Final assembly of the Eurofighter Typhoon has ceased at BAE Systems’ Warton facility in Lancashire, as existing orders come to an end and no new domestic or export contracts have yet been secured, according to a statement issued by the Unite union on Monday.
BAE Systems has redeployed hundreds of workers from Warton to other company sites or RAF bases.
The move comes amid growing pressure from unions and industry figures for the UK government to commit to a fourth tranche of Typhoon jets, including the latest “T5” upgrade, to sustain jobs and industrial capability until the next-generation Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) enters production later this decade.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham criticised the government’s procurement stance, questioning its stated commitment to supporting UK defence industry jobs. “Workers at BAE and across the whole UK defence and manufacturing industry will be looking at the ending of the Typhoon final assembly production at Warton and asking how a government promising to turn defence spending into ‘British growth, British jobs, British skills, British innovation’ could let it happen,” she said.
The union warned that the transfer of skilled workers away from Warton risks eroding the UK’s industrial base just as the GCAP programme, developed jointly with Japan and Italy, is meant to ramp up. Graham said, “Instead of future planning and ensuring skilled workers are ready to produce the next generation of fighter jets, they still seem content to sit on their hands while those skills begin to wither and die.”
Unite is calling on the Ministry of Defence to place an order for updated Typhoons to replace aging RAF aircraft. “The MoD must now urgently announce its commitment to the Typhoon with an order for the latest, cutting-edge T5 Typhoons,” Graham said. “A failure to do this could destroy a generation of aerospace workers and would amount to an act of national self-harm.”
Rhys McCarthy, Unite’s national officer for aerospace, argued that the government’s reliance on potential export orders to fill the production gap is misplaced. “The government has suggested that export orders could fill the gap until GCAP but none have been forthcoming,” he said. “This is hardly surprising since the government doesn’t have enough faith in the plane to buy it itself yet expects foreign countries to.”
McCarthy warned that without an immediate order, disruption would ripple through the wider UK aerospace supply chain: “This is an act of self-sabotage that will wreak havoc with the aerospace workforce across Lancashire and a UK-wide supply chain that supports thousands of jobs.”
The Ministry of Defence has not yet issued a response to Unite’s statement. The Typhoon, developed in partnership with Germany, Italy, and Spain, remains in frontline service with the RAF and several allied air forces. The UK’s future fighter, GCAP, is expected to begin entering service from the mid-2030s.
Feels like a rerun of what we had with the shipyards, feast and famine instead of a steady stream of orders to maintain production capabilities and manufacturing skills…
You beat me to it. The military aircraft industry in UK is dead. I was a teen on Merseyside in the 50’s and sadly witnessed the rapid death of shipping.
I thought we were building Tempest….
We’re developing Tempest, will be years before they’re being built on a production line.
The UK isn’t ordering any Typhoon jets but I believe Turkey will be putting in an order that should keep the production lines going for a while.
I would love to see some more Typhoons ordered for the UK but I wonder if this is just Unite trying to get some headlines.
Turkiye is as they are re-engineering the technology for use in their VERY popular new fighter that is selling like the proverbial.
We no longer build a ‘plane that attracts foreign sales and we can’t survive on home handful sales
It’s crazy isn’t it Turkey a country with one of the highest inflation numbers in the world a larger population than us a smaller GDP can order 40 f16 and wants to order 40 typhoons has already over 200 f16 and us one of the richest countrys in the world can’t order any t4 typhoons and has only recently decided to get rid of its T1 typhoons with the majority being T2 variants it’s embarrassing really
The only thing crazy is where UK Governments spend taxpayer money.
On old people generally.. just saying as an old person.
AS another older person I agree but the basic problem is we are no longer wealthy unless you regard debt in some way as wealth. We appear so as we are like a person now living day to day on his credit card, paying the interest using another card. Like the current Government, said person has not got a clue how finance works.
Old people don’t spend 98% of the budget.
Turkey doesn’t have the NHS and pension to pay for
Yes, but Turkey still only spends 1.5% of gdp on defence and in dollar terms they spend 1/3 of what we spend.
True, but they are still flying the F4 and 40 year old F16’s. We are chucking twenty year old Typhoons because they are not worth the hassle of upgrading.
No its true- was reported in the FT and met a lot of incredulity and negative comments.
