The Austrians paid less than €61 m per aircraft, flyaway. (This was the figure given in a leaked Austrian document when Typhoon won). The price was subsequently reduced when the scope of the deal was changed to include surplus Luftwaffe aircraft.

The $140 m you quote is a crude unit programme cost, based on dividing the overall estimated contract value by the number of aircraft on order.

The Saudi contract included major investment in infrastructure (production facilities, for example) and training, and not just the supply of 72 Typhoons.

I do believe that the Saudis have paid more for their aircraft than any other customer, and that the UK changed the basis on which Typhoon prices were quoted in order to give the Saudis the impression that they were paying around the same as the RAF.

Bear in mind that prior to 2005, the Unit Production Cost of Typhoon was a true unit production cost – the marginal cost of producing each additional aircraft – not including programme costs, NETMA running costs, QinetiQ fees, R&D and programme costs. It was broadly equivalent to a US flyaway or unit production cost.

Calculated according to those parameters, the cost of a Tranche 1 Typhoon was about £45 m (£45.45 m if memory serves). The NAO MPR said: “The contract for the first Tranche of 148 aircraft, of which 55 valued at some £2.5bn are for the UK, was signed in September 1998.”).

The R1 and R2 upgrades that bring T1 jets to Block 5 standard (NAO: “retrofit of Tranche 1 aircraft to Tranche 2 standard (+£117m))” add £2.12 m per aircraft.

The cost of a Tranche 2 Typhoon was just over £42 m, according to the NAO. In fact, this is a bit high, as the Tranche 2 production contract totalled €13 Bn ($16 Bn US) for the 236 aircraft in the tranche. That’s €55 m/$67.8 m each. On 17 December 2004, when that contract was signed, the rate was 0.68545, so €55.08 = £37.76 m. By including some UK-specific costs (and some costs that render the result costlier than a true flyaway) the resulting figure recognised by HMG and the NAO was £42 m.

ALL OF THESE PRICES ARE IN LINE WITH THE FIGURES RELEASED BY THE OTHER PARTNER NATIONS, AND THE PRICE PAID BY AUSTRIA.

It’s safe to assume that the unit flyaway that Greece will be expected to pay for a Typhoon will be somewhere around this level (£37-45 m, €60-68 m), perhaps plus a six or seven per cent export levy.

This makes the Typhoon marginally more expensive than Rafale, and quite probably marginally cheaper than an F-35.

I can understand the confusion, since in the UK NAO Major Projects Report 2005 (MPR05) a figure of £64 m was quoted as a Unit Production Cost. It has subsequently become clear that this WAS NOT A UPC. It was based on the production costs for only the 144 Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 aircraft that are currently on contract – but included R&D and other costs that should properly be divided across all three production tranches, making it meaningless as a proper average cost. (If you include some costs for 232 aircraft, some for 144 aircraft, dividing the total by 144 does not give a real unit cost, obviously). Moreover, it included QinetiQ and NETMA costs, which make it invalid as a UPC or flyaway. It does not represent the price that an export customer would pay as a UPC or flyaway.

We went to exped warfare in the 98 SDR?

We’ve been doing expeditionary warfare far longer than that, and we’ve been doing it without needing carriers. Granby, the Balkans, Sierra Leone (where they used a carrier, but where land based FJs would have got there quicker/cheaper), Telic, and on the ongoing ops.

Again, if HNS is unavailable, an operation would be politically unsustainable anyway, or we could rely on our allies. Better by far to be properly equipped for the 95% of ops we will be going on, rather than sacrificing real, vital capabilities so that we can afford the niche capabilities we may never need.

Then again the RAF are well used to staying home while the other services do the real fighting arent they!

That shows your agenda all too clearly, but does at least ensure that no-one will consider you bright, whatever the circle…..

And the incursion of a Blackjack to within smelling distance of the fish docks at Grimsby should perhaps alert you to the fact that the requirement for UK AD did not disappear with the end of the Cold War.

Again, saving £6-7 Bn on CVF and another £12-15 Bn on JSF would allow us to spend properly on the real defence priorities, rather than toys for the Admirals.

It isn’t, actually.

The root cause is a complete lack of money in the defence budget, and against this Lockheed’s continuing inability to guarantee a price and capability standard does not help JSF.

First, I think we should be binning JSF and the carriers. It would save the biggest part of £20 Bn, which would free up the funds we so badly need to buy enough support helicopters, tankers, and to provide the right kit for recce and SEAD.

At the end of the day, carrier aviation is an expensive ‘nice-to-have’ niche capability at a time when financial realities dictate that we should be spending money only on “need to have” capabilities and programmes.

We have needed carriers only once since 1956 (though we have used them a few times) – and the Falklands were a pretty unique set of circumstances. If Argentina threatened again, we would not need carriers.

