3 contract for the aircraft, the Times quoted the chief executive of EADS Defence Systems, Stefan Zoller, as saying.

http://www.lse.co.uk/PoliticsNews.as...order_-_report

Hoo-bloody-rah! Let's save some money for JSF...

Do you really believe that any money saved (unlikely) will buy any JSFs?

Hard to believe the assertion that the Eurofighter is a dud.

Word on the street is that it beat the Bugatti Veyron. Not too shabby for a multi- national product.

Thats the Afghanistan budget sorted then

Translation - "You can replace your QRA Tonkas and swing-role ground pounders, or you can have aircraft flying off carriers. Not both.

Cant believe its really come to this. If the budget for procurement was this damned tight, I'll be surprised we've got enough money to fly Spitfires off those carriers if they get built... :ugh:

Great, so MoD screws up God knows how many projects so that they run so late and eye wateringly over budget, so that we can't actually afford the kit we need.

I suppose it would be too much to ask that those working in the MoD are given a good hard kick in the bollocks every time they screw up and project over runs lead to a little bit more of the country's defence capability being whittled away? After a couple of times of mincing their way down Whitehall to get the train back to their cushy houses in the Shires, they may get fed up and start to do their jobs properly. Just a thought. Well more of a hope really.

If MoD do all their project management based around Prince2, if I were the originator of Prince2 I would be looking to distance myself from this shower of ****e.

More MQ-9 Reapers anyone?

Melchett

It’s difficult to point fingers at ordinary sponsors (OR/DEC) and procurers (PE/DPA/DE&S) when those at the top (Ingram, and now Ainsworth) are prepared to place in writing their unqualified support for those who knowingly and quite deliberately waste money, and who uphold disciplinary action against those who refuse to commit such a fraud.

I’ve mentioned before that it would take me 5 minutes to make a case to save £200M on a single (named) project, with no adverse effect. In fact, I’ve done it, and been ignored. The process I used, mandated by PUS, is a legal obligation on all MoD staff, yet has effectively been outlawed by the above Ministerial rulings. I know good people who would rather lie, deceive and commit that fraud simply to avoid the odium they would face for doing their job properly. When you have that sort of conflict at the top, what chance does the ordinary man have? It’s politics. And the pressure from the fallout overcomes otherwise sane and competent people. I believe most in MoD do their best, but inside those cushy homes they have families to feed, and I cannot condemn them out of hand when they know they face the sack for refusing to waste money. In my experience, those who do stick their heads above the parapet are usually close to retirement or terminally ill. MoD ignores them, knowing one way or another they will soon be gone. The only thing that really has to be said to support this is - Dr David Kelly.

Who wrote the contract, making it almost water-tight, so none of the other nations could withdraw? Oh, it was the UK.

Right you are... the contract was written that way to avoid the syndrome of partners proposing to buy large numbers of aircraft, thereby inflating their share of engineering and manufacturing work, and then scaling back.
But the pain of it is that now - with CVF and JSF committed and locked together - the Govt now announces that it can't afford JSF and Typhoon, and the UK gets JSF, which is slower, shorter-legged and less versatile.

The question should be whether the country can afford this government.

Maybe on one of his days off from looking after Jockistan, Swiss Des could explain his position regarding TypHoon and F-35?

Tucumseh

You are right, it is difficult to accuse those at the implementation level ie mid management levels of screwing up massively. As much as I like a good harrumph at Civil Servants & MoD etc, there are probably very few of them that wake up in the mornings and go to work with the intention of doing a bad job.

The people that really need the kick in the bollocks are the senior policy stream - our so-called high flyers and the Machieavellian Sir Humphry types with their own personal agendas and power games (oh and the contract writers who are just plain incompetent). But I would reserve the biggest kick in the bollocks for the politicians who 'direct' and I use that word in its loosest sense, our defence policy.

Melchett

Totally agree.

For those on this thread who are outraged at this threat to the expected fighter aircraft re-equipment of the Royal Air Force, the mechanics of this wasteful incompetence are succinctly encapsulated in tucumseh's post. Read it, study it, and read his previous posts on the Mull, Parliamentary and Panorama threads re Chinook, Hercules and Nimrod compromised airworthiness. In my view his testimony amounts to a damning indictment of the MOD and its political, civil service and military leadership. Now that it is seen to ensnare the "cavalry" as against the "truckers" and the "watchers", who are actually at war, there is a hue and cry raised. Well so be it, but you won't get your precious kit back by stamping your feet. There has to be a root and branch reform of the MOD, and military airworthiness needs to be removed to an independent authority beyond its incompetent malevolent reach. Self regulation has failed here as it always does, and the price is paid in wasted lives and squillions of pounds of tax.

