I don’t understand the whole price increase thing. If you sign a contract, a *binding* contract, for x number of aircraft at a price of y value each, how can airbus increase the price from y to z?

Stevo 3.52GMT in the morning:) makes it what in Australia?, what would they stand to gain by keeping success quiet? vs what they would gain/protect by keeping failure quiet.

If you design and build something that works then you tell people you try and sell your product, if you design and build something that is having trouble you don’t broadcast that fact that you have failed. Why would you not broadcast failure well it’s simple, you would not want to show prospective customers that your project has failed and will take longer than planned. It seems logical to me that if it worked they would be telling people in an effort to gain support for a sale to the UK MoD, people should know that the MoD will need something to replace and complement reapers obtained via UOR.

I posted that at 2:52pm AEST. GMT+10 +DST

source:http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=11101

Davies: both carriers will take JSF

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Both the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales aircraft carriers will be able to carry the joint strike fighter (JSF) according to defence equipment and support minister Quentin Davies. Speaking in the House of Commons he also rubbished the Gray Report’s claim that there was a £2bn annual overspend in the MoD’s equipment programme.

In October, it was reported that government would downgrade either the Queen Elizabeth or the Prince of Wales carrier, taking away their ability to carry the JSF. Reports stated the MoD was looking to save money on the 65,000 tonne carriers, which are already £1bn over budget.

Davies said reports the carrier plans were to be scaled down were “complete rubbish”.

“There is no suggestion at all, and there has never been in our minds at all, to re-specify the two aircraft carriers,” he said.

“There has been no change in that programme, and neither has there been any change in our JSF programme. We are already committed to purchasing the first three aircraft.”

He also said there was “no evidential basis” to the statement in the Gray report that between £1bn and £2.2bn was being lost each year as a result of failure to control equipment spending.

“The very fact that the range is between £1bn and two point something billion shows how imprecise that statement inevitably would be,” said Davies.

See, nothing to worry about!:D

Maybe they just figure that the longer they hold off the weaker the US dollar will be?

Stevo, The Australian Army may have had problems with them but they work and are cheap to acquire although operating costs are a tad higher but coming down with newer M models. They are also common with our biggest ally who we operate with the most so in areas it makes sense. What are the specific problems the Aussies had with them??

An adverse reaction to hot and high conditions as I understand it. The replacement (MRH-90) has much more powerful engines and a larger troop capacity.

Unfortunately over here we don’t get to hear about ADF ops as often as I would certainly like to. No offence intended at all.

Sorry, i think I worded that badly. If it was me who was posting in your place, rather then making a comment like that, I would have actually looked up on google or even wikipedia to get some idea instead.

They are still very tight lipped about this, with the only confirmation being from people involved with the Typhoon project saying that if they could say anything at all about it “that they would be shouting it from the rooftops..”.

You can make of that what you will.:cool:

Perhaps now that the F-22 is not subject to the same pressures that caused the D notice on the exercise(or what ever a Defence Notice is called now), that some people in the know can fill in the details. Has any one retired from the fray and want to comment??. LOL…

Cheers

Hate to say this, but even if they have retired, top secret is still top secret, OPSEC is still OPSEC, they can still go to gaol for revealing information. So don’t even bother asking, because they wont give you an answer.