Typhoon Tranche 3 initial signature

On May 14th the Prime Minister added his signature to the 4 nation requirement that will start negotiations for tranche 3 of Eurofighter Typhoon.  As is often the case the defenders of budgets in the treasury didn’t want to spend the money and the other services were saying their requirements should be given priority.  Pressure from the partners including the threat of payments for delays meant the PM had to take the plunge. Current plans are that this will enable continuous production beyond 2013 so with the JSF coming on stream ever later this is good news for the workforce. Although the JSF appears to be a large metalwork job, rather less sophisticated than Typhoon work.  There are still more export orders hoped for and work on a fully electronic radar is underway I was reading in Aviation Week.