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