Headline grabbing? The facts are that we are the only Eurofighter partner not to purchase the latest upgrade. An order of at least 24 is justified in terms of numbers and keeping a working production line for the next five years.
Exactly Spock. There is a need for both the aircraft (operational & warfighting reserve) & the maintaining of skills, employment and potential further exports.
Not ordering another 20 T5 is ridiculous , especially as Germany is also ordering 20 and is funding SEAD aspects.
F35 is still a decade away from fielding anything other than PW4, Amraam and ASRAAM and LM will drag their feet further to favour US weapons.
Expect the cost of Tempest to increase substantially & delivery delays as we will have to re-learn the skills required once manufacturing begins. Usual story 🙁
It’s just final assembly. We are still making all the other parts/EJ200s for Typhoons on order for the other partner nations.
Do the people in MoD main building have a brain cell between them or is it taken up by the latest group thinking buzzword presentation? With less than 100 Typhoons we’ve very little redundancy. Are they not aware of the threats facing us or are their heads in the sand?
firmly in the sand I’m afraid, this development has been cautioned and warned about and no-one seems to be listening or to care, the concept of one or more of our precious typhoons being shot down in a military conflict seems alien to them and there is no need for redundancy, attritional reserve or anything approaching an adequate force level.
Madness and stupidity is the order of the day, washed down in buzz words, power point presentations and management speech.
People in MoD main building ??? You mean 2 tier Kier …. All words no action. Main building do what the politicians tell them .
That’s what the Civil Service is meant to do; however, I wonder if Sir Keir knows where Main Building is, or cares. With something as big and as high profile as an order of Typhoons he’d know how to take the credit and wouldn’t inquire too studiously what had to be cancelled to afford it. As far as most politicians are concerned we just had an announcement of F-35As. Why might you want even more?
Enter stage left riding white charger…..who art thou shining Knight…I am Sir Keir and this is my sturdy steed, Reeves. We have come to rescue you!
More like enter the damsel in distress and the court jester …..
I just have to believe there is a Typhoon order in the offing, either from Turkey or the UK. A shutdown of assembly at Warton just doesn’t fit with the govt high skilled, industrial strategy, defence sector job story line. It would upset pretty much everybody especially the unions.
It would certainly make a mockery of the PMs warnings about being on a war footing. Will sound cynically like a ruse, trying to prepare us for limited spending and higher taxes elsewhere rather than any real military investment. Difficult not to be cynical about Govt’s after the ones we have had for decades and pr and propaganda taking precedence over actual change.
I think a Typhoon can carry 6 Storm Shadow. If we were to develop an extended range version and buy 2 or 3 more Typhoon squadrons you add a significant conventional deterrent at a more relevant level of escalation than a dozen F-35A with a B61 you don’t actually control.
I’m not so sure..
Apparently GCAP will be built in a completely different way, with 3d printing of sub assemblies etc.
Perhaps we need to clear the Thypoon assembly building to completely reconfigure it fir Tempest.
Bare in mind, they are promising ‘wind under the wheels’ inside 10 years, so that will mean a ramp up of tne new line and new/retrained staff for Tempest very soon.
I suspect the Tempest production announcement coming this year will make things clear.
In thee anytime, there should be plenty of Tranche 2 and 3 Typhoon upgrade work to keep Warton busy.
That’s a thought provoking perspective and I agree would be a valid explanation of what we see happening. I did read in one of the Lancashire papers that the BAE staff are not being laid off but moved to other plants. I have often thought that Tempest is more advanced in development than is commonly supposed. The BAE team ( and gals) are in the tradition of Canberra, Buccaneer, Lightening, TSR2, Harrier, EAP. They not apprentices, rather they are the best there are.
I agree, if not I would imagine it would be BAE screaming and not Unite.
Even if labour had ordered Typhoons on its first day in office 1 year ago parts would not be ready to assemble new jets now. This is also not the first time typhoon production has been paused.
I’d love to ride Reeves!
You should be ashamed of yourself! Ms Reeves is a beautiful and talented married woman, whose patience must be sorely tried working for Gruppen Fuhrer Starmer.
Roger that…
Or Roger Reeves, I know what I’d Roger!
I blame the MRCA.
They built an airframe to replace certain one trick ponies, Typhoon pretty much finished the job, trouble is,
It can only be in one place at a time.
