All text below about this documentary copied from
BBC.
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Eurofighter:
Weapon of
Mass Construction
Sunday 6 July
2003, 10.00pm,
BBC FOUR
There have been many twists and turns in the journey of the controversial
Eurofighter Typhoon.
Conceived at the height of the
Cold War by the UK,
Germany,
Italy and
France to combat the superiority of the
Soviet Union's air force, the aircraft's in-service delivery date of 30 June is ten years late and -- at a cost of more than £50 billion -- it's become the most expensive
European defence project ever.
The work of an unprecedented number of nations, the aircraft's troubled genesis has seen out the Cold War, the fall of the
Berlin Wall,
Bosnia,
9/11 and two Gulf wars.
France dropped out in
1985 in favour of building a rival plane, the
Rafale, and each change of strategy and political environment has left a legacy of compromise, escalating costs, manufacturing blunders, loose management and delays.
The documentary exposes several crises where the project nearly came to a halt because of national self-interest and stubbornness and covers the calamitous events of
2002, the year when the first aircraft was due to be handed over to the
Air Forces for training purposes.
First the delivery date was postponed yet again and then the
Spanish prototype, the DA-6, crash-landed near
Madrid at a cost of £30 million prompting the governments of the four nations to delay the delivery date to June 2003.
This 50 minutes documentary, produced by
The Open University for BBC FOUR, talks to many key players involved in the drama of building a cutting-edge combat aircraft.
Test pilots think the Eurofighter is "a deadly machine" and military experts
point out that its ability to switch role by voice command, enabling it to fight air-to-air as well as air-to-surface battles, in all weathers, makes it the most sophisticated fighter-bomber of its age.
But some, like defence analyst
Susan Willett, think the plane is outdated and an embarrassment for the
RAF.
There are interviews with the test pilots, with
Malcolm Rifkind (
UK Defence Secretary 1992-95) and with
Andrew Brookes, defence analyst for the
Institute of Strategic Studies, who is interviewed at the
Paris Air Show earlier this month (June 2003).
He, like many others, is looking at the impact the recent Iraqi conflict has had on global military objectives.
Others say that the Eurofighter would not have been of advantage during the conflict.
In today's post-Iraq unconventional fight against rogue states and terrorism, intelligence and surveillance have become the number one priorities.
Does Britain need, or indeed can it afford, the 232 Eurofighters currently on order?
The Eurofighter Typhoon will probably not start its operational career until
2006, nearly 23 years after it was conceived.
It has fought many battles to get this far, but can multi-nation, multi-billion pound defence projects like this ever be successful?
The programme website (which will go live after transmission) can be found at: www.open2.net.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Notes to
Editors
The cost to the UK of the Eurofighter project is estimated at £18.6 billion.
Eurofighter: Weapon of Mass Construction is an
Open University production for BBC FOUR, produced and directed by Marie-Laure
Vigneron.
Executive producers are
Stephen Haggard for the Open University and
Jeremy Bristow for the BBC.
Academic advisor is
Simon Bell, of the Open University.
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URL:
http://www
.bbc.co.uk/print/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/06_june/24/ou_eurofighter
.shtml
- published: 26 Oct 2012
- views: 18888