Select Committee on Defence Written Evidence


Eurofighter

  Eurofighter is an agile fighter aircraft that will serve as the cornerstone of the RAF's fighting capability from the early years of the next century. The 232 aircraft we plan to acquire will replace the Tornado F3 and Jaguar in air defence and offensive air support roles. Eurofighter is being developed in a collaborative project with Germany, Italy and Spain. Contracts for the production of the first tranche of 148 aircraft, of which 55 are for the RAF, were signed in September 1998 and the UK expects first deliveries in June 2002.

OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENT

  1.  The original European Staff Target for the Eurofighter—then European Fighter Aircraft, EFA—was signed in Rome on 11 October 1984, by France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The nations' air forces agreed a requirement for a new fighter aircraft to enter service in the 1990s. EFA was to be agile and designed to fulfil air defence, including air superiority and interception, and air to surface roles. France attached equal importance to both roles; all other nations, while wishing to retain good air-to-surface capability, recognised air-to-air as the conditioning role. EFA was to be capable of intercepting, fighting in air combat, and destroying a wide range of aerial targets including cruise missiles, remotely piloted vehicles and drones at a threat level expected in the mid 1990s and beyond, as well as attacking enemy airfields and enemy surface forces. EFA was to be able to operate in the electronic warfare environment of a late 1990s European scenario by day and by night, in all weathers for air defence and in poor visibility and low cloud-base for its air-to-surface role. The numerical superiority of hostile air forces was to be compensated for by EFA's superior quality and operational flexibility. Low observability and survivability were key design goals, as were reliability, maintainability and testability.

  2.  Following a 1984-85 feasibility study, the other four nations found it impossible to reconcile all their requirements with those of France, which wanted a lighter aircraft that would not provide the overall operational capability required by the others. France accordingly withdrew from the programme in August 1985. The key parameters agreed by the other nations—an unstable, delta-winged aircraft, with canards, to have a "basic mass empty" of 9.75 metric tonnes, a wing area of 50 square metres and two engines each producing a static sea level thrust of 90 kilonewtons—were incorporated in the European Staff Requirement, ESR, and signed by the four Chiefs of Air Staffs in December 1985.

  3.  The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the re-unification of Germany led to a reorientation of the programme. The ESR needed to be updated to reflect the radically changed political and military situation in Europe after 1989 and to address the requirement for the year 2000 and beyond taking account of EFA development work. Amendments were embodied in the European Staff Requirement for Development. ESR-D, of a European Fighter 2000—Eurofighter—signed on 21 January 1994. The ESR-D acknowledges that specific threats are no longer predictable in detail, but stipulates that a future European fighter aircraft must be capable of operating effectively in a variety of roles and theatres.

TRADE-OFFS

  4.  ****

NUMBERS

  5.  The original requirement of the four partner nations was for a total of 765 aircraft—250 for Germany, 165 for Italy, 100 for Spain and 250 for the UK. The current requirement is for 620 aircraft—180 for Germany, 121 for Italy, 87 for Spain and 232 for the UK. Germany, Italy and Spain reduced their numbers during the reorientation. The UK reduced its own requirement following studies that concluded that the UK required 232 aircraft to meet its operational commitments. The UK is now committed contractually to the Tranche 1 production of 55 aircraft. Future production contracts would commit the UK to 89 and 88 aircraft for Tranches 2 and 3 respectively.

STRATEGIC DEFENCE REVIEW

  6.  The SDR confirmed our commitment to acquiring 232 Eurofighter aircraft. The acquisition of Eurofighter will provide a step change in the RAF`s ability to achieve air superiority and provide air defence. Its multi-role capability will also allow it to fulfil the ground attack roles now performed by Jaguar.

MILITARY CAPABILITY

  7.  Eurofighter will bring a significant increase in our air superiority cabability as it replaces the Tornado F3. It will also provide a true, adverse weather, multi-role capability. This will allow it to be employed in the full spectrum of air operations from air policing to peace support through to high intensity conflict.

EQUIPMENT TO BE REPLACED AND IN -SERVICE DATE

  8.  The Eurofighter will replace the Tornado F8 and Jaguar, the out of service dates for which are 2010 and 2008 respectively. The currently forecast in-service date for Eurofighter, defined as the date of the delivery of the first aircraft to the RAF, is June 2002. This represents a delay of 42 months against the original ISD of December 1998. The slippage is attributable to procurement delays caused by reorientation delays in signature of the Memoranda of Understanding for the Production and Support phases, some 22 months slippage, and technical difficulties resulting from the application of complex technologies required to enable the equipment to meet the original Staff Requirement, some 20 months slippage. The definition of the ISD for Eurofighter relates to procurement factors and was agreed internationally some years??

