Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1333129
AUSTRIA The country currently operates 15 Eurofighter Tranche 1 Block 5 jets procured based on an agreement from 2002. Originally Vienna wan- ted to acquire 24 aircraft. Nonetheless, the 2 bn. euro contract signed in 2002 covered the acquisition of 18 airframes. Later on, the politi- cal situation has led to circumstances in which the whole procurement became questionable. This would cost the country EUR 1.2 billion. Ultimately, a decision was made to implement cuts. Austria only bought 15 jets, with a cost of 1.63 bn euro. The first aircraft was delive- red on July 12th, 2007, while the whole order was completed by September 2009. What's interesting, only six of the aircraft were ma- nufactured for Austria specifically. The rema- ining ones come from the Luftwaffe. Then, they were converted to meet the Austrian requirements. The jets in question are a part of the Fighter Wing based at Zeltweg. Training and maintenance take place in Germany. The Austrian Eurofighters are armed just with a gun and IRIS-T short-range missiles. The Eurofighter procurement has been spar- king a lot of controversy in Austria, for years now. The significant cost (exceeding EUR 70,000 per hour) and a corruption scandal involving the decision makers and the repre- sentatives of the Eurofighter consortium have fueled the scandal even further. In 2017 the Austrian MoD announced that it would be willing to decommission and sell all 15 jets by 2020, along with 18 legacy Saab 105 OE aircraft. This decision has been made based on analysis suggesting that Austria would be better off procuring 15 (12 single- -seaters, 3 twin-seaters) new, completely mul- ti-role fighter aircraft that would also be che- aper to operate than the Eurofighter. JAS-39 Gripen and F-16 were the designs competing within that scope. The analysis conducted by the Austrian MoD has shown that the opera- tional lifetime of the Eurofighter would entail cost at the level between 4.5 and 5.1 bn. euro. Procurement of new, more economic aircraft would create savings in an amount of 2 billion. This declaration made the Eurofighter consor- tium issue a statement referring to the matter. The company did stress that the capabilities of the jets have been limited due to the cu- stomer's demands. Austria procured jets that had no Pirate IRST, DASS ECM, and AIM-120 AMRAAM capability at their disposal. What's interesting, the consortium offered, to com- pensate for the higher maintenance cost, a free-of-charge upgrade of some of the Austrian jets to the Tranche 2 standard. Nonetheless, the offer was rejected. Even though three years have passed since the announcement has been made by the Austrian MoD that it would like to withdraw the jets, no formal decision followed. Reasons for that are multiple. The first one stems from the formal Austria vs Eurofighter dispute (the Airbus company, to be exact, responsible for the Agreement with Austria, on behalf of the consortium). The dispute concerns the cor- ruption that supposedly happened when the contract was being signed, along with the hi- gher LCC and scarce, or even no chance to sell the aircraft at a reasonable price (resale). The jets come from Tranche 1 with limited capabi- lities, and their specification (described above) significantly limits their capabilities even fur- ther. This means that the potential group of buyers interested in them is limited, especially as ‚fully-capable' Tranche 1 aircraft are availa- ble on the market as well. At least one country, interestingly, expressed its interest in the Austrian jets - Indonesia. The head of the Indonesian MoD (Prabowo Subianto) sent a letter to his Austrian coun- terpart, expressing his intent to procure 15 Austrian jets. The financial details propo- sed are unknown. According to the Austrian MoD, the offer has been rejected. The abo- ve means that plans made in 2017 will only have an impact on the Saab 105OE trainers. Österreichische Luftstreitkräfte operates 18 airframes of the type. They are used as a ba- sic training platform for the Eurofighter pilots, they also complement the Typhoons in the less-demanding air policing role. According to the information provided by the Austrian MoD, the jets are going to be withdrawn by the end of this year. Originally, this was to be done in coordination with the procurement of a com- bat-capable jet trainer platform or an MRCA. However, as the Eurofighters are going to www.fragoutmag.com