The four Eurofighter partner nations - Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK - have agreed a letter of understanding to allow presentation of Typhoon data on later variants of the fighter to the Netherlands. The letter is to be signed shortly.
The country - one of the European Partner Air Forces (EPAF) with Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Portugal, which operate the Lockheed Martin F-16 - is considering the Joint Strike Fighter, Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, F-16 Block 60 and Saab/BAE Gripen for service entry from around 2010.
Speaking at the show, Eurofighter International (EFI) executive vice-president sales support Andy Lewis says that if the Netherlands selects Eurofighter, other EPAF nations may follow.
A Eurofighter development aircraft visited the Netherlands last week and several Dutch companies - including Phillips and Signaal - have been briefed on the programme and potential offsets.
Lewis says that although the talks with Dutch industry are at an early stage, the industrial participation is likely to be similar to proposals made to Greece, Norway and South Korea, where companies will be made responsible for a single subsystem or component, a position which will continue throughout the programme's life - assuming the country buys the fighter aircraft.
Work could also include non-direct offset. Norway, for instance, was offered naval and munitions contracts by the four Eurofighter partner companies. Software specialists were also targeted.
He says Eurofighter needs to make its case before the Netherlands has to decide on whether to join the JSF engineering and manufacturing demonstration phase early next year.
Source: Flight International
