UK Defence Forum

More images of the black "aggressor" Typhoon:

Very cool. I'll hopefully be seeing that over the house from now on. They've been putting on a lovely show this week. What an amazing noise

Is it really necessary to use a Typhoon airframe for this? We don't have that many.

SD67 wrote:Is it really necessary to use a Typhoon airframe for this? We don't have that many.

The private contract that was meant to avoid this never got v far

ArmChairCivvy wrote:

SD67 wrote:Is it really necessary to use a Typhoon airframe for this? We don't have that many.

The private contract that was meant to avoid this never got v far

Also an indicator of just how short we are of Hawks, at least with decent hours left.

Moving flight training to a contractor has hardly been a rousing success (at considerable cost too) and the fleets are all stretched to the limit.

By contrast we've got about 37 Tranche 1 Typhoons for only two QRA squadrons. There's some flexibility there.

Italy's state controlled Leonardo group, CEO Alessandro Profumo has been found guilty of fraud and given six year jail sentence and fine of €2.5 million, but will keep his job as CEO of Leonardo, appeal that will take years.

Found guilty of fraud in previous role as CEO of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (became CEO of Leonardo in 2017). The two previous Leonardo CEO's were convicted of bribery and negligence and a previous Chairman was investigated for corruption.

Leonardo recently awarded contract for developing the ECRS Mk2 at Crewe Toll, Edinburgh. formerly Ferranti who went bankrupt 1993. unknown if any or what percentage of work will be Italian.

From <https://www.defensenews.com/industry/20 ... vious-job/>

"Profumo" - any relation?

An Italian businessman guilty of fraud. What is the world coming to?

2HeadsBetter wrote:An Italian businessman guilty of fraud. What is the world coming to?

Devil in the detail:

has been found guilty of fraud

I still remember the India VVIP Merlin contract that went so badly it led to a ban on AgustaWestland/Leo.. selling to India at all. Not sure if its been lifted yet?

Convinced that part of the whole 'Leonardo' rebranding exercise was to get away from that negative image...


P.S: To stay on topic, another rather good image of the 'Dark Typhoon':

NickC wrote: unknown if any or what percentage of work will be Italian.

It will probably nearly all the work of Leonardo (UK), which are the Radar specialists.

Lord Jim wrote:

NickC wrote: unknown if any or what percentage of work will be Italian.

It will probably nearly all the work of Leonardo (UK), which are the Radar specialists.

Expect you are right, but unless you have inside knowledge its an educated guess, have Leonardo allocated certain work packages to Italy at one of their 'centres of excellance', we don't know.

Would prefer certainty, US Government contracts requires detail by percentage of where money spent, sure it was driven by US pork barrel politics, but it would shed light and transparency to monitor where our politicians, civil servants and military spending our money, they much prefer operating in the dark. Also enable us to see if they are following any industrial strategy, which looks non-existant at moment, just have to look at the saga of the fleet solid support ships.

According to DES:

The radar development programme, negotiated by DE&S’ Typhoon delivery team, will see hundreds of highly skilled jobs sustained across the UK. In addition to the 600 jobs at Leonardo’s Edinburgh’s site, there are a further 100 at Leonardo’s Luton site, 120 at BAE Systems’ site in Lancashire, 100 at BAE’s site in Dunfermline, Fife and 50 at subcontractor Meggitt in Stevenage.

Ron5 wrote:According to DES:

The radar development programme, negotiated by DE&S’ Typhoon delivery team, will see hundreds of highly skilled jobs sustained across the UK. In addition to the 600 jobs at Leonardo’s Edinburgh’s site, there are a further 100 at Leonardo’s Luton site, 120 at BAE Systems’ site in Lancashire, 100 at BAE’s site in Dunfermline, Fife and 50 at subcontractor Meggitt in Stevenage.

Thx for info, that's approx 900 jobs supported by ~£300 million contract, on which UK spend the Government will receive back ~40% in taxes. The RAF £3 billion contract (ten times the size of the ECRS Mk2) placed with Boeing for the P8's will create near zero UK jobs and zero tax as will the £1.5 billion for the Boeing Wedgetail if not cancelled.

Understand at times you have to source foreign kit as no UK equivalent, but industry should be a much higher priority both in build and offset arrangements in any negotiations, will not be easy, but funding for industry must be a much higher priority in MoD for obvious reasons, you just have to look across the pond where US Buy American Act being updated and imposing even tighter restrictions on any foreign content.

NickC wrote:Expect you are right, but unless you have inside knowledge its an educated guess, have Leonardo allocated certain work packages to Italy at one of their 'centres of excellance', we don't know.

All of Leonardo's top end radar expertise is in the Leonardo UK arm. There is a 'chinese wall' between that part and the rest of Leonardo (similar to how BAE operates with its UK and US operations).

