Hi-tech promise of export sales

Has the "military-industrial complex" reared its ugly head again in yesterday's pounds 16bn contract to buy 232 Eurofighters? President Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase 40 years ago, warning Americans that a malign alliance between powerful armed forces and corporations threatened democracy.

The deal announced yesterday guarantees 14,000 British jobs. But as the Campaign Against The Arms Trade was quick to point out, that equates to pounds 1m per job, while the British civilian manufacturing industry is in a "critical state". Its joint co-ordinator, Will McMahon, said: "Civilian aircraft companies are crying out for Government support in a declining world market. Why is the Government putting so much support into a military project?"

The quick answers are that it generates huge exports, employs about 160,000 people, and is an arena where Britain has a world lead. The Eurofighter is the most sophisticated aircraft now flying.

It is designed for speed and if its engines failed, it could not glide; it is inherently unstable. The pilot's joystick is not connected to the wings, but to four flight computers - each able to fly the aircraft on its own.

Inside the cockpit, the technology is even more futuristic. Data is displayed on the cockpit canopy and a voice-activated system knows 200 commands - better than trying to push the correct button in a dogfight.

Even more popular among the test pilots is the "look and shoot" helmet. This projects the radar picture on to the inside of the visor. Just by looking at the target, the pilot can lock the missile systems on it, and then fire by pressing a trigger key.

But the civilian benefit of these science-fiction systems is a long way off. It can take decades for military technology to reach us: the microwave oven is an example. It came from Raytheon, which developed microwave radar in 1946; the oven took another 20 years.

But the industry is producing fewer and fewer spin-offs as product lifetimes become much shorter: in computers a "generation" lasts just 18 months. Thus while the microprocessors and software controlling the Eurofighter will soon be ancient by computing standards, the pilots can be confident that there is no risk that they will do what so many computers today do - crash. It doesn't hurt a computer. But it would a pilot.