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PROCUREMENT APPROACH

  9.  Early work in each participating country by defence contractors working to their national governments was co-ordinated under Memoranda of Understanding between the partner nations. Full collaborative development was launched in 1988. Collaborative Production Investment and Production, including Initial Support was launched by the partner nations at the end of 1997, following signature of further MoUs and contracts were signed in January 1998. Contracts for production of the first tranche of 148 aircraft, including 55 for the RAF, were signed in September 1998.

  10.  Eurofighter development and production are undertaken by two consortia, Eurofighter GmbH, and Eurojet GmbH. Eurofighter comprises BAe from the UK. DASA from Germany. Alenia from Italy and CASA from Spain, and is responsible for developing and producing the airframe, avionics and the other aircraft systems, and for the integration of the EJ200 engine. The latter is being developed and produced by Eurojet GmbH, comprising Rolls-Royce from the UK, MTU from Germany, Fiat from Italy and ITP from Spain.

  11.  The purchasing arrangements are described in further detail in the table at Annex

COLLABORATION

  12.  Government oversight of the programme is exercised through the Board of Directors of the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Development. Production and Logistics Management Agency (NETMA) which carries out day to day management of the international contracts. The Agency has some 300 staff and an annual budget of about 75 million DM. Funding for the Agency is shared in accordance with the respective participation of each nation in the Eurofighter and Tornado programmes. The UK contribution is about 35 per cent. The UK national project office, which co-ordinates UK input to the programme and provides national oversight, comprises some 111 staff including 53 logistics personnel. Its annual budget is about £5 million.

  13.  Development work and costs are shared on the basis of nations planned production off-takes, as declared in 1987, giving the UK and Germany 33 per cent shares each, Italy 21 per cent and Spain 13 per cent. Production Investment and Production work and cost share are based on aircraft off-take declared at the start of these phases in 1997, giving the UK some 37.5 per cent share, Germany 29 per cent, Italy 19.5 per cent and Spain 14 per cent.

  14.  Seven MoUs commit the four collaborative partners to the various phases of the programme and its management.

EXPORT POTENTIAL

  15. Eurofighter GmbH has identified several potential early customers for Eurofighter in Europe, Greece and Norway; the Middle East, the Pacific Rim, and South America. The total airframe requirement is in the high hundreds. Longer term customers are also now being identified. Competition can be expected from Rafale, the Su 30 and 37, later models of the F-16 and F-15, the F-22 and JSF.

INDUSTRIAL FACTORS

  16.  The Eurofighter project is fundamental to maintaining an industrial capability within the UK for the design and build of advanced military aircraft. As the only suitably qualified UK firms to undertake the development and manufacture of advanced fast jet aircraft and engines, British Aerospace and Rolls Royce were the natural choice as the major UK partners. Similar factors influenced the selection of contractors by our collaborative partners.

SMART PROCUREMENT

  17.  The Eurofighter programme embraces several Smart Procurement features. The UK has an integrated project team with collocated operational requirements, procurement and logistics staff. The design standard of delivered aircraft will follow an incremental acquisition path, with the first aircraft being delivered to an initial standard—to allow early training with the full standard delivered later to meet the declaration of operational capability. The prices negotiated with industry have taken account of efficiency improvements by industry: arrangements have been agreed to share further efficiency benefits beyond those already included in the price. Elements of the production contracts include firm, non-revisable prices for the first five years and for subsequent years, Variation of Price formulae based on Producer Output Indicies. There is provision for a liquidated damages and the right of termination. Much effort is being put into developing a partnership with industry to support the aircraft in service.

ACQUISITION PHASES

  18.  There are four distinct phases within the Eurofighter programme: pre-development, development, production and support.

  19.  Pre-development comprised a number of activities. Following early concept studies and various efforts to establish a collaborative programme, two key demonstration activities were completed by the UK before development: the Experimental Aircraft Programme, an airframe programme primarily aimed at proving thefeasibility of unstable flight control concepts, and the XG40 engine demonstrator programme at Rolls-Royce. The results of these demonstrators and associated studies, and similar work by the other nations, were harmonised in a definition, refinement and risk reduction phase that ran from the end of 1985, when the four nations signed the MoU covering this phase, to 1988.

  20.  The main development contracts were signed in November 1988 and amended in November 1995.

  21.  The Eurofighter production contract strategy is based on an "umbrella contract" that secures maximum prices for all production investment and the total order of 620 aircraft. Commitments against this contract are made as a series of supplements against fixed prices within the overall maximum price. The umbrella contract and the first supplement covering production investment were signed in January 1998. The second supplement, covering the production of the first tranche of 148 aircraft, was signed in September 1998.

