How Putin is saving RAF blushes over the much-maligned Typhoon
Aircraft designed for the cold war era has had more than a few teething problems – but Russia’s activity has given it new role

The Guardian, Friday 26 December 2014 18.22 GM



Towards the end of the cold war, Britain and three other European countries agreed to develop a new aircraft – initially called the Eurofighter, now the Typhoon – to engage in dogfights with Soviet pilots over the plains of northern Europe.

This month, Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, praised RAF Typhoon pilots for intercepting unidentified aircraft in incidents said to be reminiscent of the cold war. What he did not mention is that 30 years after it was conceived and despite some £20bn spent on the project, the Typhoon is unable to engage the enemy said by David Cameron to pose the biggest threat to Britain’s security. And it will not be able to do so until 2019 at the earliest.

Because the Typhoons are not yet equipped with the latest Brimstone “fire and forget” missiles, the smartest weapon and most accurate in the RAF’s armoury, British air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) fighters have been left to 30-year-old Tornado jets.

Typhoons are undergoing wind tunnel and aerodynamic tests before they can be fitted with missiles to the underside of their wings.

The government, meanwhile, has been trying to get some of its money back by selling Typhoons abroad. In February, after years of tough negotiations, the British manufacturer of the Typhoon, BAE Systems, agreed a multibillion-pound deal to sell 72 aircraft to Saudi Arabia. The deal, called Salam, was announced the day after Prince Charles donned traditional robes and joined Saudi princes in a sword dance during a visit to the kingdom. Ian King, BAE’s chief executive, said the public was “never going to know” how much the Saudis would pay for the planes.

However, despite huge pressure from the government, including sales trips led by Cameron, the United Arab Emirates abandoned a £6bn deal for 60 Typhoons last year.In addition, the government failed to persuade the Indian government to buy the aircraft after a fierce battle with France, makers of the rival Rafale plane.

BAE faces tough competition from Saab, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Dassault, maker of the Rafale. So desperate are the salesmen that they are reported to be resorting to unusual sales techniques. In the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, said to be the world’s busiest city for Twitter users, Typhoon marketeers are pitching their aircraft via social media.

The Typhoon saga began in 1985 when Britain got together with Germany, Spain, and Italy to develop a warplane principally as an air-to-air dogfighter. In 1988, ministers said the European Fighter Aircraft would “be a major project, costing the United Kingdom about £7bn”.

By 1997 the estimated cost had risen to £17bn. Critics of the project were already on the warpath. Alan Clark, the late Tory trade and defence minister, said: “We must find a less extravagant way of paying people to make buckets with holes in them.” A Guardian editorial warned: “The policy rationale for the Eurofighter is altogether unclear.”

The Eurofighter and the Trident nuclear weapons system – Britain’s two biggest weapons projects – were repeatedly excluded from scrutiny in defence reviews. By 2003, the Eurofighter/Typhoon project was 54 months behind schedule and its cost estimated at £20bn, though the Ministry of Defence refused to release updated figures on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. Contractual and technical problems led to a shortage of spares, with planes being cannibalised and pilots grounded.

In 2011, the National Audit Office reported: “Our examination has shown that key investment decisions were taken on an over-optimistic basis; the project suffered from corporate decisions to try to balance the defence budget; and the department did not predict the substantial rate at which costs would rise. None of this suggests good cost control, a key determinant of value for money.”

The MoD decided to cut its order from an initial 232 to 160 aircraft. Even this was 16 more than the RAF agreed it would be happy with. It was forced to buy the 16 at a cost of £2.7bn to honour contractual commitments to the other countries producing the planes.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, noted that by 2011 the estimated cost of each aircraft had increased by 75%.

Francis Tusa, editor of Defence Analysis, estimates the cost of producing and upgrading the Typhoons will be up to £25bn. The total cost of producing and maintaining the RAF’s fleet of Typhoons will be more than £30bn, according to the NAO’s latest figures.

Delays in the Typhoon programme have led to billions of pounds being spent keeping the RAF’s aged Tornados in the air. Tusa blames much of the costly delays on RAF infighting. “You have adherents of Typhoon, but they are being undercut and harassed by the proponents of the Joint Strike Fighter. This is seen as the new shiny toy, and this is taking more of the money available,” he said.

American F35 Joint Strike Fighters are due to fly from the navy’s two large new aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. But the carriers too are experiencing expensive teething problems. They are estimated to cost £6.2bn and the lifetime costs of aircraft flying from them more than £15bn. The government dropped plans to buy the “cats and traps” – catapult launch and arrester wire landing – version of the F35 to avoid spending an extra £2bn to convert the carrier decks.

But the short takeoff and vertical landing version the government has chosen is not nearly as capable – they cannot fly as far, or carry as many weapons, as the “cats and traps” variant.

The original plan was to buy 138 of the F35 fighters, whose cost has spiralled to an estimated £70m each. The government has so far said it will buy only 48. It has ordered 14, enough for a first squadron. The idea is that some F35s will be based on carriers, while others will be flown from RAF bases.

The navy, meanwhile, faces the real prospect of launching the second carrier, the Prince of Wales, towards the end of the decade, with no planes to put on it. Serious technical problems prevented an F35 from flying over the Queen Elizabeth when it was launched at Rosyth dockyard in Fife in July, or performing at the summer’s air show at Farnborough. It was an embarrassment for navy chiefs.

RAF chiefs, meanwhile, may be saved from continuing embarrassment by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Large Russian “bear” bombers flying close to British airspace have been intercepted by RAF Typhoons, performing an air defence role in incidents that echo the cold war, an era for which they were first designed.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...rcraft-russia?

BAE faces tough competition from Saab, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Dassault, maker of the Rafale. So desperate are the salesmen that they are reported to be resorting to unusual sales techniques. In the Indonesian capital, Jakarta