June 1, 2004

The Eurofighter debacle

By Thomas Lifson
How much would you pay for a new 'fourth generation' fighter jet subject to an 'official warning that its pilots should not fly in cloud'? How about if I told you that it is to appear four years behind schedule? And what if I added that some critics believe it is obsolete before it ever takes to the air? Probably not as much as it costs to build. That is the situation faced by Britain's Royal Air Force as it plans to accept delivery of the Eurofighter, a flying fiasco which has been in the works for the past twenty years. Originally the Eurofighter was to be produced by a coalition of the EU's military powers. But France dropped out of the Eurofighter project while the getting was good. France now produces its own advanced fighter, the Rafale, instead. But the U.K., Germany, and Spain stuck with the loser. The U.K. alone signed itself up for 232 Eurofighters, at a cost of  £20 billion. Two deacdes later, actual delivery of the birds looms. The first tranche of...(Read Full Article)