I think we will pay a heavy price for this decision and frankly it makes an utter mockery of the money invested in the new ESA radar which is being fitted to a hand full of Typhoons at an absurd cost per unit.
I would very strongly urge anyone and everyone to contact their MP and raise Merry Hell about this ! It’s urgent, it’s industry, it withers and dies very quickly without orders so if there is any uplift coming in the Autumn DIP then bring it forwards now.
Nearly 3.5 years of Putin waging war in Ukraine and threatening us directly and not one new major item outside the existing agreed equipment plan has been ordered (the 27 F35s were in the plan).
Order 36 new Typhoons and do it now, if for no other reason than GCAP will undoubtedly be delayed as everything is, so how long can the existing Typhoons last ?
But do not pay one penny more than you have to, BAe needs their production line fed to preserve it for the future, so cut a very good deal 🤔
Completely agree
But if you are going to somehow find the money for 36 additional fighters now, I will guarantee the RAF would lobby hard for F35A.
Thypoon is an excellent platform, without doubt, but it’s rapidly becoming yesterday’s fighter, the RAF arn’t interested in acquiring more.
Exactly.
Well ultimately it’s Unions like unite that pay Labours bills and still elect their leadership, so RAF vs Political Self Interest guess who wins. We need our industry to survive and we will have over 70 F35A/B its time to build for the future.
I would not be so sure about Unite. I would not be surprised if the jump ship and go to Corbyn new party. They have gone out of their way to screw over current leadership over items like grangemouth.
The thing is, in my humble opinion, the current Thypoon assembly hall will need to be cleared to construct an entirely different facility to build Tempest.
If we consider Tempest will be under contract this year and they want deliveries to be underway in 10 years, it’s hard to see how you build more Thypoon??
The retraining of staff and remodeling of the facility will need to be underway very soon.
As capable as Thypoon is, it’s looking long in the tooth, it’s partners are now in different and opposing groups and it’s really time to shift to the next generation.
If the Government wanted to, they could keep Warton busy by upgrading Tranche 2 and 3 airframes to Tranche 4 standard with E scan radar, wide angle cockpit displays and all the latest mod cons.
They could perhaps buy Spains 24 redundant
Tranche 2 airframes and feed them in to the
same programme to rise numbers too.
Plenty of opportunities to bolster the RAF and keep people busy during Tempest ram pup.
United are solely interested in their members building Thypoons for ‘ building them’ sake. The reality is ( if the money was made available), the RAF would get much more capable bang for it’s buck with 36 F35A, especially if it’s in addition to the 12 already apparently ordered.
The RAF could just about scrape three operational squadrons out of those 48, if they could leverage support from the US, put pilots through US OCU’s etc.
US reliance issues aside, ( the RAF don’t government a rats arse about that) they just want capable, first day of war assets, if they came with a full set of already cleared US ordnance, so
be it.
Nobody in the RAF would lobby for additional Thypoon, if F35A was also available.
More Warton built Thypoons is simply a job creation scheme and nothing to do with where the RAF want to be in 2040.
I think the idea of increasing lethality of existing Airframes by refitting / upgrading is a very sensible idea and if it was being done in parallel to new builds I’d be 100% in favour.
But there are there underlying issues that your idea doesn’t resolve and without those future production will be infinitely harder and way more expensive.
It’s not the work being done, it’s what isn’t and that’s the core of the Aircraft, airframe, flight control, composites, undercarriage etc
When someone without experience in industry / engineering / manufacture looks at a Ship, Tank or Aircraft they see the Big name Manufacturer in this case BAe. What they don’t see are the 00’s of smaller SME’s that feed into that finished product and unlike BAe they don’t have the Capital to survive a draught.
And if you don’t believe me just look at the US Naval Shipbuilding industry and why it’s struggling to actually build anything new after decades of refitting, life extensions and dithering. Or a more local example, here we are in the U.K we invented the AFV and due to the above idea we have zero sovereign build capability.
Three Magic things that once you stop building anything tend to either die or be repurposed.
Supply Chain, Supply Chain, Supply Chain.
The Türkiye deal looks to be at the heart of the defence equipment plan. I have the impression that what is envisaged is a transfer, over time of ( some) Typhoons from the RAF to Türkiye and their replacement by F-35A.
But, remember HCAP wind under the wheels by 2035 and it going under contract this year?
