So far there are 87 export orders , recently Eurofighter has exited the Norwegian and Danish competitions, but is now likely to be included in the “new” Australian evaluation, there are several other possibles including Japan and India.
The Norwegian and Danish competitions are interesting because of the impact to those competitions citing ‘bias’ towards the JSF bid as it requires no offsets, now its unlikely to change the competitions, but could prove very interesting if Dave (JSF) is delayed or the price increase significantly.
Those two countries were IMHO doing a really good job of screwing all the competing companies down to a really good deal, seems Eurofighter doesn’t want to play that game if the conclusion is forgone, this tactic by Eurofighter may prove to be the correct one in the long term.
The ‘New’ Australian evaluation will be really interesting, the new government will seek access to the F-22, it seems unlikely the US will allow Australia to buy the F-22 without expensive anti tamper mods, something that would be prohibitively expensive to implement, and would carry a higher risk to a program that is already stressed, Russian and European aircraft are included at present, but it remains to be seen if Eurofighter will bid as the previous governments actions left Eurofighter fuming and of the opinion they would only talk to Australia if they came to them with an offer to Buy Eurofighters, it remains to be seen if the change of Government has changed Eurofighters stance.
The Australian defence minister to his credit has said they would first work out exactly what the mission requirements are and then the aircraft which best fits the bill, including a review of the Super hornet purchase that took everyone by surprise
The Last two mentioned ‘Japan and India’ are really unique, they do not represent the usual export markets for top end fighters by European manufacturers and as such are very difficult to say if the Typhoon stands any chance or if its being used as a stalking horse as in Denmark and Norway, industrial offsets seem to be a large part of the equation and Eurofighter just may be in a good position to push their product.
With Dave’s ambitious progress expectations and its price creep, there may be significant opportunity to exploit these weaknesses, and with UAV’s now being taken very seriously the JSF may be a little too late.
I’d be interested in others opinions and rumours, and looking forward to any Typhoon deployment to far flung places as part of an export drive.
Cheers
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