To battle-hardened veterans of the Eurofighter EF2000 programme, the latest bout of German jitters must illicit a distinct feeling of déja vu, with German politicians once again threatening to put the project into a tailspin.
For some of those veterans, however, German defence minister Volker Rühe's posturing in attempting to delay and cut the costs of the European fighter aircraft in the early 1990s now seems no more than a phoney war. Germany's current problems with the project are the real thing.
Those problems, despite the fiscal gloss put on their character, are in essence political. Germany has the financial wherewithal to back the production investment (PI) phase of the Eurofighter. The question mark concerns the political will of the country.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is believed to have raised the issue of the Eurofighter EF2000, when he met German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on 6 June, stressing the UK's continuing commitment to the programme.
Kohl's grand plan for European Monetary Union (EMU) is coming unstuck as the country's unemployment climbs and Bonn fails to meet the EMU-joining criteria which it helped to set. The EF2000 is caught in the resulting morass.
This could all have been avoided, as Brian Phillipson, Eurofighter managing director, notes, had the project cleared the PI hurdle in November 1996, or even during the first quarter of this year.
Cabinet agenda
As it was, Kohl personally removed a Eurofighter PI decision from the German Cabinet agenda in February, for reasons which remain the source of speculation.
Eurofighter, and the partner nations - Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK - then looked at sequentially signing off the PI, but this fell foul of the UK general election and concerns about the UK being isolated in the van of the project, while Italy and Spain procrastinated.
The irony for Eurofighter is that, at the technical level, the project now appears to be going well following a spate of problems in the early 1990s. All seven development aircraft (DAs) have entered the test programme, with encouraging results. Phillipson now regards a German cabinet meeting on 11 July as a key event, although he plays down notions of a mid-summer dénouement.
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) has threatened to cease funding the project. It will have spent around DM1 million ($625,000) a day by the beginning of July, unless progress is made. It is increasingly likely that, given the industrial stakes at risk, even a vaguely conciliatory gesture on Bonn's part would be considered progress enough by senior Dasamanagers.
Discussing the German predicament, Phillipson says that "-there doesn't appear to be an EF2000 issue as such, and it is not a budgetary issue". The problem, he adds, "-is how you handle putting the programme forward", within the context of larger German political concerns.
Budget proposal
The July meeting will finalise the Government's 1998 budget proposal. Phillipson believes that there are three possible outcomes for Eurofighter, but he discounts cancellation, claiming that the project has widespread support within Germany's highest political echelons. "Once Eurofighter is approved by the German cabinet, Rühe could sign the PI memorandum of understanding. There is a route by which he need do no more. He could press ahead without going to the German parliament," Phillipson says.
This route, understandably, is Phillipson's favourite because it would get the PI under way as quickly as possible. Germany's often tentative approach to the project makes such a positive outcome seem unlikely, however.
"Another option," says Phillipson, "is that the Government does nothing, and lets parliament debate the budget. This would effectively lead to an approvals decision in December. The third alternative would be for the cabinet to approve the programme, and for it to then go to the Bundestag in September or October."
A delay until the end of 1997 would not be Phillipson's preferred option, but it is manageable within the present funding arrangements. The NATO Eurofighter and Panavia Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) and Eurofighter have a bridging agreement which clears funding through to the end of 1997, if necessary.
More problematic, for the UK at least, would be any attempt by Germany to stall the PI phase of the project for 12 months or more.
Phillipson is aware that 1998 is an election year in Germany. It would be advantageous to have the EF2000 PI approval before the project becomes embroiled in electioneering issues. Further delays would also add further to the cost of the programme.
Any more prevarication would be strongly resisted by the UK Ministry of Defence. Senior Royal Air Force officers are growing increasingly exasperated at delays in the programme. This has resulted in the Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant having its service life stretched at much cost.
In part, the RAF's irritation over the delays is that the aircraft is meeting the criteria set out by the four partner nations within the development programme. As Phillipson is keen to point out, key "-maturity criteria have been met. Confidence is high that the Eurojet EJ200 engine is mature, while the operation of the utilities control system and the flight control system [FCS] is getting routine". The FCS, in particular, has been a source of a lot of heartache on the project.
Another critical milestone for the PI was to meet the maturity criteria for the ECR90 pulse-Doppler multi-mode radar. The radar was flown on the DA5, a German prototype, earlier this year.
Establishing that the EF2000 meets the "maturity criteria" effectively clears the way at a technical level for the signature of memorandum of understanding (MoU) Six, covering the aircraft production phase, and MoU Seven, which covers aircraft support.
Phillipson is keen to point out that, in examining the aircraft's "maturity", the industrial partners also have a vested interest in ensuring that the EF2000 will perform as advertised.
"The contracts for the production phase will be tight. The production contract will have plenty of penalty clauses for delivery delays," he says.
Not only will this cover delays in the delivery of the aircraft, but also in the support infrastructure. Phillipson cites the example of Eurofighter delivering the EF2000 to contract, but not the necessary support infrastructure. In the event of this, the air force involved would fly the aircraft, while Eurofighter would have to pick up the support costs until it got the appropriate elements in place.
Bonn sceptics
All this, of course, is predicated on the project proceeding. Some people in Bonn appear to be increasingly sceptical that Kohl, Rühe and finance minister Theo Waigel can find a positive way of financing the EF2000 programme.
As befits his position, Phillipson finds this difficult to countenance. Even within German political circles, he believes that there is a recognition that the EF2000 is the right product and should proceed.
One route which may provide an acceptable political solution is the early repayment by Dasa of loans made by the German Government for Airbus projects. This option is being explored in Bonn. Another less-optimistic projection foresees a German withdrawal from the programme. When previously faced with this possibility, UK industry, led by British Aerospace and the MoD, drew up a contingency plan intended to allow the programme to proceed, even without German participation at a Government level. This plan is almost certainly being updated.
At a political level, Italy appears to be fully committed. Spain's position would be less certain if Germany were to withdraw, given that one of its key aims has been to use the Eurofighter programme as a method of pump-priming advanced aerospace-technology developments - a position which it has virtually achieved.
Throwing Dasa out as an act of retribution would make no sense and restructuring the project without any German industrial participation would be prohibitively expensive. It is conceivable that Dasa could remain in the programme, even if Germany were to opt to compete for an off-the-shelf fighter. As Phillipson points out, the German Government has at no point suggested that a future fighter is no longer required. The political debate has been about how to meet this requirement.
Ironically, the new government in France might get the Eurofighter nations off the financial hook. Having abandoned attempts at a collaborative project in the mid-1980s, and having developed the Dassault Rafale in direct competition to the EF2000, France could inadvertently provide a key element of the solution which will allow Germany to find a way forward on the project.
France's new socialist Government is re-examining its commitment to the EMU timetable. That may delay its entry into the EMU - in turn delaying the launch of Kohl's pet project, perhaps indefinitely. It would, however, also remove the main financial obstacle to Germany signing up for the PI.
Source: Flight International