If that is the case, then the current Thypoon assembly line will have to ripped out and the new advanced line built and up and running 5 years from now, with the staff retrained as requiredon totally new systemsof manufacture.
So how would you fit this batch of Thypoon into that time frame, I don’t see it as remotely possible, even if a production contract was
signed today.
Give us back our edit and correct function!!
Yes, I agree, the RAF want the F-35A, until GCAP is produced in sufficient numbers, to do the heavy lifting.
They could buy Canada’s allocation of 16 new F-35A airframes, they have been on order a few years now? Has RCAF changed it’s mind on further orders of the aircraft?
Absolutely. The problem is that Starmer is so deep inside Trump’s backside that nobody knows where he is anymore.
He is engaged in a policy of being the sole ass kisser in Europe and will only bring more unemployment.
He won’t need to worry about future contracts before he will be out on his backside at the next election, because Labours base support is haemorrhaging away.
We’ve retired the tranche 1 typhoons, have ordered a few more F35Bs (15) and a single squadron of F35As to undertake a mission that is not needed- I think a new tranche of typhoons is very much required- at least another 36 aircraft- the RAF frontline fast jet force is frankly laughably small now. We are not deterring anyone by deploying penny packet numbers of jets to air policing missions.
HMG need to get serious- more aircraft are needed- not just to maintain key workforce and skills but to add mass and firepower or as SDSR stipulates- lethality.
I see no downsides to an order for 36-48 more new typhoons with ECR2 and latest weapons fit. Typhoon after all is the only aircraft currently that can launch meteor, storm shadow, brimstone and any other British precision guided weaponry. These aircraft can bridge the gap between Tranche 1 retiring and Tempest coming along in the 2030s.
I’m afraid the government has 950,000 18 to 24 year olds doing nothing to finance alone, never mind the rest of the vast welfare state budget and increasingly militant MP’s that won’t let them cut the bill.
Defence isn’t a priority, yet….
Blimey, 950k! And they’re short of sailors, soldiers, pilots? Hope the government is thinking hard what they can do with all this potential and to put all these people to work or some use.
You would think wouldn’t you, but as long as government dishes out PiP like penny sweets, we won’t see any change.
Wasn’t expecting any more Typhoon orders to be honest with this government .With all what’s going on in the world HMG still don’t get it . 🤔
I was beginning to get hopeful after SDSR that the UK’s military force and defence was actually going to increase- seems not, if we are happy to lose industrial capacity and our European neighbours likewise are not ordering more of this key aircraft. Putin must be laughing himself to sleep at night knowing Europe is weak and getting weaker.
Without US support our industrial military base will be utterly useless at resisting a concerted Russian attack against NATO- 3.5% defence to GDP ratio- we shall see, unless huge new orders for typhoon come along PDQ we are more than in a little bit of trouble- we will have lost the capability to build high performance combat aircraft.
The UK can easily, very easily provide a valid rationale for purchasing at least 36 more typhoons- Id go as far as saying 48-56 are actually a more realistic number to bridge the gap leading into Tempest.
We all know the RAF wants F35As but we simply cannot get them into the production lots in time (not until after 2033) and only the typhoon will deliver increased combat air power to the RAF within a reasonable timeframe.
The SDSR was all about increasing our industrial capacity. If we ordered more Typhoons tomorrow we wouldn’t get any before 2030. We can’t build them any quicker then we can get F35s. We also don’t have the manning to fly and maintain all these extra Typhoons. And Putin is not laughing at us. Russian forces if you haven’t noticed in Ukraine, are abysmal. We are still making all the vital parts of Typhoon. Radar EJ200s, Wings ect. The final assembly is the easy part.
Agree, our enemies are in a much worse place with everyone from Russia to China and Iran all experiencing economic and demographic collapse.
Off-course HMG knows this which is the reason for the don’t panic attitude.
China is rapidly discovering the kit it bought from Russia is s**t and its few allies can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
Agreed, apart from, if the Canadians have really changed their mind on their F-35A order and plans to sell their remaining 16 airframes ordered a few years ago?
An opportunity for the RAF to aquire F-35A early!
Typhoon Final assembly may end in the UK. But those wings, forward fuselages, Canards, Radar, defensive aids, avionics, weapons, EJ200s ect will carry on for a good few years yet. That’s the important stuff. Final assembly is just putting all together.
