Posted on 10/06/2006 12:43:22 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Austria prepares to dump Eurofighter order
· New government to examine 'senseless' deal · British firm insists it is delivering on contract
Ian Traynor and Mark Milner Friday October 6, 2006 The Guardian
Europe's ill-starred fighter aircraft project was facing a further major blow yesterday when Austria's newly elected centre-left government threatened to scrap the purchase of 18 planes. The social democrats made cancelling the €2bn (£1.4bn) Eurofighter order a centrepiece of their campaign and signalled yesterday they would table a motion as soon as the new parliament convenes to bin the contracts. The move would be a further blow to hopes of generating a string of orders from outside the four-nation consortium behind the aircraft - Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy. Saudi Arabia has said it wants to buy 72 aircraft but efforts to sell it to South Korea and Singapore have not been successful. Another customer, Greece, is reviewing its order for 60 aircraft on budgetary grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.guardian.co.uk ...
Eurofighter?? Oh thats so weak.
Well, it's not as if the Austrians are going to convert them into F-35 orders.
She's a SUWEEET plane, but at $100 MILLION per copy? Centre-left, centre-right, doesn't matter. The plane is NOT worth the money, and should be cancelled. The JSF or the F-22 is far better bang for the buck.
Boy, those French aeroplane builders ain't doing so well of late, huh? Eurofighter orders being cancelled, AirbusT 380 orders being cancelled due to contract violations, it must really SUCK to be European if you're in the aircraft building business.
France has nothing to do with the Eurofighter-They are building their own aircraft,the Rafale,which is'nt doing great either.Anyway,by the time the F-35 comes online,the full multi-role version of the Eurofighter will be ready.The EF-2000 is a better air defense aircraft than the JSF.
If the new government has any sense,they should go in for either the F-16 or the new Swedish Gripens.Both provide good bang for buck.
Just out of curiosity? How are the major threats to European stability and how likely are they to attack?
Except you can buy about 3 for the cost of 1 Typhoon. The F-35 is a strike aircraft, it is not optimized for air defense although it should do it well, because of its stealth and small size, the Typhoon would have a hard time fighting it, especially the VSTOL version (you can use it like vectored thrust, like with the Harrier). The Typhoon is a good air defense aircraft against the Flanker, but too expensive. The F-35 is a much better strike aircraft, and far more versatile. Modernized, F-16s, F-15s or Grippens are a much better buy if you want non-stealth aircraft for air defense that can also do ground well. attack.
Brother please.
Oxymoron: Eurofighter
They're not going to get the F-35 for $100 million per plane, and they're not going to get the F-22 at any price (nobody is.)
F-16 Block 60, with the AESA radar would be nice, but face it, how much air force does Austria really need? Go with the Block 50, or buy some old F-16 airframes and have LockMart refurbish them.
Secondly (not directed to you), how often are there air to air engagements?
I would think the only word that should appropriately have Euro in front of it is Trash.
Rarely. I don't recall hearing about any since 1999 over Kosovo (I think we bagged one Yugoslav helicopter).
<< .... it must really SUCK to be European if you're in the aircraft building business. >>
If any in Europe was actually in the aeroplane business it probably would suck.
However the Europeon's "aircraft business" is, like everything else remotely politically-patronized in the Brussels-based Neo-Soviet, more about laundering the looted wealth of the few Euro-peons who actually create any, any more, into the hands of the mercantilists, corrupt corporatists, cronies and other crooks than it is about either "aircraft building" or about "business."
Well, the MiG-29 is a much better airplane than the F-16 - but that doesn't really matter when you have a radar cross-section of that looks like a giant flying mirror. The AIM-120C, launched from an F-16, has claimed two very proficient Serbian pilots and their MiG-29s.
Same thing with the EuroFighter. It might be a "better" air defense aircraft, but it was built as a gun fighter or boresight fighter. Its agility in the furball isn't really going to matter when it looks like a "shoot me" sign to a Sidewinder or Slammer. That's the big thing about stealth - not only is it hard for the enemy to find you in the first place, it's very hard for his self-guided munitions to track you.
After Gulf I, there were several over the former Yugoslavia - NATO forces abused the Soviet-equipped opposition like it was going out of style.
That said, air to air is still less prevalent than air to ground/air to mud. And the EF2000 doesn't look like it's going to work out real well in that role.
The Spaniards fly those...I was deployed last year to their airbase in Moron, and they flew the Eurofighters.
One thing that baffled me is, they flew their practice patterns with the landing gear down 100% of the time, almost as if they had no confidence on the hydraulic system's ability to extend the gear once it was retracted...
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