Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-297)
GENERAL SIR
KEVIN O'DONOGHUE
KCB CBE, DR ANDREW
TYLER AND
REAR ADMIRAL
PAUL LAMBERT
CB
25 NOVEMBER 2008
Q280 Robert Key: Given the continuing
uncertainty on the programme, are you still running an option
of a marinised Typhoon?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I do not think there is any uncertainty on the programme. We are
going through a series of milestones. The SDD phase was eight
years? Twelve years. We are coming towards the end of that. The
OT&E programme was planned for two years but I think that
has been extended to three. So the programme is there. We will
or will not buy these three aircraft and that is a decision that
the Ministry will have to take in the New Year. We will then see
how that OT&E programme runs, as the Admiral says. That will
tell us a number of things: does the aircraft do "what it
says it does on the tin"? Do we have the operational sovereignty?
Do we have the technology transfer that we want? There is a programme
to procure aircraft which goes out in the future. One of the great
advantages of this procurement programme is that we do not have
to buy them all up front to create an attrition reserve because
we are a very small part of what the Americans are buying; we
can buy them as we need them. So, I think, to say there is not
a programme is not right. Decisions have not been made on the
totality of the programme, would be fairer.
Q281 Robert Key: Is a marinised Typhoon
still an option?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
That is not being looked at, no.
Q282 Robert Key: What discussions
have you been having with the French about the possibility of
purchasing a French aircraft that could fly on the French aircraft
carriers and the British aircraft carriers?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I have not been having any.
Q283 Mr Jenkin: Would we still consider
buying the non-STOVL version if the STOVL version was not available?
Rear Admiral Lambert: At the beginning
of the process we looked at the capability requirement needed
for both carrier strike and for our future combat air capability,
and the option that met the bill was STOVL. We revisit it every
so often to make sure that we have got all our figures right,
and the requirement right, and the answer still comes up as STOVL.
Q284 Mr Jenkin: So would we develop
STOVL on our own account if the Americans did not want to develop
it?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
The carriers are not fitted for, but could be fitted for, the
carrier variant.
Q285 Chairman: Was that a yes?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No, it could be—if STOVL went, which I think is your question?
Q286 Mr Jenkin: Yes, that is what
I am asking.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Then carrier variant must be an option.
Q287 Mr Jenkin: You mean the non-STOVL
version?
Dr Tyler: There are three variants,
you understand? There is the conventional take-off variant; there
is the carrier variant, which is for catapults and traps, and
then there is the STOVL variant. Our choice is resolutely on the
STOVL variant, and at the moment there is very, very strong support
for that in the programme. Indeed, the STOVL part of the programme
is going extremely well; it has already made several flights and
it will be hovering for the first time very early next year. So,
technically, that is absolutely on track. So our extant
planning assumption is absolutely to buy the STOVL variants to
go on the carrier. If there was some seismic change in the programme,
like, for example, the Americans decided not to support the STOVL,
then we may need to go back and revisit our planning assumptions,
but there is no sign of that—in fact, to the contrary.
Q288 Mr Jenkin: Would we consider
developing our own STOVL variant?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Oh, I think that would be no.
Dr Tyler: I think that would probably
be prohibitively expensive—breathtakingly expensive to do
that on our own.
Q289 Mr Jenkin: So a carrier version
as opposed to a marinised Typhoon?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Yes. Both would be options but actually carrier variant, I would
suspect, would be—
Rear Admiral Lambert: We will
look at all the various options that are available, and that is
something we would do routinely.
Q290 Chairman: And the aircraft carriers
that we are building would be big enough, would they, to take
the carrier version?
Dr Tyler: Yes, absolutely. One
of the assumptions on the carrier design was that the carrier's
flight deck needed to be of a sufficient length that, should you
wish to, you could convert. In fact, the space underneath the
flight deck has actually been left in order so that should you
wish to in the future fit the catapults and the traps, which sit
immediately under the flight deck, you would be able to do that.
In fact, there are designs which actually show how that would
be fitted in the event that you wanted to change the carrier over
to a conventional take-off on the carrier. You might want to do
that for any number of reasons; it was not just uncertainty around
the JSF programme per se, it was in order to keep that option
open.
Q291 Mr Jenkins: That is the option
the French have taken with their carriers. Can I ask for some
clarification? We have made a financial commitment to the Americans
as part of the production costs of this `plane, have we not?
Dr Tyler: Yes.
Q292 Mr Jenkins: When you said we
are going to buy three—I know that was not a serious answer—I
thought that is one for each aircraft carrier and one onshore.
I think that is rather an expensive launching pad for one `plane.
Did we not have a commitment that we have an option to take 50
off the production line at any point in time we wanted?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No. The figure in the original documents, I think, was a requirement
for 150.
Q293 Chairman: Up to 150, which I
always thought was a rather meaningless phrase.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
As I say, at the moment we have no commitment to any. We will
need to make a commitment next year, or not (depending on what
the decision is), to buy the three aircraft for the Operational
Test and Evaluation. Subsequently, we will need to make commitments
progressively to buy more aircraft from various blocks of production
that the Americans will produce.
Dr Tyler: At the moment, of the
eight participant countries in the JSF programme I do not think
a single one has yet gone through its governmental approval, including
the United States of America, who are unable to do it until after
the OT&E phase. By their law they are unable to do so. So,
at the moment, there is a planning assumption, which the whole
programme is operating to, in which every nation has said: "This
is the profile that we believe we would require our jets in",
but it is only a planning assumption on the part of any nation
until it has been through its approvals process. Like us, several
of the nations, including the United States, will not make that
commitment until after the OT&E is completed.
Mr Jenkins: I thought there was, more
or less, an option where we could opt to pick up to 50 out of
the first run any time we wanted to. How many `planes are required
to put on board both our carriers?
Q294 Chairman: I think it is 36 per
carrier.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
On a carrier, yes.
Q295 Mr Borrow: Just to go back to
technology transfer. When Lord Drayson came back from Washington
and said he had got the agreement, many people were suspicious
that there may be more difficulties than was anticipated. I was
pleased by your comments that things were going smoothly. I would
just, perhaps, like some confirmation that the technology transfers
that were assumed to be agreed in December 2006 are the same technology
transfers which we are seeing taking place and expect to take
place in the future. There has been no change in the sort of technology
transfers we are accepting now, compared with those that Lord
Drayson was expecting when he came back.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No. There was an agreement at government-to-government level,
and that programme is running.
Rear Admiral Lambert: All the
information does not come all at once; it takes a long period
of time and we are on the timelines for it.
Q296 Mr Borrow: As a Committee we
went through the processes and detail, and I accept there will
be a process as different bits of the programme—
Dr Tyler: It would be fair to
say we have at least as much confidence that we are on track as
we did at the time when Lord Drayson came back with that agreement.
Q297 Chairman: We will finish there.
There are several things on which we will write to you to ask
questions about that are more appropriate for written answers
than for oral questions. I feel as though I am halfway through
a meal here, because of the brief examination of equipment, and
we do not know where we are with that. However, we will look forward
to having the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support in front
of us in a couple of weeks' time. In the meantime, gentlemen,
thank you very much for your evidence this morning and for answering
some of our questions.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Chairman, thank you.
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