Maybe the UK should give a few older ones to Ukraine and order new ones instead, wars could be a great sales promotion… IMO if Turkey is allowed back to the F35 program they will not oder Typhoons.
We should be bagging 20/30 if we are anywhere near serious in this “ahem” Defence uplift
The piggy bank is only so big
And the problem is there’s more taking out than putting in.
And as the government stands over people, demanding they put more in, for very little improvement it seems, many are just giving up, moving on or selling up.
China, Russia, Turkey…not places where the government prioritises pensions, in work benefits or much of a welfare state at all to be honest.
The irony is. If we ever need to do some serious fighting and GB suffers a load of casualties…there won’t be pensions, in work benefits or much of a welfare state left at all, to be frank.
Our current priorities, good, bad or indifferent make it difficult to invest in those things that guarantee those priorities in a risky world. It’s kind of defeating.
It’s all about to health related demographics that are essentially killing the west.
It’s “healthy” life expectancy vs actual life expectancy and we have a massive 20 year gap.. which is essentially burning a hole in government finances and because the government can do sod all about that all the various governments do is:
1) tinker around the edges of finances
2) try and import more workers to pay more tax.
But unless we face the actual issue there is nothing anyone can do.. our healthy life expectancy is 62-63 and has essentially been the hardly moved since 1980 but the period life expectancy for men in 1980 was around 70 ( the average age men died in 1980 ) but period life expectancy for men today is 82… essentially men worked and then died a few years later in the 1980.. now they will live with 18-20 years of ill health and retirement.. essentially a person between 70 and 80 costs the government something like 30k a year.. the average tax paying worker under 65 costs 7k a year..
We essentially have 3 choices
1) pay more tax and all be poor to keep supporting a sick old population that live I. Ill health longer and longer.. the healthcare system gets better and better at keeping people alive in ill health.. ( 20 years ago as an emergency nurse if you had a dense stroke I would put you to bed to die… now we can treat you and you live 20 years more… but it’s costs a fortune ).
2) we essentially go a bit Logan’s run and stop paying for interventional care for the last year of a persons life.. we drop life expectancy by a year or two but probably save 60k per person. Which would free up around 40 billion a year.. yep that’s a hard truth our last year or so is costing around 40 billion.. we throw a shit ton of resources into the margins of life and death.
3) we get a grip of ourselves stop pretending we are free to abuse our bodies eat, drink and breathe poison and y to yet still live into our 80s through vast expense we put on our children.. essentially ban all the crap we know causes our healthy life span to only be 63.. eat vegetables and meat and not the products of the chemical industry.. use the legs that god designed us with etc..if we simply said sorry no if you want to live to 80 eat vegetables and steak.. not a Big Mac and chips.. we could push our healthy life expectancy up into the mid 70s and save a fortune..
But we will not do any of those.. we will eat shit not exersice ..get long term conditions in our 60s and spend all our societies resources on keeping us alive just a bit longer… because we paid out national insurance don’t you know.
You’ve nailed it until it comes to your mother…
Took every benefit they could, argued they had worked all their working life.. er, 4 kids… lived off Dad’s military pension and think they still deserve to live and be looked after.
Yes, their grand children adore them, just bond without argument and play happily together but, society is paying the bill. When do we stop supplying the life enhancing longevity drugs?
Dad was 74 when he passed, served from 13/14? back in the day. My grand mother died of appendicitis at an early age, so Dad sent money home for his brothers, and when told he had metastatic cancer, marched to his death.
I will miss my mum. However, I really miss my father.
Option 4, scrap the retirement age and only pay out upon disability.
So we’re going to ‘ triple lethality ‘ by not ordering anything .
It wasn’t this Govt but a former Labour Govt that screwed over nuclear boats, the Cons screwed over skimmer building; will our Lords and nasties never learn that skills need maintaining?
It’s industrial sabotage through negligence and ignorance.
No it was a conservative government that screwed over the nuclear submarine building program.. 1990-1997 was a disaster for ssn building as the contract for design was not signed until 1997.. when it should have happened in the early 1990s with the first boat laid down in 94.
Thank you for the correction Jonathan.
Although brown did not help and probably nobbled it from 8 to 7… but the big damage Was early.
