via ASDNews.
Wow.Italy cuts Eurofighter order by 25 units, citing finances
MILAN, July 20, 2010 (AFP) - Italy will slash an order for Eurofighter warplanes by 25 from a planned 121 for savings of about two billion euros (2.6 billion dollars), the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The reduced order is part of "savings that the ministry must make under the austerity plan" adopted by the centre-right government in May, a press officer told AFP, confirming remarks by Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain.
The two-year austerity package totalling 24.9 billion euros is aimed at cleaning up Italy's finances and reassuring financial markets.
The Eurofighter, a multi-purpose twin-engine fighter jet introduced in 2003, is built by a consortium made up of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), Britain's BAE Systems and Alenia/Finmeccanica of Italy.
EADS' share is 46 percent, followed by BAE's 33 percent and Alenia/Finmeccanica's 21 percent.
The Eurofighter programme has been dogged by criticism over costs, notably from Italy and Britain.
Everyone was predicting that the F-35 would fall prey to the financial crisis but it seems like the production schedule will preclude that type of hit.
High tech jobs have a type of political capital that must not be underestimated.
I do wonder what this will do to the planned upgrade of the AESA radar that is being developed. Especially when it can be seen that the F-35 will be a more capable and lower cost airplane.
The contract for the AESA radar has already been signed so it shouldn't be affected. The radars will be refitted to existing aircraft anyway.
ReplyDeleteOn another subject, you seem to like the F35, so this article may interest you:
http://www.defencetalk.com/bae-systems-prepares-for-one-a-day-f-35-build-27612/
and another (slightly older) article:
http://www.defencetalk.com/production-starts-on-first-uk-f35-lightning-ii-aircraft-24936/
Grim, give me some info then (oh and thanks for the articles...as much as i slam the UK for playing hard to get on the F-35, i'd take BAE and Americanize it in a heartbeat)....
ReplyDeletei thought Typhoon customers were happy with the Captor (i believe thats its name) radar and claimed that in some ways it was superior to AESA....when did they do the big turnaround????
The partner nations are happy with Captor for now yes, they say it is top of its class. The Captor does offer some advantages over a traditional fixed array AESA, it can turn it's face and so the signal at high angles isn't degraded as much. It doesn't have a lot of the other nifty features on AESA's though.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious fix for that problem is the way that the British AESA radar for Typhoon operates, an AESA on a swash plate so it moves like the Captor (in fact it is the same back bits as a Captor) but with all the other advantages of AESA. I think the other option is one the US took (either F22 or F35 or both) that has several smaller AESAs fixed to give 360 degree coverage.
The main reason for the decision to proceed with AESA now is more to do with exports, the Indians are demanding it and the nations need to make another sale or two since the partner nations are/will be cancelling orders.
I'm actually looking forward to the UK getting the F35, source codes or not. We're already manufacturing enough of it to make it worthwhile. I doubt any problems will arise. Although it is odd that the US trusts us with a significant amount of knowledge and kit that features in both of our nuclear deterrents, but not flight software.
And BAE is American in all but name - 60% of it's business is in the USA now. The British and US sides are certainly quite separate now. But they do work together on some good products, like M777, which was designed and is partially manufactured a few miles from me.
I think they bought enough US companies to own the designs to most of the armoured vehicles in US service (M1, M2 etc and a load of MRAPs), as well as all the British ones. I think I read that they're the biggest ground combat vehicle provider on the planet now, and the biggest defence company by sales.
The Captor AESA won't do much for the Typhoon's signature management, being a swash-plate design.
ReplyDeleteEverything is a compromise. APG-77, APG-79, APG-81 etc. are more concerned with reducing the RCS of the radar system, than the Eurofighter AESA solution clearly is, which is why the American radars are fixed, canted backwards designs.
Keeping the same back-end is an interesting idea too. One hopes it has the processing power capable of truly using all that extra power, or all they'll be seeing with a more powerful AESA radar is a lot more clutter...
I guess as a marketing tool, which is whist this capability really is, given how happy the existing customers are with the extant M-Scan radar, it will achieve it's goals...
awesome Aussie Digger. Your input is valuable too Grim.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that I'm learning more about the Typhoon AESA on my site which is basically a Marine Grunt page than I have on dedicated aviation pages.
Thanks guys.