  22.  Integrated logistic support procedures were embedded in the programme from the outset, to ensure that adequate attention was given to support issues throughout the development phase. Concurrently with the umbrella contract, the first two support procurement contracts were let, following agreement that industry would ensure that support is available when the first aircraft is delivered. Further support contracts will enable the delivery of the complete support capability.

  23.  A reliability maintenance panel meets every three months to monitor progress against the reliability plan. In-service demonstration is also part of the programme.

  24.  The current assessment of risks associated with the timely completion of the programme highlights the integration of the avionics within the overall weapon system and the achievement of incremental increases to avionic functionality. Risk management processes in industry and the MoD, and contractual incentives for industry, aim to ensure that these risks do not impact adversely on delivery.

MILESTONES AND COSTS

  25.  The four nations signed the Full Development MoU and consequent contracts in November 1988. MoUs for Production Investment/Production and Support were signed in December 1997. These followed by signature of the Production Investment/Production and Support overarching contracts in January 1998 and the first tranche of Production contracts in September 1998. The first aircraft is scheduled to be delivered to the UK in mid-2002. Dates for the two further production tranches have still to be determined.

  26.  Details of expenditure to 31 March 1998 and further expenditure in prospect are provided in the table at Annex.

  27.  In the event of late delivery, the production contracts with Eurofighter GmbH and Eurojet GmbH both include provision for liquidated damages up to a maximum of 3 per cent of individual weapon system value. All interim payments made prior to delivery are subject to the achievement of technical milestones. If a milestone is not achieved, payment is withheld.

IN -SERVICE SUPPORT

  28.  Support for Eurofighter is being managed collaboratively to reduce life cycle costs. MoUs and International Framing Agreements aim to ensure that all elements of the project are taken forward on an agreed international basis. Costs are shared in proportion to the aircraft off-take of each nation. This is the first major international project to apply integrated logistic support, ILS, procedures, thus enabling all aspects of logistic support to be optimised. Emphasis is being placed on partnership with industry to define the most cost-effective solution.

  29.  The Eurofighter ILS team is maintaining close liaison with all three RAF Commands throughout the planning process to ensure that the end users contribute to the development of support policy and have a clear understanding of the developing support concepts. The ILS team is also ensuring that, where it is cost effective, maximum use is made of existing support capability, and also that, where possible, any new generic support equipment being procured is compatible with Eurofighter.

  30.  The most obvious potential bottleneck is the support infrastructure at the Main Operating Bases, MOBs. As each MOB converts, there will be a short period where both Tornado F3 and Eurofighter will be required to operate together and, as each maintenance facility is converted, the Tornado F3 would potentially be left unsupported. This risk will be overcome by ensuring that the MOBs provide mutual support during the conversion phase. Another potential problem that has been identified is the maintenance of minimum manning levels at the front line whilst training the first tranche of Eurofighter tradesmen, and building up the Operational Conversion Unit and the first squadrons. Such potential difficulties are being addressed by a series of working groups. All are currently considered to be manageable.

FRONT LINE, STORAGE AND RESERVES

  31.  The active RAF fleet of Eurofighter will be 137 aircraft, covering the seven front-line squadrons, the Operational Conversion Unit, OCU, and the Operational Evaluation Unit. Each squadron will have one in-use reserve and the OCU will have two in-use reserves, giving a total of nine. The remaining aircraft allow for assumptions of attrition and overall use of the aircraft over the 25-year life of the aircraft, with the last aircraft being scheduled for delivery in 2014. The fleet once in steady state will be managed around engineering requirements, such as scheduled servicing and modification programmes.

INTEROPERABILITY

  32.  Interoperability is fundamental to Eurofighter design. The Eurofighter programme has adhered to Standard NATO Agreements and protocols to ensure Eurofighter's compatibility with current and future systems, both operational and logistic.

DISPOSAL OF EQUIPMENT TO BE REPLACED

  33.  The aircraft being replaced will be at the end of their productive lives and will probably be scrapped.

IN -SERVICE LIFE

  34.  Eurofighter is planned to be in service for 25 years.

DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL

  35.  Unlike previous programmes, where major enhancements were incorporated via a major in-service upgrade, we shall, following Smart Procurement principles, establish a programme for through-life evolution of the RAF Eurofighter fleet. The aim is to acquire and incorporate emerging technology, on an incremental basis, to maintain the capability of the weapon system. Partnership between the MoD and industry will provide the necessary expertise and focus to enable us to identify, prioritise and pursue modifications to Eurofighter that balance operational effectiveness, life cycle costs and obsolescence issues.

  36.  Adapting Eurofighter for operations from aircraft carriers, or "marinising", is one of the possible solutions being considered to meet the requirement for the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft. Various Eurofighter derivatives are also among the options being considered to meet the requirement for Future Offensive Aircraft Systems.


 
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Prepared 10 November 1999