If we are to persevere with CVF, I remain convinced that JSF is the best option for equipping it. Only a STOVL type will allow the basing flexibility that we need, and only STOVL will avoid the kind of training burden that makes most carrier aviation units unavailable for routine shore based operations.

If JSF were unavailable, and if you still had to proceed with CVF, then I’d favour Rafale or Super Hornet, if you were going to ignore cost. But when the RAF already has Typhoon (and all of the logistics infrastructure to support Typhoon) and when the UK is committed to buying 232 Typhoons, it makes sense to me for some or all of Tranche 3 to be delivered in a carrier compatible configuration.

Rafale or Super Hornet would not ‘count’ against the 232 aircraft commitment, and would require a massive training and support infrastructure. We should be looking to reduce the number of FJ types in service, not buying another one. So no to Rafale or Super Hornet for the UK.

Unless, of course, the US made a reciprocal agreement to purchase an equivalent number of Typhoons (perhaps for deployable US ANG squadrons, or for the Aggressor/Adversary community) or unless France took an equivalent number of Typhoons (which would give the Armée de l’Air a better air defence aircraft).

But again, in current circumstances, unless the UK discovers an appetite for much higher taxation and government spending, the best solution is to cut BOTH CVF and JSF, and spend the money saved on the military capabilities that we actually need, rather than those that give aircraft enthusiasts raised on ‘Top Gun’ a ‘hard on’.

AASM is certainly a huge advantage for Rafale, and will remain so until Typhoon has a stand off PGM (the new Brimstone, perhaps).

In anything but an Afghan/Iraqi scenario (where Litening and EPW is fortuitously quite a useful A-G fit) Rafale enjoys real advantages over Typhoon in the A-G role, as you’d expect.

But for a customer (like Greece) wanting a better A-A aircraft, I’d say that Typhoon has a useful edge.

I’d rather have ASRAAM, PIRATE and a helmet than IR Mica, and I’d certainly rather have Captor than RBE-2.

Pricing remains interesting. Dassault haven’t actually sold a Rafale outside France, yet, but we do know that unit programme cost of Rafale is now just ahead of Typhoon’s. Dassault claim a significantly lower unit production cost, however. Whether Dassault will be able to undercut Typhoon in Greece remains uncertain – though they must be so desperate now for a launch order that they’re bound to bend over backwards to try to do so.

Europe needs Dassault in the fighter game, so I hope that they can get a Rafale order from someone.

Can someone find a link to a video of one of Keith Hartley’s Typhoon displays?

I said that the F-4 “was an improvement over the Lightning” overall. I merely pointed out that an aircraft that could be beaten in combat (even in limited circumstances) by its predecessor can’t really claim to represent a step change, quantum leap.

Frequent RAF and NATO exercises did not show that a “a well flown F-4 was more than a match for the Lightning” quite the reverse.

The Phantom did mark enough of an improvement to be a useful replacement for the Lightning, with a useful expansion in capabilities. But it was not the kind of ‘quantum leap’ that the OP was looking for – and the fact that a Lightning could usually wipe the floor with an F-4 WVR was evidence that in some (very limited and arguably relatively unimportant) respects, the F-4 was a retrograde step.

And in the RAF context, its arguable that the F-4 marked a giant leap over the Hunter in the No.38 Group role – which was all about deployable out of area ops from austere bases with minimal support. In many respects the Hawk would have been a better Hunter replacement in this narrow role, pending the availability of the Jaguar. And that’s why the F-4’s career with 6, 54 and 41 was so short.

In RAF Germany, the F-4 did mark a vast improvement over the Canberra in the conventional role, but as a means of delivering US supplied nukes (the primary role), it was a very worthwhile improvement, but it did not represent the kind of step change we’re looking for. In the recce role, the Phantom pod’s IRLS was obviously a major improvement, but the loss of the Canberra’s night photoflash capability and bigger cameras represented a real loss of capability. Again, the F-4 brought useful improved capabilities, but though superior overall, represented something of a compromise.

Thus my conclusion that the F-4 was an improvement but not a giant leap.

The Tornado F3 marked a significant improvement over the F-4, but was probably not a giant leap in its original in service form.

Because its subsequent career was so inglorious, it would be easy to overlook what an improvement the Blenheim marked over the Demons, Harts, Hinds and Audaxes that it replaced. Without the outbreak of war in ’39 I suspect that we’d be remembering the Blenheim as marking a ‘step change’.

And we should not forget the Fairey Fox – the first bomber that really could outpace fighters of the day, rendering it briefly immune to interception.

Adequate for the representative sorties flown in the States, though you’d be more likely to have a spiker with two tanks and four bombs, and ‘bombers’ with six bombs and a centreline tank.

Typhoon is a BAI/CAS platform with six bombs and Litening, not a long range interdictor. With two tanks, four bombs, Litening, four Meteor and two ASRAAM the jet has a respectable combat radius.