Defence chiefs reveal details of £10bn jet order
The Ministry of Defence yesterday revealed details of a £10bn order for military hardware which will form the backbone of Britain's air and sea forces for the next 50 years.
A group of 150 jump jets, replacing the Harrier aircraft, will operate in tandem with two of the largest aircraft carriers ever built in Europe.
Military analysts said the order, coming four years after the Government's strategic defence review, dovetailed with US military capabilities and reflected a continued preference for the flexible jump jet. The new F35 "Joint Strike Fighter" will take to the skies by 2012, bringing to an end four decades of Harrier jets.
The advantage of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft is that they are suited to landing on warships and can operate near conflict areas.
Built by Lockheed Martin, they will operate from two new aircraft carriers, details of which were also unveiled by the Defence Procurement Minister Lord Bach yesterday. The new carriers, weighing up to 60,000 tonnes, replace the ageing fleet of the Navy's present flagship carrier, HMS Ark Royal, and the Invincible and Illustrious.
The vessels, which will cost an estimated £3bn and are due to be in service by 2015, can also be adapted for use by the conventional version of the Joint Strike Fighter and "unmanned combat aerial vehicles", which are expected to become more widely used during the vessels' projected lifetime of 50 years.
The two main competitors to build the ships are an Anglo-American consortium led by British Aerospace Systems and an Anglo-French consortium led by Thales. If the BAe bid wins, thousands of jobs will be saved in dockyards nationwide.
Lord Bach said: "We have chosen this [jump jet] variant, which is the one being bought by the US Marine Corps, because it fully meets our military needs – and it builds on Britain's unique and valuable knowledge of STOVL aircraft."
Although the MoD is due to take delivery of the first of at least 200 Eurofighters this year, its commitment to the project has been called into question by its involvement in the transatlantic Joint Strike Fighter project.
According to Nick Cook, aviation consultant for Jane's Defence Weekly, the MoD "put noses out of joint" in Europe when it bought a 10 per cent share of the trillion-dollar project with the US government at the beginning of last year.
Both the F35 and the Eurofighter could be competing to satisfy Britain's future requirement for a strike aircraft, he said.
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