Arrivano gli Eurofighter

[Carlo Gubitosa <c.gubitosa at peacelink.it>]

Fonte: The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,11816,1003333,00.html

But the Russians aren't coming
It has cost £50 billion, has been 30 years in the making and is designed to 
fight an enemy that no longer exists. So is the Eurofighter a military 
white elephant? Andy Beckett investigates

Andy Beckett
Tuesday July 22, 2003
The Guardian

At the Royal International Air Tattoo on Saturday, there was a Eurofighter 
on display next to the runway of RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. And next 
to the smooth, dark grey warplane, there was a young Eurofighter pilot 
called Gavin.

As people queued for a guided tour of the aircraft, in greater numbers than 
for any of the other exhibits, Gavin's job was to politely keep them in 
line and answer questions. At first glance, it looked quite a pleasant 
task: the sun was shining, the Eurofighter was gleaming, and the people 
queueing, who wore T-shirts with missiles on them and held carrier bags 
advertising the Daily Mail, did not seem likely opponents of the 
military-industrial complex.

Yet when they considered the Eurofighter they acquired a certain scepticism.

"Is it quick enough?" asked a man with a moustache and three grandchildren, 
typically, as he reached the head of the queue.

"It does Mach 2," said Gavin, patiently.

"Anything does Mach 2," said the man, loudly.

Gavin, who was wearing sunglasses, remained expressionless, but began to 
rock back and forth on his heels. The man continued: "The F-16 [an elderly 
American fighter] does Mach 2."

The sun, reflected off the runway, began to feel prickly rather than 
invigorating. Gavin reddened. Then he changed the subject to what "a 
fantastic aircraft" the Eurofighter was to fly. But the man seemed to have 
stopped listening.

This month, after more than a quarter of a century of development, and a 
decade later than planned, the RAF is finally receiving its first 
consignment of Eurofighters. "There is already a considerable buzz around 
frontline squadrons," the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter 
Squire, crisply told the press three weeks ago. Jointly produced by 
Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy, the Eurofighter is the most expensive 
European defence project ever, with a big enough budget - more than £50bn 
for an anticipated 600 aircraft - to dig five Channel Tunnels.

Since the aircraft was conceived, it has survived countless technical and 
financial crises, design revisions and rescue packages, changes of 
government and shifts in strategic priorities. The resulting warplane, with 
its thick, slightly stubby fuselage and sharply swept-back wings, is "one 
of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world", according to Stewart 
Penney, defence editor of the trade magazine Flight International.

But a feeling of unease lingers around the project. Partly this is down to 
the Eurofighter's problematic history; partly it is down to something more 
fundamental. As Penney admits: "The last time a UK pilot shot down an enemy 
aircraft was in 1982 in the Falklands." Since then, Britain's frequent wars 
have been fought against opponents either without air forces or without 
much chance to use them. Yet the Eurofighter was devised in a very 
different era: when massed formations of Russian aircraft were anticipated 
by western military planners as an accompaniment to an invasion of Europe.

With this threat, real or otherwise, having long receded, the Eurofighter's 
original role, using its manoeuvrability and clever weapons systems to 
perform Battle of Britain-style heroics, has been replaced by something 
more ambiguous. For critics of the international defence business and its 
political and military allies, the jet has become the perfect example of a 
well-connected industry's ability to make over-budget, redundant products 
and find a market for them regardless. "The Eurofighter is completely out 
of date," says Susan Willett, a defence analyst and "long-term sceptic" 
about the jet. "It's a cold-war beast."

For those suspicious of European collaborations in general, the fighter - 
paid for and built according to a complex and frequently disputed formula, 
which currently gives Britain the largest share, roughly a third, of the 
expenditure and the work - has become bloated with predictable compromises. 
Production contracts have been distributed according to political 
imperatives rather than ability of those chosen to fulfil them. Different 
wings of the same aircraft have been manufactured in different countries. 
The Eurofighter has become, literally, a warplane designed by committee.

But to supporters of the Eurofighter, all these complaints are either 
irrelevant or incorrect. "The aircraft is absolutely critical to the UK 
aerospace industry," says John Wall, the national aerospace secretary of 
the trade union Amicus. Estimates of the number of British jobs dependent 
on the project range from 10,000 to 80,000.

"These are worthwhile jobs," Penney adds. "Engineers, technicians, skilled 
artisans... often in places where there aren't many other jobs." Without 
this local expertise, he continues, Britain would have to buy fighters from 
America or even Russia, at probably greater cost.

In the beginning, it is generally forgotten now, the Eurofighter was meant 
to be practical and cheap. Since the end of the second world war, it had 
gradually, painfully become clear that creating a complex military aircraft 
was often too much for a medium-sized country. In Britain, a slender, 
futuristic fighter-bomber with a mixed performance record called the TSR2 
was cancelled amid much national angst in 1965.