Hi Jonathan. It seemed at the time to be just one dithering idiot following another and their Political Party loyalties were neither here nor there.
It all probably goes back to 1990 (Mrs T) when SSN20 was cancelled, they then started more studies, dithering, concepts etc (sound familiar) into B2TC, which eventually morphed into Asute. (Political attitude is “Trident is costing a bloody fortune and Mr Major prefers cricket to defence”).
Meanwhile zero orders as Vanguard was in build and an attitude of “who cares as we have a surplus of S&T’s and Russia had become a basket case”.
1997 John Major has done zilch for over a decade to spend anything on new boats and realises he is going to get “knocked for 6” by Blair, so leaves a nice expensive present and orders the Astutes. By this point the last Vanguard is completing, Bae Barrow has shrunk from 13K to just 3K, and RR&A is imploding (ABC is quietly keeping his head down up at Vulcan).
1997 – 2010 Blair and Brown manage to cut the programme down from 12 to 8 but only order 6, the Treasury payment schedule and the design team issues just slow everything down (Vulcan is winding down so ABC relearns how to put on a tie and gets moved back down South).
2010 Cameloon and Oddborne take over and pretty well get told by BAe and RR that if they don’t order something extra PDQ bad things will happen and their legacy will be bad (very important to Politicians). There are different degrees of bad but being personally held responsible for bye bye CASD, no Special relationship, no Perm member of UN Security Council etc etc. So they ordered 1 more but on a very long instalment plan.
So here we are 15 years later and the DNE is no longer on life support but gearing up for SSN(A). Only problem worrying everyone is our Political Masters are no longer confined the home grown variety. UK dithering Muppets are at least predictable, but the 2 former Colonial lots are either trying to upset everyone at the same time (US) or just as mad as a box of backstabbing frogs (Australia).
What can possibly go wrong ? (ABC has left the building so SEP )
The Astutes were order in the last days of the major government before Blair came to power. The Tory’s gapped production not labour. Labour started dreadnaught in 2006 then lib dems and Tory government delayed it. New labour government committed to upto 12 SSN’s.
I just don’t see anywhere you would think labour was responsible for submarine production gaps.
To announce an order of F35A and not commit to buying more much needed Typhoons is madness.
Defence industrial policy, my a**e.
The RAF don’t want more Typhoons. They want to upgrade the ones we have. But if any new money was available for more fighters, they would want more F35s. And we are still making all the other critical Typhoon parts. Wings, canards, forward fuselage. Radar, avionics, EJ200s ect. Those are were the skills are, not final assembly. Italy has an final assembly plant for F35. But it isn’t a tier one partner.
I’m not sure it’s true that the RAF don’t want more typhoons.. I’m sure if they were offered the budget for another 20-30 they would be snapping your hand off.. they simply have a lot of priorities and an inadequate budget to keep up the numbers of fast jets they need.
I think if the money were available, they would go for more F35s any day of the week. Those 5th gen capabilities are on another level. But if it was more Typhoons or nothing, then of course they would have them.
I agree,
If there are no new orders, how long will the ability to manufacture key components last?
Lowdham rate continuous production over extended timescales is the only way UK can keep sovereign capabilities.
We are supposed to be upgrading the 40 tranche 3 Typhoons with the new European Common Radar System (ECRS), plus a lot of cockpit upgrades, surely Warton will be kept busy on this for a while?
This upgrade is costing something like £40m per aircraft, which is a colossal cost by any standard. Over the nest 8 years, we have to buy 10 F-35bs to complete the initial 48 order, then another 27 As and Bs, then these 40 ECRS upgrades. The whole lot is the equivalent of 57 new aircraft, basically 7 per year, which completely maxes out the RAF’s combat air budget.
Would still like to see a further 18-24 additional Typhoons ordered to boost the RAF’s dismally low fast jet numbers. These could usefully be deployed as permanent forward flights in the Baltic, Germany and Cyprus, rather than weakening the thin UK squadrons by removing aircraft for these forward deployments.
Fact is that we can’t afford more fast jets this year or next; the £5bn additional money is already booked for improving the service offering – 4.5% pay increase, a lot going into improving service aaccommodation and weapons stockpiles, plus a lot going into new UAVs, UUVs and suchlike unmanned systems. But assuming the increase to 3.5% is goi g to start ramping up from 2027, an extra 18-24 Typhoons should be possible. It is certainly necessary, as we have barely 150 fat jets right now – about half the number France and Germany can field.