Now wait for the inevitable reappearance of the bright spark proposal to transfer the unwanted Tranche 3 across as Hooked Typhoons for the carriers.

Middle management is not blameless though.

In a project costing £1bn there are so many noughts that even a £10m saving barely registers.

In one case a senior civil servant - B1 ish - left his briefcase behind.

Someone drove to his office, collected the briefcase, drove to an airfield, delivered it to a Canberra crew, who flew it to a remote Scottish airfield, where it was then delivered to where its owner had wanted it.

In the great scheme of things it was a 'dot' on the accounts sheet. It was a total waste of money because the meeting went ahead anyway and the CS had left.

Now if budgets were devolved so that real decisions on expenditure had to be made at the petty cash end we might get some cumulative savings.

I know the old saw, spend upto or over budget otherwise it will be cut next year. Why not do it on a 'profit' and 'bonus' basis?

Not the "oh he's a jolly good chap, sterling job in adverse circumstances - enhanced bonus, next - "

But "Ah, this team has come in £100k under budget this year. We can afford to pay them a £10k bonus. The £90k can be rolled forward or put into the nice to have pot."

Real saving. Real bonus.

Unfortunately if a team comes in 100k under budget the bean counters say, well obviously you didn't budget properly or you deliberately inflated your requirement, therefore we will take the 100k plus a percentage as punishment for being inefficient from next years budget. Maybe a little too cynical but you know what I mean.

Next gripe really is what effect does making 5% year on year savings through efficiencies really achieve? I suspect that there is very little fat that can be pared now without stopping the routine and mundane and essential tasks that used to be done regularly.

Aren't our rulers getting their carts before their horses?

If we can't afford the equipment then we can't commit our armed forces to foreign squabbles. The ill equipped and under resourced troops must be withdrawn from the fray.

Then we don't need Carrier Groups, so we cancel the carriers and the aircraft to go on them, hand the Malvinas over to Argentina and concentrate the RAF's role on home air defence, the navy on protecting the shipping lanes and the army on defending the beaches and landing grounds.

Or else we increase the defence budget to cover the cost of HM Government's committments to supporting and participating in foreign wars.

Please, please, please can we buy the CTOL/CV version...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ctolstores.jpg

They're even trialling Meteor for it. :ok:

Yes, you'd think so wouldn't you Blacksheep? Unfortunately this government doesn't!

Blacksheep, the term "champagne on a beer income" springs to mind.
Seriously I do think we, as a country, need to very seriously consider whether we can still afford to be a "world power" or not, personally I think, unfortunately, the answer is not.

GG - we could afford it if we stopped wasting money... Cut the amount spent on quangos and MoD consultants by 50% each and you'd have £64 Billion to play with, of which a certain amount could be spent on defence/security, etc, etc...

We can quite easily afford to be a world power. However, the fact is that the military is just not a priority. The Govt is quite happy when it comes to forking out millions on benefits for those that can't be bothered to work, subsidising high levels of immigrants that could (and should) be claiming assylum in the first Euro country they get to, spending on wasteful management, quangos and focus groups - not to mention how many billions on consultants for the MoD (whose sole role appears to be to tell us we can't afford the kit we need and that to pay their fees we will have to sell off another sqn / warship / regt).

However, when it comes to spending cold hard cash on the national insurance policy during a time of war, well, we'll be fine. Give the Typhoon fund to McKinsey management consultants for their advice on setting up the Little Snoring on the Wold Single Parent Disabled Lesbian Support Group to help them achieve their potential as Olympic high jumpers...... cos there's more votes there than defence.

How many times have we recently heard politicians opine how it's dsigraceful that we are treated this way and that way and upholding the covenant? How many times have you actually seen them do anything about it? Not so much can't pay - more like won't pay. I rest my case!

With all respect, does the Eurofighter have a longer range than the F-35B?

The Lightning II has the highest fuel fraction of all existing American planes, something to the order of .35, because hanging pods will deplete its stealth. That's probably why it does look like a pigeon.

