RAF Typhoon jets draw MPs' flak over £20bn price tag
Typhoon fast jets cost £126m each and have too few spare parts, finds Commons report
Typhoon: the RAF’s priority is to adapt it for a ground attack role Photograph: Rex Features
Despite years of delays and soaring costs, Typhoon fighters – the RAF's latest fast jet – are suffering from a shortage of spares, with planes being cannibalised and pilots grounded, according to a Commons investigation.
The aircraft, originally called the Eurofighter in a joint project with Germany, Italy and Spain, was conceived in the cold war when the Ministry of Defence ordered 232. The RAF will end up having fewer than half that number from a project in which the cost of each plane has increased by 75% to £126m each.
The overall project is costing £20.2bn, £3.5bn more than first expected, says the report by MPs on the Commons cross-party public accounts committee. The RAF has had to spend an extra £2.7bn buying 16 additional aircraft it does not need to honour contractual commitments to other countries producing the planes. In 2019, it will scrap more than 50 Typhoon jets that became operational only three years ago to a cost of more than £4.5bn because it cannot afford to update them.
The RAF is experiencing difficulties now as its priority is to adapt as many planes as possible for a ground attack role. "Problems with the availability of spares mean that Typhoons are not flying the hours required and the department is forced to cannibalise parts," the MPs say in the report.
"As a result, it is not fully training all its pilots, and only eight of the 48 Typhoon pilots were capable of undertaking ground attack missions on Typhoon. In addition, the [MoD] had to ground five pilots temporarily in 2010."
The problem is likely to be exacerbated as Typhoons are used in a wider range of operational roles, today's report says.
The aircraft, first conceived as a fighter to attack Soviet planes, was assigned after the cold war to an air defence role – intercepting suspicious planes entering UK airspace, for example. They will be on standby during the Olympics.
Typhoons are now being adapted further for ground attack roles. The MoD announced on Wednesday that two RAF Typhoons were involved for the first time in hostile action – striking tanks belonging to Muammar Gaddafi's forces near the Libyan town of Misrata. The RAF released a video of the attack.
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said in response to today's report: "The Typhoon is a world-beating air-to-air fighter and is fast developing a ground attack capability, as is being demonstrated in Libya. We have sufficient numbers of qualified ground attack pilots to meet our operational tasks and this number is increasing all the time."
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