Eurofighter Typhoon has entered service, but both suppliers and partner governments must show more flexibility and pragmatism
So after nearly 20 years of development, Eurofighter has entered service. Well done.
But the work for the Eurofighter partner companies (EPC) does not stop. Firstly there are the 28 Typhoons to be delivered this year. There are another 100 or so in production. Perhaps more importantly for the programme and for Europe's military aerospace capability, attention has turned towards development of the Tranche 2 aircraft, intended as a more capable, truly multirole aircraft.
Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK have not reached this far without more than a fair share of problems. National differences and funding difficulties took the programme to the brink more than once. On several occasions it has taken brave men to predict when Typhoon - or Eurofighter 2000, or European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) - would enter service. As conceived in the mid-1980s, the then EFA was an air superiority jet; the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 forced a re-evaluation of the requirement, leading to a significant increase in the fighter's air-to-ground capability.
Even the path from the December 1997 signing of the four-nation memorandum of understanding to Typhoon type acceptance on 30 June has not been smooth and straight. Eurofighter Typhoon should have entered service 12 months ago, but issues with the production of the composite fin and the standard of some hydraulic pipes caused delays. These were further exacerbated by the crash of the Spanish development aircraft DA6 in December.
There is no denying that development of the Eurofighter Typhoon has been a complex task. It would appear that Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems, EADS Casa and EADS Germany have developed a very capable fighter - but only time, and the operational experience of the frontline pilots who are now at long last able to climb into the cockpit, will tell.
The four companies are now faced with another conundrum - development of an affordable Tranche 2 aircraft that maintains the aircraft's capabilities, which can be retrofitted into the first batch Typhoons and which will provide a solid baseline for Tranche 3 - assuming there is a third batch, and there are many prepared to predict there will not be.
Like it or not, Tranche 2 development will be what keeps the EPC's combat aircraft skills alive. Although there may or may not be another manned fighter programme in Europe, Eurofighter-derived skills will be required to develop unmanned combat air vehicles and other future military aerospace systems.
Despite all the previous disputes, the four partner nations still struggle with negotiations. These have seemingly forever been a battle between the country that wants the maximum capability - the UK- and those who are less worried about the specification and more concerned about spending as little as possible. The Tranche 2 specification is outlined and agreed but it is less than many had wanted. It is a baseline on which each air force will be able to add capabilities.
But the four nations also want to reduce the cost of the aircraft, by up to one fifth. This is not an unsurprising demand, Eurofighter has consumed and will continue to consume vast amounts of national defence budgets. Such demands, however, will have to be carefully balanced with the desire to maintain Typhoon's combat effectiveness.
There is little doubt that industry should be able to reduce the cost of the aircraft - the world has moved on since the aircraft was designed, so new production techniques are available, and there is now a solid body of Typhoon manufacturing experience; systems technology has multiplied multifold; and by the time Tranche 2 enters service there will be significant knowledge of the fighter's maintenance needs.
But there also needs to be changes on the government side. Streamlining of the programme management should be possible. A more flexible approach to workshare issues would not go amiss either.
Pragmatism is needed on both sides of the contractual fence. Governments need to streamline their organisations and allow some malleability of their industrial policies. Industry needs to be more flexible in the way it regards workshare and working together. If pragmatism loses out and dogma rules the day, the last 20 years will have been for nothing - the Eurofighter Typhoon will sink from being Europe's aerospace foundation for the next four decades to being just another employment generation programme.
Source: Flight International
