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Aviation History
1976
1976 - 1521.PDF
FLIGHT Internationa/, 14 August 1976 373 Austrian Kfir delegation Austrian Defence Minister Karl von Lutgendorf is to head an all-party parliamentary delegation to fly to Israel on August 29 to discuss further details of the proposed IAI Kfir pur chase. No final agreement is expected to be reached during the visit but details of the proposals will be put before the Austrian parliament when it reconvenes in September. Israel Aircraft Industries is supply ing a Westwind to ferry the delega tion from Austria—considerable im portance is attached by observers to the all-party composition of the team, usually associated in Austria with a subject of major national importance and designed to help speed business through parliament. The Austrian requirement is re ported as between 20 and 24 aircraft and IAI is offering the Kfir-C2 at a basic price of $4-5 million plus about $500,000 for special avionics; spares are not included. Austria will be insisting on some form of industrial goods-for-aircraft deal. IAI reports that the Austrian test pilots who have flown the Kfir have been favourably impressed by performance, main tenance and logistics of the aircraft. ** MINISTER OF STATE FOR EQUIPMENT f\ should be appointed to take day- to-day responsibility for the research, development and production budgets of the [British] Ministry of Defence. This would ensure that delays would not be caused by ministerial decisions being put off because of conflicting demands on the ministers' time. There should [also] be an examina tion of decision-making processes up to the highest official levels to be done by the management review of the MoD currently being undertaken. Some speeding-up of the decision making process might be achieved thereby." So says the defence and external affairs sub-committee of the British House of Commons Expenditure Com mittee in its latest report on guided weapons. "In the course of our de liberations we have become convinced of the need for the most effective political control of the defence equip ment programme. Under two previous administrations, from 1967 to 1970 and from 1971 to 1972, there has been a Minister of State for Equipment or Defence Procurement. Both the Sec retary of State and Minister of State for Defence have responsibilities for defence policy and strategy which Tanker Transall details Range of the Transall could be in creased from 4,500km to 8,000km with a single air-to-air refuelling, according to Aerospatiale. With a second, partial, refuelling 2,300km from the destination, says the com pany, range would be up to 11,000km. First mention of air-refueUable and tanker versions of the Transall was made by French Defence Minister Yvon Rourges at a press conference last month (see Flight for July 24, page 217). Aerospatiale says that the planned tanker Transall benefits from research work already carried out on the tanker Airbus project. Additional centre- wing fuel tanks would be fitted with a capacity of either 5,600kg or 4,400kg. The company is proposing that an inertial navigation system could be installed as well as a tele vision monitoring system for the re fuelling operations. Maximum take-off weight of the Transall on a hard run way is put by Aerospatiale at 51 tons, but the company says that mass can be increased to 54 tons after an air- refuelling and claims that speed will not be affected. Uprated Adours Two uprated versions of the Rolls- Royce/Turbomeca Adour engine have been given a preliminary go-ahead, the -56 and the -58. Although perform ance figures planned for the power- plant are not being released yet by the manufacturer, it is understood that both will involve quite substan- could preclude their maintaining the closest control of this important aspect of expenditure. We do not con sider that to appoint one senior or middle-ranking minister to take full charge of the equipment budget of £2,243 million in 1976-77 would make the Ministry of Defence top-heavy with ministers. Moreover, it would allow the Secretary of State and his deputy to concentrate on their wider roles in defence policy-making... . "We recommend that the examina tion by the management-review team of the decision-making processes in the Ministry of Defence should extend to the highest official levels; should include consideration of ways of re ducing the intervals between submis sions to various levels of authority; and should also include . . . reducing the number of stages of approval before major decisions can be taken. "We also recommend a detailed specialist examination of project- management procedures in the light of recent developments. We are con- concerned that project monitoring might be an increasingly heavy bur den in terms of time and cost." The sub-committee additionally investi gated the effect of inflation on guided- weapon projects in which estimated tial increases in thrust, both dry and reheated, and also slight increases in dimensions. The amount of money being spent by the company on the development is not known but must be more than £10 million—any Rolls-Royce spending over £5 million has to be cleared through the National Enterprise Board, which this was last month, and the French and British companies are believed to be sharing the cost 50:50. Although the RAF is proceeding with plans to uprate the current Adours in its Jaguars, the situation has yet to be resolved finally. It is thought unlikely that the -26 standard engine, already in production for the export Jaguars destined for Oman and Ecua dor, will be selected, even though per formance in at least one area is boosted by over 20 per cent. The RAF is thought to be looking for increases mainly in dry thrust in order to avoid suffering too great a fuel penalty. The new -56 and -58 engines will probably be available for production delivery in four to five years' time. Kongsberg F100 work Kongsberg Vapenfabrikk in Norway will provide turbine modules for the F-16's P&W F100 engine under con tract announced recently in connec tion with the four European countries' orders for the aircraft (see Flight for July 24, page 217). Norway's share of F-16 work must eventually equal not less than 60 per cent of the NKr2,900 million ($525 million) she says she is to pay for 72 aircraft. costs had risen steeply. It is not satis fied that enough attention is paid to validating increases in estimates, pin pointing what is due to inflation and comparing increases in similar pro jects, and therefore recommends that this should now be done as a matter of course. "We attach very great importance to the principle that each major pro ject should be subject to review by a body independent of the parent Con- trollerate, and we agree broadly with the Ministry that the two central com mittees serve this purpose. However, we consider that the criteria for re view by these committees during de velopment appear to be too liberal. Specifically, we consider that the limits of slippage of one year in the in-service date and of increases of 20 per cent in real costs are too high.. .. We would prefer a system whereby a brief quarterly report in a standard form would be submitted to the Operational Requirements Committee and the Defence Equipment Policy Committee for each major project, giving in summary form essential information on estimated development and unit production costs, in-service dates, changes, etc, together with a very short progress statement. British procurement minister recommended
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