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RAF Eurofighters make devastating attack – on Parliament

Should have called it Operation Guy Fawkes, not Ellamy

But the MPs are right. The story of bomber capability on the Eurofighter has been a cockup from start to finish

Analysis

But in fact it is the RAF which will remain in the wrong on the matter of Eurofighter and its ground attack capability. It remains the case that the airmen have spent nine-figure sums upgrading early Tranche 1 planes to do ground attack, and that these aircraft will shortly be permanently mothballed – that is, thrown away – without in most cases ever once being flown by a pilot who could use those expensive weapon systems.

It remains a fact that the Eurofighter will only be fully capable as a bomber – to the point where it is actually better than the aged 1980s-vintage Tornado alongside which it is flying above Libya – in 2018, once yet more billions have been spent on it. (It would seem that in fact the RAF does doubt its potency, no matter what AVM Osborn may say). And it remains an even more painful fact that just three years later on current plans the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will arrive with its stealth and modern electronic-warfare capability, rendering the Eurofighter totally obsolete as a bomber and quite probably as a fighter too.

So the desperate effort we have seen this week to get some weapons off some Eurofighters should not obscure the fact that the RAF's conversion of the plane into a bomber has been and will continue to be an unmitigated, idiotic procurement disaster. It should also not obscure the fact that even without the bomber upgrades the Eurofighter was a horrific train-crash of a project: without bomber upgrades it would still have cost us £20.2bn to obtain our planned fleet of just 107 jets, putting each one at £189m (with bomber conversion this will climb to £215m).

And people should not allow the RAF's cynical, pointless bombings to make them forget that more and worse is to come on Eurofighter in the matter of the plane's running and support costs. These are officially acknowledged to be no less than £13bn until 2030 – nearly enough to replace Trident! – and it is quite plain that this figure has been unrealistically lowballed. In other words we will either pay more, or – perhaps more likely – get fewer flying hours and thus in effect even fewer jets.

One might note that the Australian government has recently purchased 24 of the latest F-18 Super Hornet jets from the States for about £3.9bn (spread over a decade) in a deal which includes training and support costs. These planes are at least as good as Eurofighters for any realistic task – better, for most jobs.

If we scrapped our Eurofighter fleet now, we could do a sensible deal like the Aussies – we'd probably get a better price as the F-18 line is nearing the end of its run and we would be buying in bulk. Our £13bn would buy and support a fleet of at least 90 Hornets. If we also scrapped the Tornado we could get many more. There is a huge worldwide fleet of F-18s, so running costs would be cheap as chips and we wouldn't have planes and pilots grounded for lack of spares as we do with the crappy Eurofighter.

Hornets would not only be better than Eurofighters and Tornados: they would also be able to fly from our new carriers as soon as they are built. On current plans the ships will stand empty for years, and then finally put to sea with small, feeble air groups.

Needless to say, the plan of simply buying F-18s would have BAE Systems and its bloated Continental arms-industry chums up in arms – as things stand it is they who will get our billions in sweetheart support deals without any penalties for poor performance.

But nonetheless the RAF itself realistically would much rather have a powerful fleet of F-18s for which it could actually obtain spares and which it could put into the air at a reasonable cost – as opposed to their current embarrassingly rubbish situation.

That is why it's so depressing to see the air marshals turning their (frankly rather transparent) behind-the-scenes machinations not against BAE Systems, but against their political oversight.

Yet another foolish own goal by the Ministry of Defence. ®

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