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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 0922.PDF
EUROFIGHTER 2000 On 27 March, the four-nation Eurofighter 2000 finally "...slipped the surly bonds of Earth" and took to the air for 45min over Manching, in southern Ger many. Its release, three years later than originally planned, was only temporary. Back on the ground, those "surly bonds", in the shape of technical and political issues, still leave the Eurofighter consor tium facing a less-than-carefree future. Getting Development Aircraft 1 (DAI) airborne, with DA2 also due to be flown shortly thereafter, will provide the project with a welcome fillip. The Eurofighter management's dire warnings over the impact of a failure to meet a flight date of around mid-April were fuelled in part by an awareness that other battles will need to be fought over the next several months. The first flight has served to prove that the Eurofighter is more than a farrago of technical and political foul-ups. In part, however, it has merely cleared the way for a new round of four-nation politicking, at both national and industrial levels, to act as a stumbling block to the programme's smooth progress. Looming large is the issue of revising workshare between Italy's Alenia, British Aerospace, Spain's CASA, and Deutsche Aerospace (DASA). While senior Eu rofighter management considers this to be "tomorrow's problem", officials in Bonn are preparing for what will be, at least, a period of "animated negotiation" between the industrial partners. Against the dark background of a Ger man election, with an electorate con cerned over employment, any revision of Germany's share downward will need to be handled carefully. TOMORROWS PROBLEM Under the present memorandum of un derstanding (MoU), workshare is in tended to be based on the number of production aircraft each partner takes. At the outset, German and UK orders and thus workshare, stood at 33% each. Now, the German air force may take as few as 120 aircraft, while the Royal Air Force is still due to take a nominal figure of 250. Under the MoU, this would see UK workshare climb to 42% and Germany's fall to around 22%. There are those in BAe who advocate a robust approach to DASA's concerns. Eurofighter's previous managing director, John Vincent, considered "...the other nations unlikely to allow Germany to have work when they badly need it in their own factories". Vincent's recent re placement, Bill McNaughton, is expected to agree. DASA is already lobbying in Bonn circles for political support to shore up its workshare stake. The company is under Three years late, the Eurofighter 2000 has finally had its maiden flight, hut the programme is not yet out of the woods. Douglas Barrie examines the project's prospects. -/- M. **/^W LOOSENING THE 20 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6 - 12 April, 1994
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