MoD announces air-to-ground upgrade for Eurofighter

[Nesher 629]

The Eurofighter Typhoon combat jet is to receive a major update, gaining the ability to effectively attack ground targets – a thing it currently cannot do. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced today that the governments of Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany have agreed to pay the Eurofighter consortium £830m to sort out the controversial wonder-plane.

 

"The MoD has taken another significant step to equip the Royal Air Force with the capability it requires by signing a contract to transform RAF Typhoon fighters," says the MoD, tacitly admitting that the Eurofighter is not what the RAF requires.

 

Current Eurofighters – when they finally go operational later this year – will be pure air-superiority platforms, good only for fighting other aircraft using advanced missiles such as AMRAAM. They have taken 22 years to develop. The MoD anticipates a final UK procurement cost of £20bn based on 232 planes for the RAF, which would work out at £86m per airframe.

 

eurofighter on the groundHowever, the RAF only plans to establish seven Typhoon squadrons, which would mean an operational fleet of 140-odd. The remaining 90-plus aircraft would have to be mothballed if 232 were bought. This has already happened in the past with other RAF planes ordered in excessive numbers, such as the Tornado F3 and the Nimrod MR1.

 

If all 232 are delivered, the cost to the taxpayer per Typhoon in RAF service would be an eye-watering £140m. Understandably, there is speculation that the partner nations may decide to cancel the third tranche of orders. That would result in the UK getting 144 jets and save perhaps £2bn from the total British bill, leaving individual Typhoons price-tagged at £125m each.

 

No matter how you look at it, the Eurofighter is a very expensive piece of kit and will need to work hard to justify its cost. But air-to-air combat doesn't crop up all that often nowadays. Military jets spend most of their operational time blowing up targets on the ground. With British troops in Afghanistan calling for airstrikes on an almost daily basis, the RAF will be keen to make sure that its latest toy can get in on the action. The UK's share of the upgrade bill is reportedly £325m, which puts the cost of fixing up each plane at a mere million or two quid, a snip compared to the cost of buying it in the first place.

 

This enhancement will certainly make the Eurofighter more useful, but it's questionable if anything can make it cost-effective. As a comparison, the UK plans to buy US-made F-35 Lightning II strike planes as well. These planes aren't as manoeuvrable as a Eurofighter, but they can carry AMRAAMs perfectly well. In many ways they're much better than the European super-jet: they'll have stealth, for instance, and probably vertical-landing jump-jet capability too. The price of a Lightning II? Currently estimated below £55m per plane, less than half the likely price of a Eurofighter. Against competition like this, it'll take more than an upgrade to make the Typhoon look like a good deal.

(TheRegister)

 

 

IMHO nothing like american made jets! :)

Cheers

[+SkippyBing 8]

Obviously the 90 odd jets not in use would be kept as attrition replacements. Additionally rotating the airframes in use would extend the operational life of the Typhoon fleet. Oh and if the F-35 ends up only costing £55m per plane it'll be a miracle. Mind you The Register isn't the most accurate of sources when it comes to military aviation.

[JediMaster 451]

This has always been the problem with the Euro acquisition process...they buy simple now and plan to upgrade later. Then when the price for upgrade later comes up, they balk that it wasn't done in the first place! Like, uh, hello? That's why it didn't cost MORE to start with!

 

The problem is the Typhoon dates from an early 80's requirement. It took 20 years to be made, not in small part because of the multinational conflict of requirements. Too many cooks in the kitchen and such. France went their own way because their requirements differed a little too much, they thought they could do it faster, and naturally they thought they'd be better. As it stands, Rafale barely beat the Typhoon into service and just now got a "quick fix" upgrade to release AG weapons for deployment to Afghanistan--like its big sister, it also was designed for AA work first.

 

By contrast, the F-22 was designed to the same idea--AA work only--but before service entry was modified to the point that it will be possible to use AG weapons (not all, but a few) right away. Why is that? More money spent up front.

 

You have to pay one way or the other. However, it seems the Euro public by and large wants to spend .05% of GDP on defense.

[BUFF 8]

The late tranche 1 Typhoons already have an air-to-ground capability using paveway.

 

Anyway, it looks like this is probably where they got their info from before adding their own unique spin

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/index.cfm?story...E38C1F1E8385517

 

Also, more at http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/...t-contract.html