During the early 70s, that time of dawning financial realities for Britain 
and other European countries, a European Combat Aircraft, as the 
Eurofighter was initially known, was envisaged. By the following decade, 
Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy were working together. The need 
for the aircraft seemed obvious: in public at least, there seemed no end in 
sight to the cold war, and there were anxieties about a new generation of 
startlingly nimble Russian fighters. In October 1985, British Aerospace 
(now BAE Systems), the main British contractor, wheeled out a prototype 
Eurofighter at its long-established aircraft factory in Warton, Lancashire, 
to show the press. The aircraft looked sleek and modern and convincing. It 
was anticipated that it would enter service by the mid-90s at the latest.

But problems had already begun to surface. By 1985, France had decided that 
it wanted a jet primarily for attacking targets on the ground rather than 
other aircraft. The other countries wanted the opposite. That summer, 
France pulled out of the project and began developing its own rival plane, 
the Rafale.

In Britain, by the late 80s, there were political doubts "about the wisdom 
of so large a [Eurofighter] programme", the defence minister Alan Clark 
recorded in his diaries. "I am inclined... to maintain design and research 
teams. But defer going into production for as long as one can. The moment 
something goes into production it is obsolescent and all the in-service 
problems start crowding in."

Before this could happen, the Berlin Wall fell. In Germany in particular, 
deterring the Russians abruptly became less of a priority. By 1992, the 
cost of reunification had made German withdrawal from the European Fighter 
Aircraft scheme, as it was now called, an apparent certainty. "The European 
Fighter Aircraft is as good as dead," concluded Alastair Campbell, then the 
Daily Mirror's political editor.

However, he and other commentators had underestimated the political 
leverage of the defence industry. In newspapers across the political 
spectrum, sympathetic stories began to appear about the plight of aerospace 
workers if the Eurofighter was cancelled. There was a demonstration in 
London, with even the Socialist Workers Party providing placards ("No 
Closures. No Job Losses. Stuff The Tories.") In Britain, the German defence 
minister, who had suggested that "the plane has to adjust to the security 
situation and not the other way round", was portrayed as a dangerous heretic.

In the end, Germany stayed faithful to the project. A recession was 
chilling Europe's economies, and Germany needed workable relations with 
Britain to further its hopes for European integration. Yet the Eurofighter 
scheme continued to be a struggle. Sharing the work between four countries 
increased, rather than reduced, costs. Satisfying four separate air forces 
demanded compromises - the jet got heavier - and the production of four 
different versions of the same aircraft. Even the name became a problem: in 
1998 a British plan to change it yet again to the Typhoon reportedly caused 
friction with the Germans, who vividly remembered an RAF ground-attack 
aircraft of the same name incinerating German tank crews during the second 
world war.

At air shows during the 90s, the Eurofighter became notorious for its 
non-appearances and technical glitches. Last November, just as it finally 
seemed about to enter service, a prototype crashed in Spain after its 
engines stopped. At the vast, humming BAE Systems compound in Warton, 
workers developed ever more tactful ways of summarising the delays to 
inquiring journalists. As Andy Wishart, a senior engineer and Eurofighter 
veteran, put it last week: "The waters have never been smooth, shall we 
say." Almost in passing, he mentions that there are still "minor technical 
problems".

Yet what strikes the visitor to Warton most is not frustration but 
confidence. The factory looms over its surrounding village, 
disproportionately large, like questions of defence policy in the minds of 
most British politicians. BAE workers stroll round the village with their 
name tags proudly showing. In the nearest pub to the factory, the woman 
behind the bar says, "There's a saying round here. British Aerospace will 
always be there."

As Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a defence economist at Bradford University, 
points out, "The average voter has much less connection with what works or 
not in defence than in schools or hospitals." At the same time, British 
military projects can draw on centuries of national pride about British 
prowess and ingenuity with weapons. At Saturday's air tattoo, a Eurofighter 
was self-consciously scheduled to appear in the flying display immediately 
after a Spitfire.

When its time came, the Eurofighter roared on a distant runway, shot 
briefly forward, and took off at an improbable angle, climbing almost 
vertically towards the gathering clouds. Then it slowed, and began to swing 
back and forth across the sky with a strange, asymmetrical twisting motion, 
like a dead leaf spinning on a gust of wind, except perfectly under 
control. For a few minutes, it became more possible to understand what had 
driven the Eurofighter advocates on.

But at the railway station afterwards, there was a reminder that time might 
finally be running out for them. The stationmaster had struck up a 
conversation with a family who had been at the tattoo. There was one thing 
he wanted to know. Had they seen the American stealth fighter?


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