NickC wrote:offset arrangements

could come back
... wait and see for the EU settlement. They were banned to promote x-Europe scale for arms manufacturers and provide help to achieve the scale necessary as a springboard for global competitiveness
- missiles industry has made the transformation; can anyone think of other cases?

And the UK supplies up to 15% of each F-35 made, the value of which dwarfs the cost of the F-35B's the UK has bought.

Didn't Donald just say that he will bring it back home... all of it?
- a nice way to have a sovereign capability (I mean: more like, not to have it in the long run)

Perhaps we can soon forget about what he says, no?

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Didn't Donald just say that he will bring it back home... all of it?
- a nice way to have a sovereign capability (I mean: more like, not to have it in the long run)

Perhaps we can soon forget about what he says, no?

I don't think any UK F-35 contracts have been cancelled during the 4 years Donald has been president, despite the UK reneging on its commitment to buy 138 aircraft. So methinks you are talking out ya ass!

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Didn't Donald just say that he will bring it back home... all of it?
- a nice way to have a sovereign capability (I mean: more like, not to have it in the long run)

Perhaps we can soon forget about what he says, no?

Did started pulling some engineering contracts back to Texas in May under the cover of Covid.

Reneged ? When ?
I believe that we NEED 111 just for our QEC Carriers, OCU and deep maintenance/attrition reserve. I do not buy the notion that four front line squadrons will suffice. I believe that five (x12) is the required number of Squadrons, plus an OCU Squadron. That leaves, 18 x front line aircraft for non Carrier related (RAF) tasks. 2 x squadrons of 9 plus 9 to be added to the maintenance/attrition reserve.
138 is the minimum, unless the RAF would prefer to wait for 18 X front line Tempest!

SW1 wrote:

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Didn't Donald just say that he will bring it back home... all of it?
- a nice way to have a sovereign capability (I mean: more like, not to have it in the long run)

Perhaps we can soon forget about what he says, no?

Did started pulling some engineering contracts back to Texas in May under the cover of Covid.

Which ones and for how much?

Scimitar54 wrote:Reneged ? When ?
I believe that we NEED 111 just for our QEC Carriers, OCU and deep maintenance/attrition reserve. I do not buy the notion that four front line squadrons will suffice. I believe that five (x12) is the required number of Squadrons, plus an OCU Squadron. That leaves, 18 x front line aircraft for non Carrier related (RAF) tasks. 2 x squadrons of 9 plus 9 to be added to the maintenance/attrition reserve.
138 is the minimum, unless the RAF would prefer to wait for 18 X front line Tempest!

How many have the UK actually contracted for and in how many years?

Ron5 wrote:methinks you are talking out ya ass!

If you could read (sounds familiar, no ) what I said: I said he said; not did
- now here's some reading material for you... take your time

breakingdefense.com › 2020/05 › trump-on-f-35-we-s...
May 14, 2020 — We get parts from all over the place. ... The president offered his summary of the F-35 supply chain in an interview with Fox News ... its 300,000 parts made around the world, at dispersed and redundant manufacturing plants.

Donald Trump's threat to move F-35 production to US ... - ABC
www.abc.net.au › news › trump-considering-moving-f-...
May 15, 2020 — Donald Trump suggested F-35 production should only take place in the US; Thousands of Australian jobs rely on local production of aircraft parts; The current ... "I don't think it can play out with all the contractual stuff in the ...

Trump hints at bringing overseas production of F-35 back to US
thehill.com › policy › defense › 497874-trump-hints-at...
May 14, 2020 — We get parts from all over the place. It's so crazy. We should make everything in the United States.” Pressed by Bartiromo on whether companies ...

Trump: make all F-35 parts in US; DoD spends $1B on COVID ...
www.defenseone.com › business › 2020/05 › global-bu...
May 14, 2020 — It'll take time for them stand up manufacturing facilities and certify new parts. Lockheed representatives told GAO “it would take over a year to .

For those of us who just use hyperlinks to point to articles than navigating website banners - couldn't find the one from thehill during my brief google

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/tru ... ing-in-us/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-15/ ... a/12252384
https://www.defenseone.com/business/202 ... 20/165407/

To me it sounds like Trump being Trump. Lots of the stories about creating more US jobs seem to be about fallout from Turkey rather than an immediate push to kick out the existing partners entirely.

Think ron5 we only contracted for the 48 upto now if my thinking is right ? ,but I just can't imagine they only going to stop at that number no matter the outcome of the review , think they might really span it out future numbers tho over a lot longer time tho with the financial burden of covid ,I'm talking lots years

Ron5

I agree that only 48 have been contracted for thus far. However that does not mean that it will be the total number.
to be ordered. A similar point of view might suggest that there will only be 3 x T26, because only 3 have been contracted for (even though names have been chosen for a further 5). 48 x F35B is just as unlikely to be the final number, as is 3 x T26.