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First Eurofighter delivered to Austria
By Karl Schwarz
The first Eurofighter with tactical registration code 7L-WA was flown from EADS's manufacturing facility in Manching to Zeltweg, the contractually agreed delivery location, following completion of acceptance testing on 6 July. Escorted by two F-5E Tiger II fighters and flown by test pilot Martin Angerer, the aircraft touched down on the runway of Hinterstoisser air base at 10.45am.
A few days later, on 17 July, the Eurofighter then took off with an Austrian pilot at the controls for its first training flight in Austrian airspace. The decision as to whether flying operations should now be conducted from Zeltweg or initially from Manching will be made in August. At any rate training of the Austrian pilots is still to be carried out with the German Luftwaffe in Laage.
So far four out of a total of 23 Austrian pilots earmarked for the Eurofighter have completed their training, and 70 technicians and aircraft mechanics are now also fully trained.
The second Eurofighter will probably be delivered to Austria at the end of August, followed by one further aircraft in each of October and December. All 15 (rather than the original 18) aircraft should have been handed over by 2009, as planned. They will be stationed in Zeltweg.
The reduction in unit numbers is the outcome of negotiations which Austria's Defence Minister Darabos (Social Democratic Party of Austria, SPÖ) had conducted over a number of weeks with Eurofighter GmbH. According to Darabos, the agreement announced on 26 June will save the Republic of Austria “about Euro 400 million”. Euro 360 million of this will be refunded by Eurofighter while a further Euro 30 to Euro 40 million will be saved through changes to deals with other partners (German Luftwaffe and the Eurofighter nations). The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), both a political opponent and fellow coalition partner, was quick to complain that these figures included fictitious savings in operating costs.
The cost savings come at the price of “adjusted”, that is to say, reduced contract performance. Thus, all 15 Eurofighters will now come from Tranche I/Block 5 of production. Six of them will be aircraft which have already seen service with the German Luftwaffe. They have completed between 100 and 200 operational flying hours and will undergo a general overhaul and upgrade from Block 2 standard to Block 5 prior to delivery to Austria.
A later upgrade of the Austrian Eurofighter fleet to Tranche II standard is ruled out under the new solution, which in the medium-term could lead to logistics problems for the Austrians. Another potential problem is the fact that the IRIS-T air-to-air guided missile can only be used in analogue mode by Tranche I Eurofighters, significantly reducing its capability.
Whether the agreement in principle which Darabos has single-handedly negotiated will actually turn out to be good deal, only time can tell. At any rate the ÖVP has already asked for a review by the Austrian Court of Audit. Whether the SPÖ will be able to save face with this latest change of direction in the “Causa Eurofighter” is equally questionable, given that it is a long way short of the election promise of “cancellation at any price”. Evidently continuing the coalition and hence remaining Chancellor proved to be the top priority for SPÖ leader Alfred Gusenbauer.
Darabos's surprise agreement has also compromised the Eurofighter parliamentary investigation which has been under way since November 2006 and for whose outcome he was evidently not prepared to wait. By its last session on 3 July, the committee of enquiry had accomplished a lot of work which the Defence Minister has deliberately undermined by going it alone: 108 informants were questioned in 48 sessions lasting a total of 430 hours and generating 6,152 pages of minutes.
Despite the Defence Minister's actions, the SPÖ group on the committee had at the last minute switched to the side of the ÖVP, its pro-Eurofighter coalition partner. For the Social Democrat Defence Minister had to be protected when the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) / BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria) / Green opposition tabled a parliamentary motion of no confidence. Without changing sides to ensure the support of the ÖVP, the minister would have fallen, leaving the coalition in tatters.
As a result, the originally planned SPÖ-Green-FPÖ majority report, which was expected to pronounce in favour of cancelling the contract, never saw the light of day. The joint SPÖ-ÖVP recommendations for future defence procurements subsequently published proved extremely thin – only two A4 pages long. By contrast, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Greens came out clearly on the side of cancelling the contract in their own minority report, which was a lot more substantial on content. Their position rested on the opinion of the legal experts consulted by the committee of enquiry who, on the basis of documents which had recently surfaced, believed there were “good reasons for a legitimate cancellation” of the purchase and ultimately recommended withdrawing from the Eurofighter contract.
From page 54 of FLUG REVUE 9/2007
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