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DeliciousTorpy hints at major Typhoon cuts
Friday, July 31, 2009Britain will today sign the order for the third tranche of the Eurofighter Typhoon, but it may only need around half of the total order, the outgoing head of the RAF has said.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy has claimed in an interview that only around 120 of the 232 plane order was needed because the planes were so adaptable.
With the defence budget facing a £2bn cut next year and a £1.1bn deficit at the moment, the focus on procurement has shifted to current operations, making projects like the Typhoon more susceptible to cuts.
It is not clear if Britain will actually follow through with Sir Glenn's claims. There are plans to sell off 72 of the 88 planes in the third tranche to Saudi Arabia, but that would still leave around 160 Typhoons in operations. To date there have been no known discussions about selling off 40 additional planes.
Saudi Arabia has expressed an interest in buying additional Typhoons, but these discussions are only preliminary given the fact that the first order has yet to be completed.
Sir Glenn has been a strong opponent of cuts to the RAF procurement budget, often creating disagreements with the other services in the process.
Entering the dispute over helicopter shortages, he admitted that more aircraft could save lives but that they were not the universal solution to the growing casualties.
"More helicopters are needed and that's exactly what we're doing," he asserted to Sky News.
"The other thing which everybody needs to understand is first of all helicopters are not the complete panacea, you still have to have people travelling by road."]
Sir Glenn is retiring later this summer and will be replaced by Air marshal S G Dalton.
The deal to purchase the 88 planes was signed off by the MoD today.
Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson Willie Rennie called the decision "awlful."
"This awful deal is a betrayal of our frontline troops. It is a millstone around the MoD's neck.
"Troops will find it hard to believe that the Government is pressing ahead with ever greater numbers of Cold War jets when it is transport aircraft, especially helicopters, that are so badly needed right now.
"The dire terms of the Eurofighter contract are well-known, but the Government should have pressed harder for a better deal. Faced with a brutal conflict in Afghanistan, it is the lives of our brave service men and women that must come first.
"For too long, this Government and its Tory predecessors have failed to match defence spending with the needs of the people we ask to do the fighting.
"This perverse set of priorities must be changed if we are to have any chance of properly equipping our troops to fight today's conflicts," he said.
HAVE YOUR SAY
It amazes me that people say ' Britain doesn't need 232 aircraft' so we settle for 120?
Saudi is buying nearly as many as us and isnt even a major player on the world stage? How can politicians be so short sighted all the time??
Jack - leeds
The problem is the UK's intension to buy the F35. The UK cannot afford two types of new fast jet. The logical choice would be to cancel the F35 for the UK, and buy all the Typhoons, with some of the order converted to a carrier capable version. Those who say that converting the Typhoon for carrier operations would be too expensive and technically difficult are simply wrong. It is the embedded US friendly civil servants in Whitehall who fear the consequences for the so called special relationship who use this as an excuse. It is a fact that in the long run the UK will have more influence over the US if we have a world class defence industrial base, rather than the UK being more or less solely dependent on US kit. Inevitably leading to the UK being vulnerable to US foreign policy demands against her own interests (Iraq, Afghanistan for example). France has shown the way with the Rafale. The UK now has a world class combat jet it has not had the like of which since the days of the BAC Lightning. The UK should follow France’s lead and back it’s own interests and aircraft.
Martin Bayliss - Stroud/UK/-
There are some other factors to consider when reading the comments from Martin Bayliss. The UK has about 17% of the F35 project, and it would be hard to justify keeping that if the UK canceled its own order. The carriers are designed to fly the F-35 and not a conventional take-off plane. They could be retro-fitted with catapults, but it would cause yet another delay. F35 can operate both from carriers and from unprepared strips, like Harrier, which Typhoon cannot. Typhoon is somewhat stealthy from dead ahead, but not from other aspects, so if the UK abandoned the F-35, it would become one of the few NATO countries to have no access to operational stealth. The Rafale has scored no exports, whereas Typhoon has, and the F-35 will almost certainly export 1000+, with the obvious benefits for UK jobs at BAe and RR. This does not mean we should cut back on Typhoon, but it does suggest that it's not an "either or" choice.
jon livesey
Regarding Jon Livesey's response to my comments. I read in the Sunday papers that if the UK buys no more Typhoons than it has just committed to for tranche 3 then BAe will close Warton. So it appears that if tranche 3 is not ordered in full it is game over for the indigenous UK combat aircraft industry. Plus, a better way for the UK to get into stealth is to skip the F35 and concentrate on developing the Taranis & Mantis UCAVs. Of course, if we close Warton (and Broughton will only last as long as the Hawk does) then we will not be able to construct UCAVs either. And I have heard before how if we play a small part in a huge US program then that is a bigger commercial benefit than our own indigenous efforts. It really is the BAC Lightning/Phantom all over again. Only this time the result will be terminal for the UK's aircraft industry. The MOD procurement civil servants have an appalling track record. Oh, and the Rafale will win orders, at the very least from Brazil. And in a sense it does not matter because France has a clear commitment to its industry, exports or otherwise. Much the same was said about Airbus thirty years ago. Who was right then?
Martin Bayliss - Stroud