16 July 2017

The Problem Was the Original Purchase

Austria will be removing the Eurofighter Typhoon from service ahead of schedule because they have found it too expensive to operate:
It is a matter of concern for an aircraft manufacturer when one of the richest countries in the world declares its fighter is too expensive to operate.

But then Austria is a something of a special case. Critics generally agree that the landlocked neutral state probably never really needed the 15 Eurofighter Typhoons it ordered in 2003.

In Austrian hands, the advanced multirole fighter, originally designed to tackle the latest Russian threats, has been relegated to an interceptor role, with many of its advanced electronic warfare systems removed.
I don't get why they bought the aircraft in the first place.  It's not like Slovenia is going to invade them any time soon.

My suggestion would be to replace it with an inexpensive subsonic aircraft, something like the BAE Hawk, but if they feel compelled to go with a supersonic aircraft to deal with the threat from Switzerland or Italy, I would suggest the Chinese/Pakistani JF-16, which is less than half the purchase price of western aircraft.

But even in this case, to quote Eisenhower, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

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