F-35B has a mission range of over 2000 km.
EF has a range of 1390 km, in fact it is famous for being a tad heavy and short legged.


I stand to be corrected. It is obvious that the EF is 15 years too late in any case.

That's as may be - but at least it's here! The F35 is at least half a decade away from RAF service, if not longer - by which time the Typhoon will be nicely in its stride.

LM - why is it 15 years too late?

That sort of line is often used by Typhoon's detractors, but is merely glib assertion without analysis. Do you mean that the capabilities offered by the aircraft are not up to the challenges of the current and likely future operating environments? Do you mean that it's been overtaken technologically by other newer aircraft Why 15 years too late?

Is your range comparison with underwing pylons fitted or not?

Bear in mind that from an RAF (and FAA) point of view, there will be meaningful numbers of Typhoons in service by 2015, while we won't have enough JCA airframes to do anything meanigful with the type until about 2020. What would the RAF do without the Typhoon, given that its aircraft would be increasingly aging platforms with various FI issues?

Given the context in which the RAF is getting the Typhoon (I concur that it's too late, but that's no fault of the aircraft design), why is it '15 years too late'?

So the government are saying, its either Tranche 3 Typhoon or Carrier Variant of F35, you cannot have both. Now lets look at a possible scenario:

The Government/MOD are not happy with the F35 that is being built due to technology exchange issues, cost escalation, delays to ISD, now another country has a similar aircraft to Typhoon that can be used on a carrier, Government/MOD ask the Typhoon consortium "can the Typhoon be modified to work off a carrier, how much will it cost and how long to convert a few". Consortium do a feasability study and it can be done at x cost, in y time, which is sooner than F35 and cheaper than F35, maybe we will call it Tranche 3..

So there is a possible reason why it is down to; Do you want F35 for the Carriers, or do you want a Carrier variant of Typhoon (Tranche 3), as you don't need/cannot afford both. Bearing in mind that this only a hypothesis.

Added before the people who have the proper gen start:

I am aware that Tranche 3 is another pre-planned upgrade to current planned capability though these may be rolled into Tranche 2, and various names for a carrier varient have been banded around like Sea Typhoon, Typhoon (N).

Like-minded

Would you care to define your 'mission range' capability with respect to F35B.

lm

"So the government are saying, its either Tranche 3 Typhoon or Carrier Variant of F35, you cannot have both. Now lets look at a possible scenario:

The Government/MOD are not happy with the F35 that is being built due to technology exchange issues, cost escalation, delays to ISD, now another country has a similar aircraft to Typhoon that can be used on a carrier, Government/MOD ask the Typhoon consortium "can the Typhoon be modified to work off a carrier, how much will it cost and how long to convert a few". Consortium do a feasability study and it can be done at x cost, in y time, which is sooner than F35 and cheaper than F35, maybe we will call it Tranche 3.."

#28 Above


Now see #16 :hmm:

Famous where? I've never heard that assertion. Bear in mind it is te F-35B that has had weight concerns, not the Tiff.

Tiff in a standard fit with external tanks (let alone conformals if those come along) should have a comparable or greater endurance than a F-35B which, unless they've changed anything recently, has no wet wing points.

F-35B should be excellent and I hope we get it for both the RAF and RN's sake. However, the Typhoon is already proving an excellent and versatile aircraft, well ahead of anything else in service today other than the F-22.

The reality is that we need both, and they each compliment one another effectively.

Regards.
MM

Yep saw post #16 , thought I would put in my pennys worth ;) anyway, and now for anyone who might be interested I have add this Link:

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/jca1-1.htm

F-35B - Facts but no Figures...
 

MM and others,

F-35B does have wet hard points. All 3 variants do. Why wouldn't they? All to note - the US are not stupid.

The fact is that Typhoon and F-35 (especially F-35B) are two radically different aircraft sitting in two different design spaces. Typhoon is an out and out air superiority fighter, optimised for high speed, high G sustained combat from BVR to close in. Period. Weight and internal volume is pared to the bone to achieve that - any ground attack capability it has is secondary. With all stores carried externally, it's 'mud-moving' range is severely degraded. But it's a truly excellent fighter - like it was designed to be.

