Austria to phase out Eurofighter

[Slater]

Financial considerations aside, how has overall reliability/serviceability been working out for the Austrians?

 

http://www.bundesheer.at/english/dynmod/artikel.php?id=4994

[Dave Fleming]

Interesting it's very specific that it's the Tranche 1 aircraft. Doesn't say what will replace them, but could be Tranche 2/3 Typhoons

[Latinbear]

I read somewhere a few months ago that the Gripen was a strong candidate to replace the Eurofighter.

[Slater]

Unless Tranche 2/3 are significantly cheaper to operate than Tranche 1, I would think that Gripen would be the logical choice. Unless Austria wants to go for some secondhand F-16's.

[Seahawk]

1 hour ago, Dave Fleming said:

Interesting it's very specific that it's the Tranche 1 aircraft. Doesn't say what will replace them, but could be Tranche 2/3 Typhoons

 

I think that, given the bad smell (whether justified or not) around the original procurement, the word Eurofighter is toxic in Austria, just as Nimrod became here. 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Seahawk

[Chimpion]

Seahawk is right - there's a huge amount of politics behind this.

 

[VMA131Marine]

The two-seater requirement would appear to rule out F-35. Would they consider the latest Flanker variant?

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

As I understand it Austria considered Gripens as the strongest candidate for Draken replacement. A controversial decision to switch to Eurofighters back in 2003 had more to do with mysterious amounts of money, appearing on several person's bank accounts (not only Austrians and not only politicians), than with politics as such. It has even less to do with military considerations or aircraft capabilities. I have no idea what is going to happen now, but I would not be surprised if Austria would lease or even buy Gripens in a year or two. Cheers

Jure

[Graham Boak]

Changing the type of aircraft being operated is likely to be even more expensive than trading them in for more capable Eurofighters.  Not that the real costs are ever likely to be made public.

[junglierating]

I was having a mooch about VL this evening with the boy prior to airday...cant believe how dinky a grippen is.....perhaps we need a few standfast ETPS

[Slater]

Are the Tranche 1's really that outdated?

[Jens]

I read somewhere that Austria was able to keep only two (sometimes three) Typhoons operational on a daily basis. Out of 14 or so aircraft that is not much. If that is true I am not surprised they want to get rid of it.

I'm just glad Denmark did not buy Typhoons.

 

Jens

[Truro Model Builder]

On 7/7/2017 at 11:55 PM, Slater said:

Are the Tranche 1's really that outdated?

 

Not really. The RAF have decided to retain theirs in the air-to-air role only, as they are not easily convertible to other roles.

[Truro Model Builder]

14 hours ago, Jens said:

I read somewhere that Austria was able to keep only two (sometimes three) Typhoons operational on a daily basis. Out of 14 or so aircraft that is not much. If that is true I am not surprised they want to get rid of it.

I'm just glad Denmark did not buy Typhoons.

 

Jens

 

That may have more to do with the support contracts the Austrians put in place for the Typhoon. I'm not aware that any other operators have any problem with aircraft availability. As an analogy, the Royal Navy decided to save a few quid on the support contract for their multi-million Merlin ASW helicopter. As a result it had a terrible availability record until the contract was renewed.

 

In any case, and as suggested here, buying a totally different aircraft may prove to be much more expensive by the time all the logistics and support are sorted out. Tranche 3 Typhoons, despite the controversy over the original procurement, may prove to be the better option for the Austrians.

 

[Jens]

Yes, support contracts are a factor, as is meantime between failure, supply stocks etc. I know how it is on the Merlin and Lynx (from a Danish perspective), and despite being sad to see the Lynx retire later this year I am happy we did not get the Wildcat, but bought the Seahawk instead.

 

 

Jens

[Radleigh]

I'd be shocked if they chose anything but Gripens to replace them. Definitely not Flankers!

[XV107]

On 7/9/2017 at 3:36 PM, Jens said:

Yes, support contracts are a factor, as is meantime between failure, supply stocks etc. I know how it is on the Merlin and Lynx (from a Danish perspective), and despite being sad to see the Lynx retire later this year I am happy we did not get the Wildcat, but bought the Seahawk instead.

 

 

Jens

 

A cynic might note a common denominator in Merlin and Lynx... 'They made lovely garage doors'...

 

Typhoon is one of the most reliable aircraft out there, in no small part because of the support contract. I doubt that the Danish AF would've had much trouble with them. The Austrian buy of Typhoon was a surprise and I can't help wondering whether they blew almost all the budget on the airframes, leaving too little for the support. Buying a BVR capable multi-role aircraft (if three of the original partners can be persuaded to integrate your air-ground weapons of choice, which the Austrians didn't need) and arming it only with IR weapons and the gun seemed a rather expensive way of going about things when there were alternatives on offer - Gripen would've done the job admirably, could probably have been obtained under a fairly creative deal and would've provided pretty much all the capability the Austrian AF required.

 

While I'm fairly tired of all the ill-informed rubbish about Typhoon that's out there and have spent a fair amount of my professional life explaining to interested parties that certain British commentators had a very distinct agenda which meant that the aircraft's MMI could've become sentient, found the answer to world poverty and discovered a cure for cancer and they'd still have said it was an expensive load of rubbish and showing said interested parties why this line of argument was utter tosh, I came to the view that in Austria's case, if the answer was 'Typhoon', they must have asked the wrong question.

Edited July 10, 2017 by XV107

[Truro Model Builder]

Good point. Austria's air defence requirement could have been quite adequately met by a purchase of radar-equipped Hawk 200s if they were insistent on new aircraft, or by second hand F-16s or Mirage 2000s. Even those interim F-5Es they leased from the Swiss would have been suitable.

 

[XV107]

 I think that the problem was that they saw the F-5 as being on the way out when they made the decision to buy the Typhoon, so it wasn't on the list. I can sort of understand why the Austrian armed forces didn't go for a 1960s era aircraft, probably fearing that they might be stuck with it for the next 25 years while the Swiss retired it, leaving them casting around for some sort of support contract.

 

I suspect that by the time the decision was made, the Hawk 200 wasn't really a viable option (and I'd question whether its lack of supersonic performance would have been acceptable for the interceptor role as perceived at the time), even though an all-Hawk fleet for the Surveillance Wing (two seaters replacing the Saab 105) would have made sense. Given what was out there and the potential political sensitivities within the Austrian parliament which might have come from buying American, the answer was surely 'Gripen' (as the world and his dog seemed to be predicting). Radar, supersonic performance, ability to carry four Sidewinder or equivalent, plus the 27mm gun, possibility of a decent support deal which could easily have looked like that for the Draken and they'd have had an aircraft which could've taken their air defence through to the late 2020s without any difficulty.

 

 

[Slater]

How did Draken work out during it's time in Austrian service?

[upnorth]

2 hours ago, Slater said:

How did Draken work out during it's time in Austrian service?

 

Quite well, I think.

 

Austria used it for around 20 years and at least 16 of the 24 Drakens they bought are known to still be intact in museums or in storage awaiting restoration.

 

They must have had some serious respect for it to have kept more than half their fleet intact and preserved after retirement.

 

 

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

XV107, Austrian Typhoons should have been armed with cannon, free falling bombs and unguided rockets only. Austrian State Treaty from 1955 forbade this country to have any sort of guided weapon in its inventory. Then again, the same treaty forbade Austria and Germany to be both members of the same political or military organization again, and yet both countries are members of EU these days. Cheers

Jure

[Seahawk]

12 hours ago, XV107 said:

 

 I came to the view that in Austria's case, if the answer was 'Typhoon', they must have asked the wrong question.

 

Like it!

[Mike]

12 hours ago, XV107 said:

I came to the view that in Austria's case, if the answer was 'Typhoon', they must have asked the wrong question.

 

I too am also liking this

[Truro Model Builder]

4 hours ago, Jure Miljevic said:

Hello

XV107, Austrian Typhoons should have been armed with cannon, free falling bombs and unguided rockets only. Austrian State Treaty from 1955 forbade this country to have any sort of guided weapon in its inventory. Then again, the same treaty forbade Austria and Germany to be both members of the same political or military organization again, and yet both countries are members of EU these days. Cheers

Jure

 

That particular ruling was overturned by the Austrian Parliament in the early 1990s following border incursions by aircraft from the former Yugoslavia. AIM-9s were ordered from Sweden to equip its Drakens as a result.

 

And both East and West Germany were members respectively of the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Not sure about East Germany, but the FRG was not permitted to undertake its own air defence up until the early 1990s, and relied on USAF and RAF fighters to stand QRA on its behalf.