Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Austria Has No Business Flying These High-Performance Fighters
War is Boring ^ | Nov 2, 2014 | David Axe

Posted on 11/02/2014 8:03:57 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki

Austria is a tiny, politically neutral country with no nearby enemies. And yet the Austrian air force possesses 15 high-performance Typhoon jet fighters.

Not only are the twin-engine, supersonic warplanes arguably unnecessary in light of Vienna’s defense needs—they’re also too expensive for the government’s modest military budget.

The 15 Typhoons rarely fly. And when they do, they carry only a tiny fraction of the weaponry that other Typhoon operators—the U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and Saudi Arabia—routinely hang on the high-tech fighters.

And in stark contrast to other countries—which usually employ twice as many pilots as they have fighters, thus ensuring there’s always someone available to fly a particular plane into battle—the Austrian air force’s payroll is sufficient for just 11 front-line Typhoon pilots and one trainee.

In other words, Austria has way more high-end air-combat capability than it can afford to actually make useful. Taken together, Vienna’s air-power investment produces almost embarrassingly modest results.

On any given day, just three Typhoons are combat-ready with pilots and weapons—and only between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Their operating budget allows for a combined 180 minutes of flying per day within those business hours. The Typhoons take off so rarely that, at current usage rates, the airframes could last for centuries with adequate upkeep. Unlike, say, U.S. Navy F/A-18s, which fly so often that the Americans worry about them wearing out after just 20 years of use.

And when Austria’s fighters do launch—to patrol over some high-profile meeting or to escort a wayward airliner—they often carry only a single, short-range air-to-air missile.

So much warplane for so little firepower.

Best plane bribery can buy Alleged bribery could explain the whole, absurd Austrian Typhoon debacle. It’s possible Vienna shelled out $2 billion for warplanes it doesn’t need because Eurofighter, the consortium that produces Typhoons, paid off key officials.

To be sure, Austria needs some warplanes. Most industrialized countries—isolated New Zealand is one exception—possess at least a few jet fighters for aerial self-protection, otherwise known as “air policing.”

But countries of Austria’s size, wealth and situation—nine or ten million people, a GDP of a few hundred billion dollars, no immediate military threat—tend to favor inexpensive fighters. The Czech Republic and Hungary each bought 14 copies of Sweden’s single-engine Gripen fighter, priced to move at just over $60 million apiece.

In the early 2000s, Austria rejected the Gripen in favor of the $125-million Typhoon, even though Austria’s previous fighter had been the 1950s-vintage Draken, the Gripen’s uncomplicated Swedish predecessor.

It would be years before Vienna’s preference began to make sense. In November 2012, German police raided the Hamburg home of one Frank Walter P., looking for evidence of corruption.

“During the sale of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Austria, an estimated €113.5 million ($144 million) is believed to have been transferred from [Eurofighter member] EADS to the accounts of dubious companies,” Der Spiegel explained.

“Public prosecutors in Vienna and Munich suspect that the millions of euros may have been used to bribe Austrian decision-makers—or as kick-back payments to greedy EADS managers—or perhaps to establish slush funds within the consortium.”

In any event, in the early 2000s, Vienna wanted 24 Typhoons. Then leftists gained power in Austria’s 2006 elections. Vowing to cancel the Typhoon deal, they discovered that the cancellation fees would have been more than a billion dollars.

So they cut the order to just 15 copies of the most basic “Tranche 1” Typhoon—and ultimately paid for just a few IRIS-T heat-seeking missiles, 12 pilots and no more than 1,070 hours of flight time per year for the whole fighter fleet.

After all, with an annual military budget of just $4 billion, that’s all Austria can afford. Every Typhoon flight hour costs as much as $15,000 once you count fuel and maintenance. A Gripen can fly for an hour for around $5,000.

The operational cutbacks are the inevitable result of a small country buying too much fighter. And limited flying time can have dangerous consequences. Austria’s air force doesn’t have many responsibilities, but it must as last protect the country’s air space.

That’s hard to do with three hours of flying per day. Just ask the Swiss. On the early morning of Feb. 17, the copilot of an Ethiopian Boeing 767 airliner flying from Addis Ababa to Rome hijacked the plane and its 202 passengers while the pilot was in the toilet.

Italian jet fighters intercepted the airliner and, later, French jets followed it until it landed in Geneva. The Swiss air force was unable to send its own F-18 fighters to help with the aerial policing … because Switzerland’s flying branch wasn’t yet open for business.

Realizing it’s got its own gap, this fall the Austrian defense ministry announced it would upgrade 12 of its nearly 50-year-old Saab 105 combat trainers, which are subsonic and even more lightly armed than the Typhoons.