Have to hope the Turkiye order comes through, it’s for 20 of our retired Typhoon F2s and 20 new FGR4, that would keep Warton busy.
uld be a
I suspect that’s what BAE are redeploying people to. It’s worth noting it’s unite not BAE making this statement.
The RAF would certainly like more F-35s, particularly the A version for interdiction and SEAD, where it currently has nothing in the shop.
But they would be equally happy to have fa urther batch of modern Typhoons. If that is necessary to keep Warton busy, then that has to be the priority, as we risk losing our fast jet manufacturing capability of we take a 10-year holiday until Tempest manufacture commences.
The similarities between now and the late 1930’s is pretty striking, we all know that what the RAF really wants is the shiny 5th generation F35A and don’t want anything that they may have to share with the FAA. But truth is we need overall numbers ASAP and that means Typhoons and we also need to secure or increase our Aircraft production capability.
So a mix of some F35A and @36 new build Typhoons plus upgrades to as many others as possible covers all the bases.
So just substitute shiny next generation (monocoque / all metal) Spitfire) and Hurricane and the need to keep existing industrial capacity in situ for the next generation of aircraft.
As an aside it completely baffles me as to why the RAF is fixated on the F35A, yes it is stealthy but its weapon load is very restricted. Germany Japan and US all use a mix of F35 to go in and clear the enemy’s AD capability then follow it up with the superior weapons loaded 4th Generation Aircraft.
In the end the RAF really want F35 over Typhoon.. but the order is just to slow.. there needs to be a bit of actual urgency and maybe a glimmer of thought to actually up the RAF fast jet squadron numbers, not reduce them..and the only way to do that is maximise the speed of delivery of F35 as well as order another trance of Typhoons.. because otherwise once those last 4 tranche 1 Falklands flight FRG4s go the RAF will have 96-97 FRG4s and that is dire, not sure how it’s meant to run 6 front line squadrons, Falklands flight, OCU, TE and joint squadron with that.. ( when you consider it used to run 4 front line squadrons and TE, OCU and Falklands flight with 90) but I’m sure someone will spin it that you can and the RAF is not heading to 4 typhoon squadrons…. In reality they should be having an ambition to move to 10 squadrons ( 6 typhoon 4 F35) but for that you need a good 200+ fast jets 60% typhoon 40% F35 would be a respectable mix.
We should be making planes to replace losses.. You never know what might happen tomorrow
A lot of folks here are confusing tranches with blocks. Tranches are business oriented production runs. Blocks represent specific capabilities. Tranche5 doesn’t exist as such, it’s a moniker for future evolution of the platform.
Keep buying new ones, optionally sell the old ones if you have to.
You have to be naive to think that a far-left government would keep its empty promises of increasing the country’s pathetic defensive capacity. They will continue with their cuts and ridiculous orders to pretend they are doing something, but nothing more. And the worst thing is that no British politician, except perhaps ? Farage, is interested in the military defence of the United Kingdom.
Reform’s published defence policy is already out of date. 2.5% now and 3% within 3 years. That’s where we are heading already.
Beyond that what do they say? 30,000 increase for the British Army. I’d say there are other priorities for the money first.
Nothing I’ve seen from Farage suggests he’s interested in the military defence of the country.
Meanwhile the French are upgrading Rafale . . .
” … and would amount to an act of national self-harm.” – Please, don’t encourage them.
Wasn’t there just a typhoons order from the middle east and Turkey?
I think they’re trying to cosy up to America again, and see if they can recover their planned F35 purchase instead, especially as Greece have now got a firm order in for F35s.
Their navy also wants F35(B) for their LHA and potentially their planned future carrier (either B or C variant).
T4 Typhoons would only offer a limited improvement over their new and uprgraded F16 block 70, whereas F35 provides a new level of capability. F35A also has more commonality with existing weapons and refueling capabilities for their large F16 fleet than the Typhoon.
They need to be converting the 2 seat Typhoons to drone controllers and new building stealthy ucavs.
Massively increases airframes, reduces risk for Tempest when that has to do it.
They’ll delay and delay, then overpay. Stopped giving a shit tbh Chairman Starmer 🐹🦄🏳️🌈 just makes any decision pointless.