28.09.2003, 17:51
Zum JSF zurück:
:daumen:
Zitat:THREE British companies — BAE Systems, Marshall Aerospace and Dara, the government aircraft-repair agency — have the capability to build the Joint Strike Fighter, according to a recently declassified study by Rand, the American think-tank.Daumen drück.
A JSF plant in Britain could support thousands of jobs and bring billions of pounds of work to British aerospace companies. Some 4,000 of the fighters are expected to be built over the next 20 years, replacing several types of combat aircraft in service with air forces all over the world. The sales value of the aircraft has been estimated at about $300 billion (£180 billion), with a similar-size market for repair and upgrades.
The Rand report was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence last year to gauge the feasibility of setting up British facilities to assemble, repair and upgrade the high-tech warplane. Current plans are for the fighter to be built only in America.
The report reveals that in February 2001, Geoff Hoon, defence secretary, wrote to his American counterpart stating that Britain wanted “a UK-based logistics support infrastructure to safeguard national capability”. The MoD then commissioned Rand to investigate.
Rand concluded that the cheapest option for the MoD would be the combination of a final assembly and repair and maintenance plant. The additional cost to the MoD, compared with having the aircraft built in America, would be only £12.9m.
But the think-tank warns that British efforts to build and maintain the aircraft could be scuppered unless agreements are reached with America over the transfer of sensitive defence technologies, in particular “stealth” techniques that reduce the visibility of the fighter on radar. As well as Pentagon co-operation, Britain would need to secure the support of Lockheed Martin, the American contractor responsible for the programme.
Technology transfer would have to be sorted out by 2007, to start making the fighter by 2009. “This requires immediate attention by the MoD if it chooses to go ahead with development of a UK facility,” the Rand report says.
Britain, which has already put £1.4 billion into the fighter programme and is America’s closest partner on its development, plans to buy 150 planes. oBAE Systems this weekend denied an American report that General Dynamics, the US defence contractor, was conducting due diligence in advance of a possible merger.
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