The Saab 105s will fly 1,200 hours of air policing every year, 130 hours more than the Typhoons do. For Austria, it would have been better to buy cheaper fighters—more powerful than Saab trainers but less powerful than Typhoons—and fly them more often.

But then, possible bribes worth potentially tens of millions of euros have a way of defeating reason.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Germany; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: aerospace; austria; davidaxe; eurofighter; warisboring
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

1 posted on 11/02/2014 8:03:57 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

nice pic


2 posted on 11/02/2014 8:05:41 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

It’s not like they have a Navy


3 posted on 11/02/2014 8:07:10 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

War is Boring website?

This guy disagrees!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVESMxs4rbA


4 posted on 11/02/2014 8:08:06 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; We need a second party!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

If you’re going to have an air force you better have some planes that can fly with the best of the others.


5 posted on 11/02/2014 8:08:16 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeronL

They did prior to 1918.


6 posted on 11/02/2014 8:09:48 PM PST by TADSLOS (The Event Horizon has come and gone. Buckle up and hang on.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: GeronL

I think the Swiss bought F-18s in the 1990s...


7 posted on 11/02/2014 8:28:06 PM PST by Calvin Locke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Calvin Locke

They did. There were a number of Swiss pilots training a Pax River when I worked there in the ‘90s..


8 posted on 11/02/2014 8:34:38 PM PST by cardinal4 (Certified Islamophobe..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki
When you need them, buying high performance jet fighters takes longer than training pilots to fly them. Just ask Assad. David Axe has no business writing about defense. His risible commentary includes the following gem about the F-35:

Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’

9 posted on 11/02/2014 8:34:42 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki; narses; Nachum; SunkenCiv

You do not know whether or not they were needed until the last war they might have been used in has ended.


10 posted on 11/02/2014 8:53:16 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki
Who has the right to say from the outside what a country needs? Who gave them the authority or wisdom?

Very pompous. Good on the Austrians. Buy what you want and enjoy it.

11 posted on 11/02/2014 9:21:22 PM PST by doorgunner69
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki
On any given day, just three Typhoons are combat-ready with pilots and weapons—and only between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Well at least they don't let lunchtime get in the way of war preparedness.

12 posted on 11/02/2014 9:24:58 PM PST by KarlInOhio (The IRS: either criminally irresponsible in backup procedures or criminally responsible of coverup.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

I have more guns than I can shoot at once. That is a good thing. Nothing wrong with having a bit of extra hardware about.


13 posted on 11/02/2014 9:27:03 PM PST by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki
On any given day, just three Typhoons are combat-ready with pilots and weapons—and only between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

That can probably be changed in a matter of hours.

Speaking of hours, given the amount of maintenance hours a modern jet needs per flying hour it might not be so unrealistic to have more jets than pilots.

The 3 hours of flying time per day sounds small, but with only 11 pilots that's about 99 hrs per year. Sure, about 1/3 the typical US fighter pilot seat time but we'd need to look at how many different kinds of ordnance and systems the two groups are working with, and how many different missions they are training for.

14 posted on 11/02/2014 9:35:31 PM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Zhang Fei

Maintaining a first class military costs you an extraordinary amount of money.

Neglecting to maintain a first class military costs you everything in time of need.

History teaches that the time of need for military protection comes far more frequently and at more inopportune times than one would like.

BTW, the F-35 is a lot better than it’s critics give it credit for so don’t believe all the BS that has been published.

F-35 meets JSF performance metrics and JSF metrics describe a pretty capable and maneuverable air craft.


15 posted on 11/02/2014 10:22:51 PM PST by rdcbn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki

Get to work by eight in the morning and go home by four, this is the Viennese schedule..hmmmmm

While on duty and flying, occasionally drop a few kegs of beer, that’s how it is done in Oestereich.


16 posted on 11/02/2014 11:04:25 PM PST by saintgermaine (Is she somehow related)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TADSLOS

They had a coastline prior to 1918...


17 posted on 11/02/2014 11:36:39 PM PST by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: doorgunner69

Yep. It is their country and money so it’s no one else’s business what they do with it.


18 posted on 11/02/2014 11:59:47 PM PST by MamaB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Lurker

We were going through my late hisband’s fishing gear after his death. He most have had about 50 rods/reels. We gave most of it to my brother. He loved bass fishing especially at night.


19 posted on 11/03/2014 12:03:28 AM PST by MamaB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: sukhoi-30mki
Austria is a tiny, politically neutral country with no nearby enemies.

The Turks could be at the Gates of Vienna at any time...then there's Romania, Bulgaria, the Balkans...

20 posted on 11/03/2014 4:10:00 AM PST by Moltke ("The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution if you only know how to use it.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson