Joint Strike Fighter Programme – Marching On

Australia's $175-million commitment means that eight countries have now signed up to the Systems Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase. The UK is the only Level One player, promising over $3-billion to this phase, gaining access to detailed design data, as well as having guaranteed work on all production aircraft. Italy has become a $1-billion Level Two participant, while other countries currently involved are: Netherlands ($800-million), Turkey ($175-million), Denmark ($150-million), Canada ($150-million), and Norway ($125-million), all Level Three players.

What is fascinating is that the only country that has anything remotely resembling firm commitments from the US is the UK. As a Level One player, there are written guarantees about what British aerospace companies will get from the programme in many areas. Everyone else is signing up for the right to bid into the programme.

Put nicely, signing up at this level for JSF is similar to membership of a health club – you have to put up quite a bit of cash before you ever get through the door and, like a health club, you will probably have monthly fees on top of that. Put nastily, as a Level Three player it is a bit like sponsoring a tree – every six months or so you will get a newsletter telling you how much your tree has grown. But that's about it.

Defence Analysis, among others, has detected the trend of countries tempering their support for the JSF with quiet reservation – well, quiet for the moment, that is. Some in the Dutch government, in the Finance Ministry particularly, say that if promises on JSF workshare are not met, then they will look elsewhere.

Such a stance might well be taken to mean that The Hague will review continuation of its JSF membership each year. Similar mutterings are heard from Norway, which had previously been close to selecting the Eurofighter Typhoon. Recalling that the lower level players have not the slightest idea of the exact nature of JSF they will be allowed to buy – what level of avionics, what level of stealth and so on – such a stance would make sense.

THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

But back to the Australian Air 6000 decision in favour of JSF. First and foremost, this hits Dassault and the Rafale heavily. Dassault and the rest of "Team France" had invested much time and effort in Australia in marketing Rafale. Australia was one of three key target markets for the French aircraft, the others being South Korea and Singapore. With South Korea – the Rafale's best chance to date – gone to Boeing, Australia's importance increased.

Dassault had talked of uprated engines and overwing conformal tanks for Australia, and had looked to the French government to help fund these. Without the hope of an Australian order, perhaps these options will slip out of the French funding race.

The importance of a Singaporean order has now risen immeasurably for Dassault for there are few other near-term likely customers. Indeed, perhaps some of the few that could be considered are those to whom Dassault is already active marketing Mirage 2000 – Brazil and India are prime examples.

And Typhoon? Well, Australia was always a very long shot for Typhoon. Canberra needed to see much more actual air-to-surface capability in the aircraft than has been so far demonstrated before it would take a serious look at the aircraft. And there is a firm line in Australian procurement that always sees American equipment as better than European, regardless.

These two factors seriously limited Typhoon's chances. But, as with South Korea, although not winning isn't ideal, seeing Rafale's failure to win is better. Typhoon – Edward Aldridge notwithstanding – still won the Greek and Austrian assessments. Taking aboard the technical win in Norway, there is still a chance for a sale there later in the decade. Time is more on Typhoon's side than on Rafale's.

As French orders hobble along at low level, Typhoon has close to 200 orders that can be deemed secure, possibly even as many as 300. But pressure has to be on the demonstration of real air-to-surface performance, above and beyond the simple carriage of LGBs for other aircraft to designate – JDAM drops, Storm Shadow firings and so on – have to be urgent requirements for the four nations, almost at any cost. Eurofighter has to look at those countries that will not be allowed to buy JSF – at least not the all-up, sexy, stealthy JSF – to build a successful customer base, and there will be quite a few of these. And at the same time, it can wait to see whether any JSF partners will fall off the tree, such as the Netherlands.

JSF still has too many configuration questions hanging over it for it to be an automatic market achiever. Again to be nasty, the present sales pitch is like that of a dodgy market trader who offers punters amazing deals but whose customers, when they pick up their goods after the "auction," may not get what they thought they were buying. .

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