F-35 is a strike fighter, which translates as 'not a bomber'. Small to keep cost down, designed to deliver weapons (especially precision weapons) in hostile environments. Has 'first day' stealth, then the ability to 'mud move' with external hardpoints. F-35B is a powered lift aircraft, which drives its design in large part - but it has a zero minimum flying speed. F-35A is a B with more fuel and bigger bays, F-35C is a B with lots more wing (driven by need to take the wire at an acceptable speed) and even more fuel (big wings have big tanks). But it does also have a good bit more drag and airframe weight to take carrier launch and recovery.

I agree, we probably need both EF and JSF. What we don't need, I believe, is the number of EFs that we have stuck to since SDR - it was always hard to justify, and I would not be surprised if we tried to scale back or cancel T3 to fully fund JSF.

With three OS squadrons of Jags to replace, and UK AD (which was once six squadrons of F3s) seven squadrons of Typhoons ("the number of EFs that we have stuck to since SDR") does not sound like "What we don't need" , nor is it remotely hard to justify, especially not when it's abundantly clear that a GR4 replacement isn't happening either.

With 'Bears' back probing APA9, and with an ongoing requirement for deployable OS/CAS, it strikes me that the Typhoon (whose performance is already proven, and whose cost is settled) will be a useful tool.

If hard choices need to be made, then I'd look elsewhere.

CVF/JSF won't be available for deployed ops for another 11 years, and even then it will be a bloody slow, and cripplingly expensive way of deploying a force whose sortie generation capability will be modest.

And that's if the JSF programme suddenly starts running like clockwork, and if we don't see further technical problems, delays, cost escalation, and if the USA don't continue to bugger us about on tech transfer and ITAR.

In an ideal world, we'd be back to a 24 or 30 squadron FJ force, and naturally that would include a carrier-borne element. But if funding is tight then we need to concentrate resources where they are most useful and most effective.

Which, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, is best achieved by not spending pots of cash on consultants rather than on rather more important things. I suspect that JCA and Typhoon T3 would both be affordable if the gross inefficiencies tucumseh notes and the frankly bizarre belief that defence can be run exactly like a business on the FTSE (something that no business types I know consider possible) were done away with...

Engines, I hope you're right. However, I've heard from a couple of sources that, at present, this is not the case.

Sadly, you're right on this and unfortunately the Army's insistence that anything not involved in Afghanistan and/or Iraq is not relevant is music to the ears of the Treasury. This means we're seeing big reductions in our overall capabilites which I fear will come back to haunt us in the future.

US Department of Defense: April 28 2006.

CONTRACTS - NAVY

Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Ft. Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $52,400,000 ceiling-priced modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-award-fee contract (N00019-02-C-3002) to exercise an option to certify the small diameter bomb for the U. S. Air Force Joint Strike Fighter conventional take off and landing (CTOL) aircraft and eliminate the effort for wind corrected munitions dispenser and external fuel tanks. Work will be performed in Ft. Worth, Texas (89 percent); El Segundo, Calif. (6 percent); Orlando, Fla. (3 percent); and Wharton, United Kingdom (2 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

At the risk of sounding stupid....
 

The Treasury is not all bad; after all, they are merely the voices of their political lords and masters.

Tuc has neatly outlined one of the problems, Engines et al the other. These are, therefore:

(i) MoD madly wasteful and equipped with a tin ear to solving problems largely of its own making, and

(ii) no political will from any party to signficantly increase military capital spending to recapitalise the forces' equipment as that procured for the Cold War wears out.

If the answer is that we need Tiffy and Dave (and pls make it Dave-C + E-2D + CVF escorts or lets not bother...), then MoD needs to get its own house in order as well as getting the political consensus to spend the cash. 2.2% of GDP is not a huge amount of cash, historically.

S41

Tranche Smanche
 

Boys
tranche 2 is not 'ours' anyway - it's going to Saudi (if they sign). Cutting T3 would be a massively short-sighted decision, especially in the current climate of increasing Russian Ops - the Q boys bagged Russians yesterday and loads of Bears have been intercepted over the past couple of months. 2 or 3 Sqns of Typhoons can't to north & south Q, Falklands and dets like the 'Stan. At this rate, standby to have the dear old F3 drawn out to 2015!

Archimedes,

If the JSF / Typhoon range comparison was based on a 'no pylons' configuration for the latter, what was it supposed to do whenever it got there ?

As far as I've read, the JSF is 'bearing in mind' the idea of plumbed wet pylons, but initially won't have them.