Austria prepares to dump Eurofighter order

Guardian Unlimited,UK ^ | Friday October 6, 2006 | Ian Traynor and Mark Milner

[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.

[gpfwestie]

The F22 is nothing without the stealth capability, which will easily be overwhelmed very soon. Theres no such thing as 'invisible' to radar, just harder to see.

For example UK's PAAMs system (SAM), with a phase array radar (ie like Aegis or Patriot) plus data links to the multiple SAM's launched might have a hard time against a 36G pulling Air to Surface missile, but it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel against an 8G pulling massive aircraft that only flies at Mach 2.5

Stealth is only a short term solution, like reactive armour on tanks etc, the missiles always catch up - and it's much cheaper to develop the missile than the Aircraft / tank.

I'd just buy some F15's, and keep upgrading the long range air to air missiles every few years with the spare change.

Now SAM missiles have Link16 it matters much less that their radar is effective, the phase array radars on the ground certainly are very effective. Once the AWACS get the same technology (or even the fighters themselves ?) the Stealth game is over.

[MARKUSPRIME]

F-22 is faster than EF,has a much longer range,can climb faster,has better radar and a much better electronics suite. It will be equiped with Fraam(raytheon ramjet,the meteor ramjet missile/BAE is letting Boeing distribute that in the US for the F-22 and F-35, and has the aim120D, already which has about the same range as the two ramjet missiles).It also has the AIM 9x.The Stealth is just an added bonus for low observability. It will kick the EF's ass easily which has zero stealth,no thrust vectoring,and can only turn fast because its a delta wing with canards.